ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the fundamental principles underlying the dissemination of intelligence material, including consideration of operational security requirements. It provides guidance on the different reporting formats avail-able—their strengths and weaknesses and proposes a basic set of writing and presentation guidelines to support report production and briefing of clients. The chapter examines how to ensure quality and track return on investment. Operational security/secrecy and “need to know” is an inevitable aspect of intelligence work. In practice, effective dissemination comes down to clarity over recipients; effective mechanisms; and precision in presentation. Quality assurance is a vital process. The term quality, when applied to intelligence, really rates timeliness, accuracy, relevance, and actionability to the reader. Showing Return on Investment is one of the trickiest aspects of operating a corporate security intelligence function. Indeed, the entire corporate security department faces something of the same challenge.
