Resources

9th July 2024 - PDF

Unless you're in the enviable position of having unlimited budget and being able to hire as many highly trained team members as you want, you're probably trying to work out how to make your budget go as far as possible, or even trying to tackle the challenge of delivering more with less. Before you can get to work on rationalising workload or reviewing vendor relationships (see part 2 and 3 for advice on these), you first need to start with being clear on exactly what the organisation needs from you now and in the foreseeable future. How do you do this?

Maximise your intelligence budget: Part 1 - Requirement Review

16th July 2024 - PDF

It's so easy to get caught up delivering regular products, attending weekly meetings and responding to last minute requests for support that the weeks go by without us even realising. Finding the time to pause and review what our team should be working on, compared to what it is working on can become something that gets filed in the ‘nice to have’ category, and never gets done.
While there is no quick solution to getting more hours in a day, when we’re looking for how to reduce unnecessary work and get time back, here are some basic things we’d look at.

Maximise your intelligence budget: Part 2 - Get time back

18th July 2024 - PDF

Vendor contracts are generally the biggest part of any intelligence programme budget, and they’re an integral one. So when looking for ways to reduce costs, or get more value for money, they’re an obvious place to turn. There is only so far you can get someone to reduce their price, but there are other ways you can make sure you’re making the most of your relationships, services and products.

Maximise your intelligence budget: Part 3- Vendor Review

26th July 2024 - PDF

Anyone working in corporate intelligence knows how valuable these relationships are, and how important it is to find the right vendor for your specific needs. But finding that perfect vendor fit can sometimes be a challenge, especially if you're new in role and maybe not quite sure what to look for. So we thought it could be helpful to share some of the questions we'd be asking of a prospective vendor before deciding whether to work together. This is not an exhaustive list, and also not a script or checklist - it’s intended to be a useful guide for anyone new to managing external relationships, or wondering if there is a way to get more out of those initial conversations.

Want some help getting started building great vendor relationships?

19th June 2024 - PDF

The intelligence needs of all organisations are different, and the complexity of intelligence programme required is different also. Some companies might only want or need a fairly basic programme, while others might want something more advanced. This report looks at how the varying levels of intelligence programme (basic, intermediate, mature and advanced) manifest and how they vary in terms of placement, workflow, production, integration influence and impact.

Four Levels of Intelligence Programmes

29th May 2024 - PDF

When building an intelligence programme, you’ll likely have to consider whether you’re going to employ intelligence professionals directly into your organisation, or whether to employ the services of an external vendor to source and manage these roles. Both have their place, and this report looks at the benefits and drawbacks of each approach, as well as how to make either successful.

In-House vs Outsourced Intelligence Teams

Where to start when building your intelligence programme

25th April 2024 - PDF

So you’ve decided your company needs an intelligence programme, great! What next?

Any plan for building an intelligence programme that starts with the step ‘hire an intelligence analyst to work out the plan’ is likely to struggle because that’s not where you need to start. You need to start with a solid understanding of your company’s strategic goals, and the impact you want your intelligence programme to have. Then you can come up with a plan of how to achieve this, where to position it, how to resource it etc. Want to know more?

Maximising impact with your intelligence programme

20th March 2024 - PDF

While the value of using intelligence to advise on security threats is well established, fewer companies are utilising intelligence tools and methodologies to support growth and make better business decisions. Intelligence is just information you can do something with - it’s news you can use. Here are some scenarios showing how you can use intelligence to maximise your business impact.