Saturday, December 27, 2008

CIA Inc or ArcView GIS Means Business

CIA, Inc.: Espionage and the Craft of Business Intelligence

Author: F W W Rustmann

Every major government on earth recognizes the value of intelligence and employs an intelligence service to collect it for them. Businesses should be no different. Knowing how to gather information about the strength of your competitors, being able to anticipate their next move, and preventing them from stealing your secrets are critical keys to success in the new economy. Executives, entrepreneurs, and business school students must realize that the success of their companies partially depends on their effectiveness in the realm of business intelligence. This book teaches the principles of intelligence and counterintelligence, using the CIA's methods as a model for the business world.

CIA, Inc., explores the major aspects of business intelligence, including competitor intelligence, risk analysis, business and market analysis, counterintelligence, background investigations, due diligence, and security surveys. F. W. Rustmann draws on his experience as a CIA operations officer and a pioneer in the field of corporate intelligence to describe the collection, analysis, authentication, and reporting of intelligence.

Library Journal

Rustmann's title is a good summing up of this book. A former CIA officer and founder of the business intelligence company CTC International Group, Rustmann recounts many of his CIA activities as examples for business. His story of how he infiltrated an apartment building next to a foreign embassy and drilled through the common walls to plant microphones is riveting. He warns that foreign nations use such methods to steal proprietary information from American businesses at an estimated value of $100-$435 billion in 1997 alone. After explaining many of the techniques of the intelligence trade, Rustmann tells how businesses can fight back using such simple measures as thoroughly screening new employees and business partners. Unfortunately, covering the gamut of business intelligence and security, including the September 11 attacks, leaves little room for depth. Still, the book serves as a good introduction, and the many CIA anecdotes along with its clear writing style would keep even a general reader happy. Recommended for business collections in all libraries and for anyone interested in spying and the CIA. Lawrence R. Maxted, Gannon Univ., Erie, PA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.



New interesting textbook: Re Creating Teams during Transition or Planning and Implementing Your Major Gifts Campaign

ArcView GIS Means Business

Author: Christian Harder

Written for both business managers and GIS professionals, this guide reveals the ways that GIS can revolutionize the effectiveness of the 21st-century business enterprise. Demonstrating how a wide variety of businesses and business-related organizations such as chambers of commerce and commerce-friendly cities are using GIS to bolster the bottom line, detailed case studies analyze companies that overcame obstacles to profitability and efficiency by using the geographic and spatial analysis provided by GIS technology. As the technology has expanded, so have the number and diversity of companies that demand GIS capabilities. Such industries include real estate firms, insurance companies, food distributors, and casinos -- all applying GIS solutions to logistics, marketing programs, and supply chain issues.



Table of Contents:
Preface
Chapter 1 - GIS in Business
Chapter 2 - Researching Retail Markets
Chapter 3 - Evaluationg Site Suitability
Chapter 4 - Increasing Newspaper Readership
Chapter 5 - Finding New Banking opportunities
Chapter 6 - Realigning Sales Territories
Chapter 7 - Evaluating Health Care Resources
Chapter 8 - Making Maps for Marketing Communication
Chapter 9 - Managing Commercial Real Estate
Chapter 10 - Tracking Vehicles Automatically
Chapter 11 - Delivering Interactive Maps on the Web
Chapter 12 - Finding GIS Data for Business Applications

1 comment:

Raymond E. Foster said...

GIS has been used by both business and government for several years now, the
criminal justice technology 
uses for crime analysis continue to expand.