Fundamentals of business intelligence at the enterprises of the construction complex. Competitive intelligence: everything you wanted to know about it Definition and types of competitive intelligence

There is a well-known expression: whoever owns the information owns the world. Having reliable information about a partner, competitor, and upcoming changes in the market is extremely important for any business, which is why business structure owners create competitive intelligence

Essence and functions of competitive intelligence

Competitive (commercial, business) intelligence (eng. Competitive Intelligence, abbr. CI) - collection and processing of data from various sources carried out within the framework of the law and in compliance with ethical standards to develop management decisions in order to increase the competitiveness of a commercial organization, also a structural unit of an enterprise, performing these functions.

According to an independent expert Heinrich Lemke, the competitive intelligence service must be clearly separated from the enterprise security service, since the scope and objects of the company's commercial intelligence development are exclusively external risks, opportunities and threats that affect the company's ability to achieve its strategic goals. The risks and opportunities explored by an organization's business intelligence system are of a purely market nature and are more related to future market conditions and market conditions that should develop in the future, that is, at the time horizon of the company's (future) planned business goals and deferred from the current state for some time period. At the same time, the sphere of activity and objects of research of the security service, as a rule, are external and internal risks and threats to the current activities of the company, which are of a criminal nature and violate the normal daily activities of the company. Another area of active development of the security service is the activity of the competitive environment, associated with unfair competition and directly encroaching on the normal operation of the company, as well as the loyalty and integrity of partners, employees and other participants that affect the business activity of the company.

The following functions of competitive intelligence can be distinguished:

Studying the activities of competitors and the competitive environment;
- checking the reliability of business partners;
- collection of information on the Internet and media monitoring;
- research and evaluation of markets or entire regions (together with other departments, for example, marketing);
- forecasting changes in the market situation and the actions of competitors;
- identification of new or potential competitors;
- assistance to management in the process of adopting the positive experience of other companies;
- assisting specialists from other departments in assessing the prospects for acquiring or opening a new business;
- obtaining information legally and analysis of new technologies, products or processes that may significantly affect the company's business;
- Identification of weaknesses of competitors;
- together with the security service, identify potential sources of leakage of confidential information within the company.

What is the main purpose of this type of activity as competitive intelligence

helps to understand Dmitry Zolotukhin, independent business intelligence expert: “In my opinion, the goals of competitive intelligence differ from the direction of application of efforts - management, marketing, PR, HR, etc. My understanding of the strategic purpose of competitive intelligence is to ensure that there is a constant alignment between a company's current strategy (often once and for all), the actions by which it is implemented, and the state of the art. constantly changing outside world. This means that decision makers in the company must at any time be provided with relevant, reliable and timely data on the position of the company in relation to the external environment.

So, the essence of competitive intelligence is the collection and analysis of information that is useful for the business of the company for which this commercial intelligence service works. In fact, business intelligence has the same tasks as the state intelligence service - to identify the danger or, on the contrary, the prospect, evaluate the information and notify management of the results, or take action themselves, if possible.

Business intelligence and industrial espionage

Although according to many people, competitive intelligence and industrial espionage are identical, in reality they are not. After all, despite the fact that the goals of these activities often coincide (extraction of the most complete and reliable information about the activities of competitors), their methods differ.

Industrial espionage is a form of unfair competition in which illegal receipt, use, disclosure of information constituting a commercial, official or other legally protected secret is carried out in order to obtain advantages in business activities, as well as to obtain material benefits. That is, industrial espionage as a type of activity is based on the acquisition and subsequent use of commercial or official secrets. This is the difference between competitive intelligence and industrial espionage: competitive intelligence is an activity within the legal field, and industrial spies "work" outside this field. As Yevgeny Yushchuk confirms in his book Competitive Intelligence: Marketing Risks and Opportunities: “In real life, the line between competitive intelligence and industrial espionage depends on the skill of the one who conducts it, not to conflict with the criminal code ...”

