Top Analysts
(Analyst Screening Specialists)
Top Analysts is a personnel screening specialist using critical methods to identify the most credible analysts within your field of activity. The difference between us and recruitment companies is that we are senior intelligence analysts with backgrounds in business competitive intelligence, military intelligence and law enforcement intelligence. Potential candidates are screened by seasoned analysts. You provide a brief and we will screen your best candidates and present our findings to you via email and post. We provide ongoing support where you can request that we keep in contact with your analyst to ensure everything is running smoothly. We can offer an additional service which involves designing your intelligence analysis hiring process. For more information please contact :email intrench@gmail.com
Skills Assessed Security Research Competitive Intelligence Technical Analysis Business Analysis BPR Analysis Strategic Analysis HR Analysis Pricing Analysis Software Analysis Behavioural Analysis
In Sectors New Media Video Games Publishing Mobile Software Telecoms Electronics Insurance Underwriting Software Design R&D Health & Safety IT Online Child Safety Policy BBC Projects Government Software Projects | Wednesday, Mar 3, 2010The Optimisation of Business Intelligence through the employment of multiple philosophical dispositions
Is it the conspiracy theorists need to escape the dreariness of everyday life that causes them to think that the world is more than it really is? Or is it the natural conclusion to many years of loss, followed by deep research into the hidden phenomena that lies beneath the pain that causes them to see threats and opportunities way beyond anyone else? What causes conspiracy theorists to question the supposed concensus reality of this world and to begin to hypothesize that the world is just one big revolving door and the majority of the human race are caught inside? Whatever it is, we believe that conspiracist philosophy has a real part to play in developing alternative competitive intelligence perspectives for industry. Disposition can play a signficant role in the acqusition, interpretation, processing and assessment of intelligence. The CIA and MI6 have had a recruitment policy for years that ensures intelligence is derived from assets comprising multiple philosophical dispositions. Many of these dispositions are hostile to the US and UK, but their perspectives are a welcome input to the numerous intelligence thinktanks, deployed around the globe. It goes without saying that in order for global brands to fully realise their global potential that they too must embrace the opportunity to develop recruitment policies that leverage investment in multiple philosophical dispositions. Never has this issue been so important, given the rise of China and India as economic trailblazers. Choose your analysts carefully. If you hire analysts with the same philosophy as you - don't be surprised when they don't churn out anything new! Competitive Intelligence Officers: Are they the best people to lead Information Security?
Top Analysts reveal:: We call on commercial organisations around the world to consider this question! Just who is the best department to be leading your business security? Should it be operations, IT or marketing? Just what type of level of person do you require? Should their background be technical, intelligence based or business management. Are they tactical focused, strategic minded or both? Are they concentrated on inside issues, external considerations or competitor focused? Do they deal with policy making, procedure biased or totally fluid in their approach? Are they architects, designers, builders, testers or QA men? Are they offense or defense driven or both. Does their remit cover a specific area of the business dynamic or do they see security as a multi-dimensional, multi-faceted enterprise wide responsibility? Are they commercially astute and see business security as part of the weapon for defeating their enemies (the competition) or are they totally impartial in their approach and implement unbiased tactics in order to secure your business. Just what type of animal is the best to be running your business security capability? Of course the ultimate security officer is the executive management team and more specifically the CEO, but it could be said that many of those who are ultimately responsibility for security are vulnerable, because they are inadequately supported by those they have been appointed to the role of security manager. Ask any security manager to describe the remit he covers, then consider the wider picture of business security and you will begin to understand the problem. When conducting an audit on your business security, concentrate on discovering the gaps between the various secuiry officer remits and not so much on the effectiveness of what is covered. Consider the patterns of attack that are possible and the effectiveness of the organisation to respond. Concentrate on patterns of attack that might cross departmental boundaries. After many years of considering this problem, our recommedations would be to appoint a small team of seasoned "Competitive Intelligence Officers" as the key custodians of security in your business. These people would be supported by the various specialists security resources and would report directly to the CEO. These would be the best people to lead Commercial Security in the 21st Century? For a detailed profile of the ultimate competitive intelligence security officer email intrench@gmail.com Offshore Developers:: threat to national security?
About ten years ago i met with a group of IT directors at a conference in London. The conference concentrated on business process outsourcing and the opportunities afforded by the booming global offshoring sector. My interest was in "software development", as i had realised back then that offshoring would offer me a low cost way of getting code produced, at the same time as giving me control over the quality of product, using the excellent communications methods afforded via the web. So i decided that the model should be marketing, project management and quality assurance in the UK and (as it happens), code building in Pune, India. Anyway i listened to speaker after speaker telling me and selling me the concept that sounded so neat. It seemed that i could get code developed, tested and accessible via the net within a third of the time and at 20% of the cost of here in the UK. It seemed that all i had to do was dip my toe in the water and give offshoring a try - see how it worked. It seemed like it was an absolute no-brainer and the route to an extremely profitable software enterprise. But then i thought (as i often do) - what's the catch? Here are some of the concerns i came up with. 1. Am i financing slave labour? Or worse still - child labour? How good would that look to my clients? 2. Is it more likely my code will be pirated, potentially damaging my revenue streams and bringing my brand into disrepute. 3. What happens if there is a dispute with the offshore company and my code somehow gets into the hands of my competitors. 4. What happens if i pay for code to be developed, which then gets reused for one of my competitors - who ends up paying a lot less - for code that i paid for. 5. We are used to having programmers at our finger tips - will my Project Managers really be able to manage what is effectively (an invisible development team). 6.And most importantly of all: Am i helping to subvert national security by engaging with foreign spys. (How could i ensure my code will only do what was in the specification - and nothing more that that?) None of this prevented me from doing business with offshore companies, but it did make me think about considering more than just the obvious benefits. For help with offshoring strategies: email Stephen at intrench@gmail.com Hiring Competitive Intelligence Analysts:: One place to start?
I was once asked to interview candidates for the role of competitive intelligence analyst for a major corporation. My first question was "why don't you hire from within and train the chosen candidate in CI techniques?". The manager in question thought that was a good idea, but he also felt that many of his staff would not be objective enough. He was right, or course. There was a further issue which revolved around company politics. Executives who have worked for the company for many years are unlikely to be accepted as the company CI Analyst. So we decided to do a little experiment. We decided to look for the most unlikely candidate, not the most likely. In other words, someone who had served the company well for many years and had a good appreciation of the brand - but who was a relatively junior member of staff and unknown in this particular area of the business. We decided that we would train and mentor a young secretarial assistant called Julie in the role of Competitive Intelligence Analyst. Julie had all the credentials we needed. She was beautiful, bright and most importantly accessible. We knew that once trained that Julie would be able to do the most imporant job of all. Attract and absorb - competitive intelligence. And so it was that everywhere Julie went, people would share information freely with her. Sure, we had to train her in CI methods and process. Sure we had to mentor her to understand the business models and market dynamics at play. Sure we had to nurture her through her lack of confidence in her own abilities at times. But we got the most important thing from Julie in the shortest space of time. The truest reflection of ourselves in relation to our competition ever. |
