Why Decision Intelligence Is More Relevant Now Than Ever
20 Dec 23
Intelligence
Intelligence training is not something that you normally would associate with business. Intelligence is surely the practice of dark arts by states who are trying to stop those who would do them harm?
Well, not really.
Intelligence is about the collection and processing of information to allow a specific question or series of questions to be answered in an unbiased manner. Any intelligence activity should start with a question to be answered and move on from there. Good intelligence requirements should only ask one question at a time, and focus on a specific fact, event or activity. This then allows the intelligence to support a single decision.
What happens in reality is that a series of collection requirements are bundled together in order to allow questions to be answered at the tactical, operational, and strategic level. For business, collecting information and making it more actionable has never been more relevant.
If four years ago I put forward the analysis that every business globally would have to enact plans for a mass viral outbreak, distributed working, and manage the impact of European conflict on business economics, I would have been taken to a quiet room for a lie down and a wet flannel placed on my head. However, these are the realities that modern businesses face. Planning and horizon scanning needs to step up as these types of events are likely to happen more frequently.
In this chaotic business environment, it is therefore important that decision makers from the CEO down are able to access high grade information that has been collected and processed by their teams to allow them to make informed decisions. This is even more true in team-based organisations, flat or flatter organisations and holacratic organisations (self-organising groups) as there is arguably less senior oversight of day-to-day activities.
Being reflective for a moment, do you know how decisions are made in your organisation? What level of analysis has gone into making them, and what information informed that decision? As dynamic entities business decisions have to made, and the higher the quality of information used to make the decisions the more likely they are to result in positive outcomes.
What we are taking about in reality for businesses is decision intelligence. It has over the past few years become recognised that decision making could be improved if a more structured approach is applied. However, the structured approach only works if the information that underpins it is good. The old adage "rubbish in, rubbish out" is absolutely true with intelligence.
Decision making could be improved if a more structured approach is applied
Open-source intelligence (OSINT) techniques can be used to support business decisions. What is the probability of flooding in an area? What is the security situation in a particular city like? What is the likely stability of a region geopolitically? Will there be interruptions to the supply chain? What is the weather going to do!?
To answer these, and other business-related questions, analysts need to be able to use a variety of OSINT tools and approaches including but not limited to:
- Event monitoring
- Understanding geolocation and geospatial intelligence visualisation
- Advanced searching
- Monitoring the deep web and deep search engines
- Personal information and social media analysis
- Video and live streaming analysis
- Generating a comprehensive intelligence picture
- Network analysis
- Incident analysis and assessments
- Crypto currency and crypto tracing
- Threat assessments
It is only once analysts have these broad range of skills that they are in a position to fully answer the information requirements that are put to them. How many of your analysts are able to do this for you and support your decision making in pursuit of business goals?
If you are a small-to-medium-size organisation that does not need analysts, then have you considered outsourcing your analytical requirements? If you would like to know how you could do this, get in touch and we can talk you through the options available from our team of OSINT specialists.
OSINT tools such as advanced searching can help businesses answer critical questions to enhance their output
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