Specialists in the field of industrial espionage mainly use methods such as: bribery or blackmail of persons with access to classified information; theft of various media with information of interest; the introduction of an agent into a competing company in order to obtain information that is a commercial or banking secret; implementation of illegal access to commercially significant information using technical means (telephone lines tapping, illegal penetration into computer networks, etc.). These acts violate a huge number of articles of the criminal code, especially article 231 "Illegal collection for the purpose of use or use of information constituting commercial or banking secrets."

To put it simply, the unlawful act “industrial espionage” is directed against the object “commercial secret” (the main thing is to obtain the necessary information), while various rights and interests of individuals and legal entities may be violated, such as: the right to security (threats), the right on privacy (blackmail), copyright, the right to confidentiality of information. In light of this, it is necessary to define the concept of "trade secret", but there is a slight difficulty: in various legislative acts, wordings are given that differ from each other. Volodymyr Ivashchenko in his article “Basic Methods for Investigating Illegal Collections and Disclosing Commercial Secrets” analyzed them and made the following conclusions: a trade secret is characterized by such a set of features: information is secret, unknown and not easily accessible to persons who usually deal with the type of information to which it refers; because it is secret, it has commercial value. He gives such a concept of a trade secret - this is information that is useful and is not generally known to the public. It has a real or commercial value from which profit can be made and for the protection of which the owner takes measures in all spheres of life and activity. Thus, we can say that the activity of industrial espionage is aimed at obtaining information that is not publicly available and is protected by law.

Meanwhile, unlike adepts of industrial espionage, business intelligence officers mainly use open sources of information from the media, the Internet, analysis of rating agencies, etc. In the West, those involved in commercial intelligence have long understood that the only way to work long and efficiently is to be “friends with the law.” Roughly speaking, commercial intelligence officers can use all methods and means of collecting and processing information that do not contradict the law. The main weapon of competitive intelligence is high-quality collection, systematization and, most importantly, analysis of information, and not surveillance, bribery and illegal hacking. And this is not surprising: even for state intelligence services, at the present stage, the collection of information from open sources is paramount. For example, at the end of the 20th century, the US CIA published data, according to which 85% of all information about the USSR in Langley was obtained from open and completely legal sources - Soviet newspapers and magazines, atlases and reference books, analysis of speeches by Soviet leaders on radio and television, documents of conferences, symposiums, plenums and congresses. The last Soviet government itself translated into 100 languages of the world and replicated for public attention in millions of copies. To analyze this entire “sea” of information, thousands of analysts of completely peaceful professions worked at the CIA: economists, geographers, sociologists, psychologists, linguists, ethnographers, statisticians, cybernetics, and even gerontologists. But then there was no Internet.

In order to more accurately understand the role of open sources in commercial intelligence, we again turned to Dmitry Zolotukhin for a comment: “According to the majority of experts in the information and analytical field, part of the information that can be obtained using only open sources is 90-95%. By “open sources”, competitive intelligence specialists mean absolutely every opportunity to obtain the necessary information that does not require actions that directly violate the law or generally accepted ethical standards for doing business (the latter is usually fraught with reputational risks that will be much more tangible than the information result obtained). In my personal opinion, the situation is complicated by the fact that, often, the remaining 5% contain the very zest that makes up the company's competitive advantage in the market. Therefore, competitive intelligence techniques are used first to collect these 95% of information, in order to then take advantage of the often only opportunity to ask the question, the answer to which will “complete the mosaic”.

It would seem that if 90% of information can be “obtained” using open sources, then analysis is paramount in competitive intelligence. The expert clarifies: “Probably, one can say so, because the amount of available and accessible data is increasing every day and it is necessary to have effective work algorithms in order to manage large-scale information flows, clear them of “information garbage” and find “gold grains” strategically. important information.

