Open Sources & Services Used By a Fortune 500 Sleuth Mark L. Robinson Senior CI Analyst Mobil Corp.

Outline Mobil Business Intelligence at a Glance For-Fee Online Services Internet –Chat Rooms Hard Copy Sources Human Intelligence Third Party Services Conclusions

Mobils CI Operation CI budget $650,000 Informal network of 35 employees linked via Intranet and Lotus Notes Developed culture of sharing information Use of in-country experts Weekly briefing reports for senior management by geographical regions

The Internet: Is There a Snoop on Your Site? What You Get From Working the Web –Use of chat rooms for mentions of a competitor or its products –Price lists –Customer listings –Market research –Executive biographical profiles –Locations of factories and capacities –Technical reports by company scientists

Hard Copy Sources Trade publications –Oil Express –Oil Daily –Platts Oilgram News –Oil & Gas Journal Tradeshows and conference proceedings Financial filings with host country governments

Human Intelligence Customers, suppliers, retailers –Shell test-marketing robotic gas pump Former employees Executive speeches Other CI professionals Use of Lotus Notes to store rumors, interviews, intelligence, and knowledge

Third Party Services FIND/SVP –$5,000 yearly retainer Washington Researchers Oxford Analytica –conference calls Burrelles news clips and broadcast TV monitoring

Other Services Translations –prefer in-country employees versus translation companies –academics Satellite imagery –prefer in-country personnel using digital cameras and

Conclusions and Take-a-ways Open source information – here to stay and will proliferate –becoming easier to gather since many firms use a Web interface; no longer need to learn a specific command language –more marketing to business customers and away from professional researchers –becoming cheaper as more firms charge for document printing rather than fees for locating data

THE END Mobil The Energy To Make A Difference