y as an
analytical tool for CI
Avner Barnea
CI Strategic Consultant, Israel
Link-Analysis as a tool for CI by Barnea 1
I. Makov, President & CEO of Teva
Pharmaceutical, on CI and analysis:
“We are not involved in economic espionage.
We never use dirty y tricks. This is a brain
war. There is a lot of Open Source
Intelligence and you have to know how
analysis
l and use it for your benefits.
We are receiving information all the
time
i f
from various
i resources. WeW spend d
a lot of time in assessments of the
competitors
tit and
d their
th i future
f t steps”.
t ”
[September 2005]
Israeli pharma company leading
in generic drugs. Sales: $ 5.5 b.
Link-Analysis as a tool for CI by Barnea Net income: $1.1 b. [2005] 2
Special challenges in managing
Link Analysis for CI
1. Huge amounts of information from multiply sources.
2. Direct access to analysts through teamwork system.
3. Build a comprehensive picture of complicated issues.
4. Identifying and building linkage between various
pieces of information.
information
5. Advanced retrieval with links.
6
6. Visual modeling of the contents.
contents
7. Use of intelligence inference mechanisms to enhance
the q
quality
y of analysis.
y
8. Additional Access to internal sources.
9. Quick preparation of quality intelligence report.
Link-Analysis as a tool for CI by Barnea 3
Quantities of information vs.
vs
the need for quality of analysis
Level of
Quality
Confidence
Quality
Conclusion
The confidence of the analyst is higher
than the actual quality of the analysis
z Basic assumptions:
1. CI team members
b view
i b
broad
d picture
i through
h h multi-
l i
dimensional context maps.
2. These Maps consist unlimited amounts of information
resources and d li
links,
k enablebl view
i iinformation,
f ti searching,
hi
editing, etc.
3. Maps are related by using Link Analysis to view context links.
It is dynamic and enable more maps in accordance to the
needs.
4. Possibility of identifying information gaps.
5. B viewing
By i i contextt t map th the CI analyst
l t visually
i ll presented
t d with
ith
information that allows him differentiate and forming mental
model of information.
6. Th visual
The is l output
t t of f Link
Li k A
Analysis
l i facilitates
f ilit t s better
b tt
understanding of the hidden structure of investigating data,
and helps quickly to isolate interesting patterns for additional
investigation
investigation.
Link-Analysis as a tool for CI by Barnea 9
The Intelligence Cycle
• Browse
• Crawl & search Collection • Index
• Harvest
& Search • Link analysis
Processing • Alert
• Tasking
• KIT
KIT’S
S
Planning
Pl i &
Direction Repository Summarize- final
product
Analysis
& Production
• Report
• Alert
• Share
dissemination
Link-Analysis as a tool for CI by Barnea 10
Planning & Direction – Defining
Intelligence Needs
z The identification of intelligence needs is
p y of the CI team together
the responsibility g
with other levels in the firm. There is a
great need to be able to input KIT’s and
KIQ’s into the
h system to understand theirh
context in an easy manageable way and to
f ll
follow the
h CI work k for
f theh planning
l i and d
guidance process of the CI activities.
z On later stage, response to KIT’s and
KIQ’s will be tested.
Link-Analysis as a tool for CI by Barnea 11
Gathering Information and
Storage
z Receiving unprocessed information from wide variety of
sources – internal and external [ all kinds of digital materials],
secondary y and primary,
p y including
g high
g level integration
g with
desktop tools – Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel, Acrobat
etc.
z The information is managed
g in two forms:
1. Indexed automatically and immediately in the built-in
repository. This enable the text to be available for free text
search engine and also to search trough key
key- words and other
categories.
2. Information kept in context maps that are linked, helping to
identify immediately relevant issues and if and how they are
related. Most of it done through internal automatic
recognition system.
4
4. Pieces of information kept in visual context maps within
particular contexts while the entities and the maps are
linked. The links are established by CI team manually or
automatically and be used later for the analysis mechanisms.
mechanisms
5. The analyst would like to receive more than one activity
connected to a particular KIT and easily to communicate the
content to any address.
dd M
Members
b off the
h CI team are ini
need to produce a report that will show the KIT's and their
relation to the movement towards completion and the data
that
h have
h acquiredd so far.
f
6. Much academic research has shown the knowledge creation
is most effectivelyy accomplished
p as a social process
p –
interaction between people.
4. Multi-Contextual Analysis
y - The
analyst
y can define which entities are
relevant for the analysis and which is the focus of his interest,
and automatically build one overall context map picture
containing the relevant information and reveals direct and
indirect
d h
hidden
dd relationships
l h b
between entities in the
h
competitive arena.
5. Connectivity y test - Finding
g connections between entities based
on similarities in characteristics. The result is a context map
with linked resources on basis of similarities even if the
relationship is indirect. These links did not previously exist and
were traced d only
l as a result
l of
f running the
h system for
f theh
analysis process.
6. Search capabilities,
p either through
g free text and / or key y wards
lead the user to the relevant map to view an overall picture for
further analysis.
High
Quality
Use advanced
Of
tools
Intelligence
L
Low L
Level
l of
f Use
U off Advanced
Ad d ttools
l Hi h
High
Link-Analysis as a tool for CI by Barnea 21
Summary
z Effective CI analysis focuses on overall
competitive landscape together with strong
analytical capabilities and not just on individual
entities, to provide greater value.
z Link analysis
y plays
p y a critical role in turning
g “dead”
d
data into
i valuable
l bl insights.
i i h Al Although
h h the
h strong
support by Link Analysis for a quality insight,
Competitive Intelligence remains a distinctly
human endeavor. Expert CI systems that mimic
the way the human brain processes information
are already making significant contribution are
also changing the attitude of decision-makers as
to the contribution of CI.
Link-Analysis as a tool for CI by Barnea 22
Accenture study on Dedicated CI
systems
avnerpro@netvision net il
avnerpro@netvision.net.il