However, on the other hand, it's like asking: "Does the car have wheels?" Of course, because without them she would not be able to go. But she will also not be able to move normally without an engine or steering wheel. Most likely, we need to talk about an integrated approach. Moreover, in the current conditions of limited resources, a competitive scout should be "... both a Swiss, a reaper, and a player on the pipe."

Regarding the use of new methods in intelligence, Dmitry Zolotukhin noted that it is already quite difficult to come up with something new in business intelligence. A set of methods and techniques is only being refined, in the conditions of the requirements of the new time. At the moment, together with a colleague, he is writing a book about extracting information during communication. No one has written about this before, although the idea is far from new.

Based on the foregoing, we can conclude that, given the development of the information component of society, analysts will increasingly supplant the "James Bonds" in state intelligence, and even more so in commercial intelligence. The very same competitive intelligence (however, as, unfortunately, and industrial espionage) will exist as long as entrepreneurial activity will exist, because as Samuel Butler said, “All commerce is an attempt to foresee the future.” And competitive intelligence is a service that is designed to foresee the future.

Competitive Intelligence (CI) is a systematic and ethical program for collecting, analyzing, and managing information about the external environment that can influence a company's plans, decisions, and operations.

As you know, the most effective system of economic security today operates in the United States both at the state and at the corporate level. Therefore, the competitive intelligence system in US private business is of undoubted interest.

Intelligence activities are carried out by a specially created unit that operates in accordance with the requirements for intelligence.

CI groups are most commonly found in large firms, such as the Fortune 500 (a ranking of the world's 500 largest companies based on company revenue). For some smaller firms, one person may be assigned the task of CI. There are estimates that CI is performed at some level by 80% to 90% of firms through internal teams, outsourcing, or consulting firms.

The cost of conducting CI, as a rule, is limited to the rates of hired analysts - from $800 to $3 thousand per month for each.

The role of CI specialists is to distill, analyze and present the collected information for management. This detailed look reveals existing products in the market, new technologies (in particular cutting-edge technologies) on the horizon, how competitors have responded to previous initiatives, competitors' strengths and weaknesses, and more. The goal of CI is to gain an edge over competitors and protect your firm from their efforts. The principle of operation is "forewarned is forearmed".

Some firms use simplistic external sources such as executive intuition, reading trade magazines, or sales gossip.

The main capabilities of the company in connection with the use of CI:

Forecasting changes in the market and the actions of competitors and suppliers;

Identification of new or potential competitors;

Opportunity to learn from the successes and mistakes of other companies;

Tracking information related to patents and licenses;

Assessment of the feasibility of acquiring a new business;

Study of new technologies, products and processes that may affect a particular business;

Studying political, legislative or regulatory changes that may affect a particular business;

Using the weaknesses of a competitor in your advertising;

Collection of information about partners and clients.

CI is a two-sided game, i.e. competitors also collect and analyze data about the firm.

The whole problem of competitive intelligence is not that there is no information, but that there is too much of it. Companies use web pages, press releases, and any other means of advertising they can afford to display their products, thus increasing their share price. In other words, they brag, they talk, often when they shouldn't. Sometimes they lie. The job of CI is to gather all this information and put it together so that the top executives in the firm can understand what competitors are doing and what they plan to do.

Classification of methods for collecting information CI:

1. Direct and indirect. Direct methods are called methods of obtaining information of direct interest. An indirect method is a method of calculating an indicator of interest from others related to it. Most competitive intelligence methods are indirect because indirect data is more readily available.

2. Surveillance and penetration. Surveillance is called outdoor without contact with representatives of a competitor, as they say, at a distance. It is better to carry out penetration not by the forces of your own personnel, but by the forces involved from the employees of consulting companies providing such services, or acquaintances, friends and relatives. In especially serious cases - residents from another city.

Competitive intelligence techniques:

1. Collection of information from open sources.

When conducting competitive intelligence, you can use everything that is in the public sphere (open sources):

1) information from the Government;

3) databases on the Internet;

4) magazines and newspapers, interviews and reviews;

5) collection and analysis of financial reports;

6) exhibitions, conferences, seminars;

7) speeches of the authorities;

8) information from competitors, suppliers, distributors and customers;

9) collection and analysis of industry marketing reports.

