ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the Intelligence Cycle in a commercial context, specifically in relation to political risk and security. Commercial organisations use intelligence in a very different way to governments or the military in that it informs their decisions on taking or avoiding risks. In this chapter I argue that, in fact, the Intelligence Cycle works fairly well in a commercial context because it directly supports business decisions, and the relationship between client and provider is much different to that in government or the military because the provider is as much an advisor as a simple source of intelligence. Rather than simply describe the workings of the Intelligence Cycle I will take as my starting point the criticisms that have been made of it by Arthur Hulnick and the work on the relationships between intelligence agencies and decision makers by Stephen Marrin. 1 This chapter will take the same basic approach as Hulnick throughout, by providing an individual perspective based upon personal experience, albeit in the corporate intelligence industry rather than in an intelligence agency. Although the issues have been discussed at length with colleagues throughout the industry, it is still one point of view, but hopefully one that will shed some light on a hitherto underexplored area of intelligence study – the corporate intelligence world.
