Course details
Tutors
Aims
This course aims to:
- understand the drivers for growth in corporate intelligence over state intelligence services
- explain what corporate intelligence is (and is not), and why organisations treat information as a strategic asset
- apply a simplified intelligence cycle to a business/security problem, using open sources and structured reasoning, in compliance with ethics, law and governance requirements especially where “protection” and “profit” pressures collide
Course content
Across five sessions, you will learn how corporate intelligence has grown from a niche practice into a mainstream organisational capability. You will explore how businesses use intelligence to protect people and operations (duty of care, crisis response, cyber and supply-chain threats) and to pursue profit responsibly (market entry, reputational risk, competitor awareness, sanctions and regulatory intelligence). You will learn a practical version of the intelligence cycle; turning a decision-maker’s question into requirements, collecting and checking evidence (especially from open sources), analysing it using simple structured techniques and communicating it clearly with uncertainty and confidence levels.
You will work with short cases and contemporary risk evidence. For example, you will examine why third-party exposure and ransomware remain central features of the current threat landscape, and how intelligence teams are adapting to the fast-changing environment shaped by misinformation and digitally enabled threats.
Throughout, the course foregrounds ethical and legal constraints. You will debate where corporate intelligence becomes problematic particularly where surveillance, intrusion, or the monitoring of lawful activism can be justified or must be ruled out and how governance frameworks and regulation (including AI regulation) are changing what “responsible intelligence” means in practice.
What to expect on this course
This is an in-person, immersive and probably unique course addressing a little known topic. Expect an interactive blend of expert briefings, coached small‑group analysis, and practical skills work designed for learners who want both intellectual challenge and real-world applicability. Each 2.5-hour session is structured as follows:
- Concept briefing (2 × 40 min): core ideas explained with accessible examples, illustrated with contemporary cases from corporate, cyber and geopolitical risk.
- Case-based discussion (30 min): guided analysis of a real-world scenario, with coached use of basic analytic techniques and structured reasoning.
- Skills lab (30 min): hands-on activity (e.g., requirements writing, source evaluation, bias checking, simple analytic methods) producing a tangible output you can reuse.
- Debrief and takeaways (10 min): what good practice looks like, common pitfalls, and how to apply the lessons in professional settings.
All practical work is overt and lawful: no covert collection, hacking, or intrusive techniques. The course is taught by a practitioner and leading expert in corporate intelligence, combining current research with field-informed judgment and immediate feedback in the classroom.
Course sessions
From State Secrets to Boardroom Decisions: What Is Corporate Intelligence?
Core question: Why are organisations increasingly treating intelligence as a strategic capability rather than “just information”?
Key ideas:
What intelligence is: organised collection, analysis, and forecasting in support of decisions (and how this differs from “information”).
Why corporate intelligence has expanded: complexity, globalisation, cyber risk, reputational volatility, and geopolitical exposure.
Tradecraft for Business: The Intelligence Cycle and Open-Source Methods
Core question: How do you move from a question to a defensible assessment without drowning in data?
Key ideas
The intelligence cycle: requirements → collection → evaluation → analysis → dissemination → feedback (adapted for corporate settings).
Open-source intelligence (OSINT) and digital literacy: not “magic,” but disciplined practice under constraints.
Protection: Corporate Security Intelligence, Duty of Care, and Crisis
Core question: What does “protection” mean when threats are cyber, physical, reputational, and supply-chain intertwined?
Key ideas (with current evidence)
Understanding the interdependent nature of threat, risk and their management
Ransomware remains a major organisational threat:
Why detection often comes from outside the organisation, and why “time-to-know” matters in crisis response
Profit: Strategic, Competitive, and Geopolitical Intelligence (Without Crossing Lines)
Core question: How do organisations pursue profit while staying lawful, ethical, and resilient?
Key ideas
“Decision advantage” for corporate strategy: market entry risk, regulatory shifts, sanctions exposure, competitor signalling, reputation and stakeholder trust.
The risk environment: misinformation/disinformation and rapidly changing geopolitics:
Power, Ethics, Governance, and the Future: AI-Era Corporate Intelligence
Core question: How do we govern corporate intelligence so it remains legitimate, proportionate, and trusted?
Key ideas
Professionalisation and careers: evidence that private-sector intelligence roles increasingly do not require prior government experience.
AI regulation and organisational obligations
Ethics and debate from contemporary scholarship
Course close: Summary and options for further study and application of learning
Learning outcomes
As a result of the course, you will gain a greater understanding of the subject and you should be able to:
- distinguish corporate intelligence from related fields (state intelligence services, market intelligence etc) and describe how it creates “decision advantage” in practice
- critically discuss ethical boundaries (privacy, surveillance, duty of care, bias, proportionality) and propose governance safeguards for responsible practice
- produce a short, defensible intelligence assessment from open sources, stating assumptions, uncertainty, and confidence clearly
Required reading
Gaspar, J, Robson-Morrow, M, Tucker, K, Private Sector Intelligence Careers: Analyzing Job Titles and Professional Trends (Belfer Center, January 2025)
Van Puyvelde, D & Tabarez Rienzi, F, “The rise of open-source intelligence.” European Journal of International Security (published online, received 2024)
Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report – Executive Summary (2025)