Any professional knows that a more or less high-quality security system cannot exist without the most important component - information and analytical support. Moreover, it is this component that constitutes the core of the information security complex. The core, without which the cost of booking a Mercedes, the best-equipped security, or the smartest alarm system may be useless. After all, none of these means can solve the problem of selecting a business partner and checking its reliability, assessing the risks when entering a new trade sector or another region, making the best decision in a crisis.
The overwhelming majority of security and detective companies and associations, security services, or other firms operating in the security market conduct information and analytical activities. And it is not so important whether such services as partner verification, business and competitive intelligence, analysis of risk factors, or when agreeing on ensuring the comprehensive security of an enterprise, these works will be taken into account in a complex, are declared in the price list by separate items. In any case, enterprises that have been engaged in ensuring integrated security for several years are simply obliged to receive and process information.
That is, without the risk of making a big mistake, we can say the following. By contacting almost any of the firms presented in this guide in the sections on private security and detective activities, you will be able to get the answer: "Yes, we also provide information and analytical services." Another thing is how the client is satisfied with the completeness and relevance of the information. It's no secret that on the well-known "Gorbushka" they ask for quite ridiculous money for the database of the Moscow Registration Chamber or the telephone base of MGTS. On the Internet, you can find not only "compromising" (in fact, these are most often reprints of articles published in the press or collected rumors) on very and not very famous people, but also the balance sheets of banks and enterprises, data on car registrations, etc. Let's leave aside the legitimacy of such information, although everyone in childhood was told that stealing is not good. Another thing is more important.
First, information becomes outdated very quickly. Updating it is a separate, not cheap, and very difficult task. It is within the power of those enterprises that consider information and analytical activities not only as an addition to security services but as a separate line of their business.
Secondly, the 100 pages of text provided to the client (conditionally) on the problem that interests him, and the specific answer to his specific question - after all, things are different. That is, having spent several hundred dollars on the purchase of databases on the black market and connecting to the Internet, one can hardly speak of the creation of serious information and analytical service. Sources of information are far from limited to CDs from Gorbushka. And an unprocessed 100 pages are often not the kind of information that helps solve the problem. “Information raw materials” must be processed by someone, and this is a lot of professionals.
Thirdly, most of the security and detective structures (especially small and medium-sized ones) have a fairly stable circle of clients. Accordingly, information and analytical capabilities are designed to meet the needs of these very customers. In other words, if among the clients there is (conditionally) a trading company, a dairy plant, or a car service station, then these business sectors will also be the areas of "increased information attention". But for others, it may be necessary to collect information, as they say, from scratch. Also, situations often arise when a potential partner is foreign. Or the problems did not arise in Russia at all, and it is impossible to understand something (and even more so, to make an optimal decision) without information that we simply do not have in our country. However, this is where communications professionals can help.
Let's reveal a little secret: getting information about a foreign company or even an individual, his reputation, credit history is often easier, and sometimes even cheaper than about Russian ones. True, the absence in any private security company or detective enterprise of its powerful information and the analytical department does not mean at all that the information and analytical product will be of poor quality or incomplete. There are simple questions, for example, regarding the founders of a particular company. It so happens that professional advice is required rather than a detailed reference. In these cases, the performers cope with honor themselves. And besides, many security structures have long-standing and well-established ties with those who have been purposefully and successfully working in the information and analytical field for more than one year. At the same time, such “subcontractors” can be “colleagues” - large security and detective structures or the information and analytical centers specializing in the security market, as well as information agencies, owners of information resources, news and analytical services, information structures of the widest profile. And the client will never know who, where, and how fulfilled his difficult order. It doesn't matter, does it? The main thing is to be satisfied with the result.
Thus, it is possible to identify the main subjects of the information and analytical sector in the field of security:
1. State organizations (including the so-called power structures, but not only) and their subdivisions that collect and/or accumulate information by the norms determined by the legislation. Most of this information is classified. And not always by law, more often by departmental instructions. At the same time, there is a certain amount of information that does not fall under the law "under the closure" of information. Professionals know the possibilities of obtaining them by legal means, both directly in the departments themselves, and through the so-called "information brokers".
2. Private detectives and their associations. The methods permitted by the law "On private detective and security activities" are used to collect and process information in the interests of the customer. The data obtained in this way can be supplemented by other information on the same problem.
3. Information and analytical departments and services at commercial and socio-political structures (firms, banks, parties, security companies, associations, etc.). As a rule, they work in the interests of one structure, of which they are a subdivision. Information production is usually built in such a way that its information resources are collected and accumulated and the ability to quickly obtain and process the necessary data in case of their absence is developed. The goal is to provide the information and/or the results of analytical, predictive, and other studies requested by its structure as soon as possible.
4. Independent information and analytical services and centers. The fundamental difference from the previous ones is market orientation, that is, the absence of a single customer and works with a more or less wide range of clients. And in a nutshell, we can say about the information resources available today for both state and commercial enterprises.
The data, in principle, necessary for decision-making, offered by the market, can be classified as follows:
- The sector of business information, which includes exchange, financial, commercial, economic, statistical information. Includes information provided by exchanges, special services for exchange and financial information, brokerage companies, banks. This is information about quotations of securities, exchange rates, discount rates, commodity and capital markets, investments, prices; economic and statistical. Information provided by government agencies and private companies engaged in research and consulting includes numerical economic, demographic, social information, including in the form of predictive models and estimates; a commercial. This is information on companies, firms, corporations, areas of their work and products, prices, financial condition, connections, transactions, managers, etc .; business news in the field of economics and business, which is offered by the relevant specialized services and agencies, mass media.
- Information sector for specialists, including scientific, technical, and special information, as well as primary sources of professional information. Special information specific to a particular profession (information for doctors, lawyers, teachers, pharmacists, engineers, etc.); scientific and technical information. Documentary, bibliographic, abstract, reference information, data in the field of fundamental and applied, natural, technical and social sciences, industries and spheres of human activity; access to primary sources through libraries and specialized data banks, the possibility of acquiring primary sources, obtaining them in the form of full-size documents and microcopies.
- The sector of mass and consumer information, which includes news and services, including those based on modern telecommunications: reference information. Information from specialized news agencies and news services, electronic journals, reference books, encyclopedias; consumer and entertainment information that is targeted at home use. These are local news, weather, traffic schedules, commercial offers, etc. In contrast to the world market, in the still-emerging Russian market, there is not a single company that is ready to provide consumers with its high-quality information and analytical services and products of the entire spectrum. In Russia, not a single large complex information center has yet emerged, comparable in the number of accumulated information resources with the largest foreign ones. And the demand in our country, I must admit, is not yet fully formed. “The thunder will not strike - the man will not cross himself” - this phrase is remembered more than once or twice when a client comes for information. Nevertheless, today professionals in the field of information and analytical security assurance can solve the vast majority of emerging problems. And if a problem suddenly arises with the provision of integrated security, then most often because the professionals were not asked in time!
01.12.2020
