First published 2019 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2019930609
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78630-390-5
Preface
Information and information research, interpretation and use can no longer be considered within a strictly national framework. This brings some urgency to understanding other cultures and prompts the use of tools that permit a multilingual vision of knowledge. Information is becoming more and more open and accessible, going hand in hand with the need for a multidisciplinary approach to the problems that need to be solved. This requires looking beyond very specialized but closed systems and integrating into strategic thinking multiple aspects of intelligence: scientific, technological, economic, organizational, societal and cultural.
At the same time, technology enables the research, analysis and diffusion of information in real time to multiple stakeholders. This dynamic is becoming an essential lever in the transformation of business and organizations by opening up their capacity for world intelligence, new innovation ecosystems and unprecedented ruptures.
One of the significant consequences of this mutation is that it obliges the decider to place it at the heart of their system for decision making and strategic governance. It in fact obliges them to adopt a resolutely anticipatory posture, to define a realistic and detailed vision placing “data control” and analysis at the heart of all strategies.
Digital transition has always accompanied the evolution of economic intelligence, but technological evolutions, changes in the international environment and intense competition are leading to a real rupture. This is acquiring a critical character which must generate within businesses a capacity for resilience through this breakthrough innovation.
In particular, strategic information, its collection, analysis and understanding will create, within businesses and organizations, “self-criticisms”, which are transmissible and generate the mutation needed to understand, interpret and act in a moving and ever more complex world.
Henri DOU
Alain JUILLET
Philippe CLERC
January 2019
Introduction
Future economic intelligence will be centered on, among other aspects, information, information research and its analysis and integration in decision-making processes. We first wrote a general reflection on the endogenous integration of the “information function” within organizations. This way of imagining this function’s role leads individuals to develop a different way of thinking, to acquire informative but also critical reflexes that will enable institutions, organizations and businesses to confront the new situations with which they are faced. It is often said that one of the ways for businesses to develop in an uncertain environment is to innovate, whether on the level of technology, administration, management etc. This is why we have examined innovation and its consequences in organizations’ behavior. But, to innovate, that is to move from research to market level, different kinds of information are needed. This why a focus has been placed on holistic research, to properly mark the difference between a reductive vision of information research, and the ever greater need to control the environment through more open research. In this context, various examples of information processing are brought to light. They then follow social networks, since they are currently increasing in importance, mainly due to the advertising for which they are used. It is necessary to understand fully the mechanisms by which they work and the actions of the robot systems within them, so as not to consider social networks only as simple IT systems. Malicious noise and other attacks on an organization’s integrity are also examined as it is necessary to react quickly and prepare for action using maturely thought-out simulations. Finally, information holds great importance for the lives of businesses. It must be secured and defended. Constant attention should be paid to this subject: the threats are multiple; it is a good idea to recognize them and develop internal reflexes to head-off attacks or react to them. The level of protection goes beyond classical information and now covers IT security. The survival of business is at stake and beyond awareness, basic action is needed. Fully understanding the risks involving information is becoming a necessity for businesses, and this is the aim of this book: to make the reader aware of a crucial problem and provide them with a number of key elements to create an “appetite” for this function.