The larger the object of competitive intelligence, the more information about it in open sources.

2. Collection of classified information.

The less known the competitor, the less information about him in open sources. Most often, you have to look for information in the immediate vicinity of a competitor or directly from him.

Here a lot depends on the artistry of the "scout". The ability to inspire confidence, provoke not the best feelings, vanity, in the first place, provides more than half of the success. The search methods for information here are as follows:

1) survey of common customers or common suppliers;

2) collecting information from former employees, applicants, competitors;

3) incomplete or completed trial purchase;

4) organizing an attempt to cooperate or cooperate on its own behalf, under the guise of a potential supplier or under the guise of a service provider;

5) survey of a competitor under the guise of marketing research;

6) provocation of an employee of a competitor with a targeted question on an Internet forum;

7) collecting information under the guise of an applicant;

8) organizing and maintaining acquaintance with a competitor's employee from a third party;

9) use of anonymous Internet dating with an employee of a competing organization;

Starting from this point, the implementation of techniques makes sense if very, very significant amounts are at stake.

10) organization of cooperation under the guise of a service provider on behalf of a third company;

11) organization of a merger attempt on its own behalf;

12) organizing an investment attempt (full or partial purchase of a competitor's business) from a third party;

13) covert surveillance of the office, warehouse, employees, executives of a competitor company in order to find out work patterns, suppliers, buyers, sales volumes, possible problems that arise during the implementation of the competitor's key business processes and weaknesses in these business processes;

The nature of competitive intelligence presents CI analysts with ethical dilemmas, both in the work they do and in the tasks assigned to them. The code of ethics is provided by their professional organization, the Society for Competitive Intelligence Professionals (www.scip.org). Analysts must, of course, comply with applicable laws, such as those in the US, such as the Trade Secrets Act (passed in 46 states) and the US Espionage Act of 1996, and must respect their own firm's rules on information. They must tell the truth, use their own names and affiliations when conducting surveys or interviews.

All methods, starting from point 14, violate the laws, so they can be attributed to industrial espionage.

14) illegal removal of information from communication channels (e-mail, internal corporate computer network, telephones), as well as hidden listening to office premises (use of technical means of audio, video surveillance), installation of GPS tracking of the subject's transport;

15) the use of connections in state authorities, law enforcement agencies, the criminal environment, the banking sector;

16) copying information system data of competitors;

17) penetration into the information system of a competitor;

18) recruitment of personnel of a competitor;

19) the introduction of its personnel into the structure of a competitor;

20) external surveillance of contacts of key persons of a competitor organization;

21) using an existing sexual object of a competitor's employee as a source of information;

22) organization of sexual contact of an employee of a competing organization with the subsequent use of the object as an informant;

23) bribery or blackmail of the company's employees for reconnaissance of the necessary information;

24) theft of documents or products;

25) sabotage - putting industrial and other facilities out of action.

In addition to legal and illegal methods of obtaining information, there are so-called gray methods in the intelligence arsenal (digging in the trash, initiating sham lawsuits in order to gain access to the competitor's documents, which he usually carefully conceals).

As an example of when a company crosses the line of legality in the search for information, the following situation can be cited. The Boeing Corporation lost $1 billion after being convicted of stealing classified documents from a competitor, the Lockheed Corporation. A Boeing employee confessed to being in possession of a very large amount of confidential papers from a rival company, including top secret papers on Lockheed's pricing policy.

The appendix reflects the methods of industrial espionage and alternative technologies of competitive intelligence, as well as criminal liability for industrial espionage on the example of Russian legislation.

On the Internet, a large number of sites are devoted to competitive intelligence. At the same time, on some of them it is possible to make a certain comparison of the company with its competitors. As an example, I will describe the two most interesting, effective and free directions (methods):

1. Website traffic comparison - Compete.com.

Every organization wants to know what traffic its competitors have and compare it with their own.

