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16/03/2023

Business & Investigative Intelligence as a Resiliency Building Tool

As recent events have demonstrated, in a world that is saturated by risk it is those who are able to effectively manage, respond to, and recover from critical incidents that will carry a substantial advantage.  Recovery in these instances is not a choice; it is a necessity for business continuity and uninterrupted security.    The range of potential threats remains wide – protest activity, labour disputes, community uprisings, terrorist threats, cyberthreats, and global health-related incidents.  The COVID-19 pandemic introduced a new type and degree of risk to an otherwise familiar landscape for many.  Regardless of whether the threat presents a potentially catastrophic or more routine impact, when key decision-makers and their team are empowered with the ability to make confident, informed choices, they are better able to recognize what is needed to strengthen resiliency, and to achieve safety and security in the current environment.

HOW CAN Business & Investigative INTELLIGENCE HELP YOUR ORGANIZATION BUSINESS RESILIENCY?

Constant change and unpredictability in the risk environment means that to adapt is key to survival. Business & Investigative Intelligence can dramatically increase your organization’s ability to effectively and efficiently respond to risks and challenge:

• It heightens situational awareness;
• It empowers decision-makers to appropriately respond by equipping them with vital knowledge and information;
• It helps to withstand possible disruptions and more rapidly recover from incidents when they do occur.
• It helps protect an organization’s most important assets – its people.

To this end, there is also an inherent importance in using this type of threat intelligence to draw upon experience and lessons learned to gain insight.  Too often, lessons learned from past events are captured on paper and remain there and lack visibility.  Regardless of who captures the information – be it agencies, corporations, or municipalities – lessons learned from notable events, crisis situations, incidents at project locations, or natural disasters, all play a vital role in heightening future resilience and lowering uncertainty. However, if this knowledge isn’t transformed into practice, there can be little in the way of progress. 

PROACTIVE & REACTIVE DECISION-MAKING SUPPORT

Business & Investigative Intelligence capitalizes on all forms of knowledge to heighten resiliency. It can be applied in both proactive and reactive efforts to accelerate and gain an understanding of how best to manage the risk environment.

• Proactively collecting and analyzing information prior to breaking ground on a new project, for example, can be vital in establishing a baseline for public sentiment about the project, the company, and its reputation. It can also aid a team in identifying potential areas of security concern and/or salient issues to the local community that can be used to initiate a dialogue and integrate further communication.  Likewise, online threat monitoring can inform on upcoming events, VIPs, and executive vulnerabilities, giving advance notice on potential threats such as planned protests, rallies, marches, or opposition to company AGMs.
• Analyzing information following the occurrence of a critical incident can be similarly valuable in a “lessons learned” capacity and makes it possible to identify volatility and minimize risk exposure. Lessons can be learned about the capability of groups to mobilize, the tactics they employ, changes in strategy, and the publicity angles they may frequently use. Consider that for every protest action and for every activist group, Business & Investigative Intelligence may recognize where the threshold lies between peaceful protest and a potential security threat; for every town hall meeting or community engagement event it may identify the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of different security measures and/or various “tipping points” to help recognize when a situation is escalating.

Business & Investigative Intelligence can help make unpredictability more predictable, increasing the ability to prevent, withstand, and quickly recover from a disruption and increase collaboration, helping organizations implement strategic risk intelligence to prioritize and track key data analytics enabling better and forward-looking decisions.

We will never erase the risk environment nor the need for robust risk management. However, by incorporating lessons learned, current research and experience into Business & Investigative Intelligence, we can ensure that practices and strategies evolve and emerge to effectively meet changing circumstances.  This combination forms a powerful platform on which to base corporate and security decisions, as well as scale out strategies when needed.  Applying intelligence in this manner provides another tool in an arsenal of strategies to achieve greater levels of resiliency and apply coordinated, intelligent responses to today’s fluid environment.

For more information or training programs tailored to your business, please contact michaelfranklin@lgrmg.ca . For any support and assistance call 1.604.383.0020 or toll-free at 1.800.212.2026 or visit www.lgrmg.ca at any time. Our expertise is your peace of mind.