The most convenient tool for comparing web traffic is Compete.com, here the most interesting is the review of unique visitors. This site demonstrates well whether the traffic of your site is growing compared to the site of competitors, shows annual cycles in the market, in order to further help you make your own analytics. The site cannot be effective with low traffic (less than 20,000 unique visitors per month). There simply isn't enough data to make accurate trends.

On Compete.com you can compare up to five sites at a time and create save portfolios of up to five sites each.

An example of comparing the attendance of yandex.ru and google.ru using this site is shown in fig. 3.5 and fig. 3.6.

Rice. 3.5 Data on attendance of sites yandex.ru and google.ru for March 2011

Thus, from fig. 3.5 shows that the attendance of yandex.ru is 3 times higher than the attendance of the site google.ru. And you can also see the monthly and annual change in attendance.

Rice. 3.6 Attendance of sites yandex.ru and google.ru for the year (from April 2010 to March 2011)

Also very useful is AttentionMeter.com, which combines data from Compete, Quantcast, Google Trends, Alexa and Technorati in one place. This is convenient, but the analysis is not as deep as on individual sites.

2. Level search in MarketLeap.com search engines

In order to be successful in traffic to a company's website on the Internet, you need to know how high the position of the site in search engines. This metric used to measure the number of pages indexed by search engines is called search engine saturation. It can be found by going to any of the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, Yandex) and entering special search phrases for each site in which there is an interest. But there is an easier way - MarketLeap.com. Its search intensity can compare up to five sites. An example of this site is shown in Fig. 3.7.

Rice. 3.7

Thus, mail.ru has the leading position in search engines, yandex.ru has the second place and rambler.ru has the last one.

Just as a firm performs competitive intelligence on other firms, they will also perform competitive intelligence. It is necessary not to disclose what the firm does and what it can do. An enterprise should not reveal too much, but should limit the flow of information as much as possible. Public companies also have a minimum of information they must disclose. And there is no need to reveal more. The real secrets of a firm are its intentions.

Examining yourself as well as your competitors will help you determine what your competitors will be looking for and therefore what you need to protect.

The question of the differences between counterintelligence and intelligence in business regularly becomes the subject of discussions at various sites where issues of competitive intelligence are discussed. It should be noted that at present, the concepts of intelligence and counterintelligence are very often confused, often this is due to the fact that many domestic and foreign experts voluntarily or unwittingly attribute intelligence activities in business exclusively to the field of security, i.e. defense against illegal activities of competitors, criminal structures, manifestations of facts of industrial (commercial) espionage, fraud and other existing risks. According to many authors, competitive counterintelligence of business is mainly the prerogative of the security services.

Competitive counterintelligence is a set of physical, technical, organizational and operational measures aimed at effective prevention, detection and suppression of reconnaissance and subversive actions by competitors and other aggressors.

If we consider the side of counterintelligence activities that the security service of the organization is engaged in, then the following methods can be listed:

1. Counterintelligence measures at the physical level:

Restriction or termination of unauthorized (uncontrolled) access to office premises by unauthorized persons;

Ensuring reliable protection and surveillance of the perimeter and places of possible access to the premises during non-working hours.

2. Organizational counterintelligence measures:

Development of a clear line of behavior for employees in communicating with visitors, general organization of workplaces, places for storing documents, location of office equipment, etc. ;

Limiting the circulation of documentation, information containing commercial secrets outside the office and after hours, as well as allowing only a certain circle of people to access corporate secrets;

Introduction and control of the regime of observance of trade secrets;

To put on papers a stamp of secrecy, confidentiality;

Separate the responsibilities and functions of departments so that each department has access to a limited part of classified information;

Checking and testing job candidates (individual testing, thorough interviews, checking their past jobs, reasons for dismissal;

Improving the personnel motivation system, maintaining a competitive system of remuneration and bonus accruals, in combination with clearly defined and practically effective penalties;

Maintaining labor discipline, subordination, competitiveness and team spirit in the company, developing a corporate ideology and internal moral and ethical rules;

Regular checking of garbage, which may contain stolen floppy disks, printouts, etc. .

Practice shows that the majority (more than 75%) of leaks occur not due to malicious intent, but due to mistakes, inattention, carelessness, and negligence of employees.

3. Counterintelligence measures of a technical nature:

Organization and maintenance of an effective computer security system, monitoring of incoming and outgoing e-mails from corporate or Internet resources (personal mail, ICQ, social networks) of employees;

Periodic check of office premises for the presence of listening devices, other technical means of espionage.

4. Operational counterintelligence measures:

Internal - periodic monitoring of the activities of individual employees, monitoring of corporate mobile subscriber connections, analysis of employee reports in combination with the results of monitoring him;

Measures for counter-surveillance during important meetings, negotiations, transactions outside the office and on foreign territory;

Operational counterintelligence measures of an external nature (constant awareness of possible intelligence and subversive activities of competitors, identification of threats).

Counterintelligence activities should not contain only active methods of a defensive nature on "one's own territory". An organization needs to take active defensive measures in competitor territory, for example by planting intelligence agents in competitor firms not to look for information about them, but to find out what competitors want to know about us and how they conduct competitive intelligence regarding our enterprises.

Thus, we can conclude that competitive counterintelligence is no less important than competitive intelligence.

The main tasks of business intelligence:

business risk management;
early detection of threats, vulnerabilities, opportunities and other factors influencing business success;
ensuring competitive advantages through the timely adoption of non-standard optimal management decisions;
checking the reliability of partners, including the collection and analysis of information about persons (counterparties) with whom it is proposed to enter into civil law relations;
anticipation of changes in the market;
conducting a competent advertising campaign (knowing the disadvantages of competitors);
anticipating the actions of competitors;
collection of dangerous information (for example, compromising evidence);
identifying new or potential competitors;
studying the successes and failures of competitors;
establishing the circumstances of unfair competition on the part of other companies;
consideration of the facts of unlawful use of trademarks (trademarks) of the enterprise;
search and study of companies to be purchased;
study of new technologies, products and processes;
providing the management of the company with the necessary information during business negotiations;
monitoring changes in political, legislative and regulatory areas that affect business;
learning new management tools

The main areas of business intelligence of the company:

strategic direction. The tasks of the strategic direction are similar in meaning to the tasks of strategic planning and marketing and come down to clarifying the structure and dynamics of the field of economic activity in which the enterprise operates (or is going to operate), with the identification and analysis of all competitors and counterparties in this field (entering new markets, possible mergers and acquisitions with other companies, changes in the profile of the company, etc.);
operational direction. The tasks of the operational direction are related to obtaining and analyzing information when interacting with a specific organization or individual (checking the reliability and solvency of the company, preparing for negotiations, compiling a profile of a competing enterprise, searching for specialists, etc.).

The subject of interest of the strategic direction of business intelligence is most often:

legislation (that part of it that regulates the processes and circumstances related to the activities of the company);
competitive environment (competitors, markets, etc.);
new technologies and intellectual and industrial property issues;
resources (with the intention of the enterprise to expand either production or marketing opportunities);
trends in all of the above objects.

Subjects of interest of the operational direction of business intelligence:

study of a specific company (history of creation, activities, management, owners, opportunities, threats, management methods, personnel policy, etc.);
study of a particular person (strengths and weaknesses, opportunities, etc.);
study of a specific situation (preparation for negotiations, for a merger or division, for a change in activity, etc.).

Groups of specialists working in the field of business intelligence:

"Chekists" (25%)
know operational work (+);
disciplined(+);
responsible(+);
know how to work with people (+);
able to make independent decisions (+);
are able to analyze from the standpoint of corporate security (+);
do not know the economy (-);
do not know how to work in market conditions (-);
conservative(-);
do not know how to work with new information technologies (-);
have the effect of "red crust" (-);
may not comply with the code of ethics (-);
"intellectuals" people from science, journalism, industry (25%)
know the economy (+);
know how to work in market conditions (+);
know how to work with new information technologies (+);
comply with the code of ethics (+);
often not disciplined (-);
"students" (50%)
easy to train (+);
work well with new information technologies (+);
adapt well to the new environment (+);
not disciplined(-);
unable to make decisions independently (-);
do not know operational work (-);
focused on quick money (-).

The main stages of information and analytical work:

Stage 1 - problem statement and goal setting.

Stage 2 - obtaining information from all possible sources.

Stage 3 - evaluation of information and its translation into information.

Stage 4 - analysis of the information received.

Stage 5 - preparation of conclusions.

When conducting information and analytical work, it is recommended to pay attention to the following:

as a rule, the company has already established internal information flows between departments that can be used as channels for obtaining information for business intelligence;
consumers of the services of the business intelligence unit in the company (for example, company management) should be interested in providing information services and analytical materials.

Some information resources where you can get information about business intelligence:

scip.org is a society of competitive intelligence professionals;
rscip.ru - website of the Russian Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals;
amulet.info.ru - Internet magazine "Business intelligence";
it2b.ru - website of a business intelligence technology company;
ci-razvedka.ru - a site where information materials on Internet intelligence are collected;
razvedka-open.ru is a community site for competitive intelligence practitioners.

Information work of the security service

In information work, the terms "information" and "information" are used. Information is made up of facts. These are figures, statistical materials, disparate data about people and companies. It is impossible to make correct decisions based only on raw information, regardless of its accuracy and completeness. Details are a collection of pieces of information that have been filtered and analyzed. The information has been converted into information that can be used to make informed decisions.

Information classification:

primary information - reliable facts obtained directly from sources of information (the speech of the head, the official statement of government agencies, original documents, archival information, etc.). Is the most accurate;
secondary information - processed primary information (information in newspapers, magazines, analytical materials, etc.). It is characterized by a subjective presentation of primary information.

Information is evaluated in terms of:

importance (the presence of links to the problem and the ability of information to contribute to solving the problem);
accuracy (reliability), which manifests itself in the presence of confirmation from other sources, matching with other information, knowledge of the source and its motives, authority or long-term work with the source, etc.;
relevance;
completeness;
degree of closeness;
source reliability;
values.

Types of operational presentation of information services on a personal computer:

push - technologies - prompt delivery (distribution) of information to the user's personal computer (without a request) in accordance with an agreed rubricator or according to some criteria;
pull - technologies - prompt delivery (distribution) of information to the user's personal computer upon request. In this case, the user forms a request on a topic of interest to him and receives the necessary information.

Collecting information about potential partners is necessary to check the legal entity for reliability, which involves finding out the ability and desire of managers to pay their debts and controllability of their actions (dependence on anyone).

The information task for conducting an audit of a legal entity, as a rule, includes the following collection of information:

registration data (data from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, telephone numbers, subsidiaries, registrar, etc.);
founders and shareholders (distribution of shares, who actually manages and owns the company, etc.);
history of creation and development, privatization (credit history, participation in projects, achievements and failures, legal purity of privatization, etc.);
areas of activity (nomenclature, volumes and characteristics of products, position and role in the industry, region, condition of fixed assets, wear and tear of equipment, etc.);
the presence of material and other assets (the presence of an office, its condition, equipment, the right to use the premises, the presence of assets, their liquidity, being pledged, the presence of storage facilities, their location and legal status, relationships with the lessor, etc.;
business reputation (participation in litigation, claims from state, regulatory, law enforcement and other bodies, connections with crime, “image” in the media, data on participants in arbitration proceedings, participation in charitable projects, in public organizations, movements, associations etc.);
management (actual decision-makers, persons associated with organized crime or employed by enterprises on their recommendation, personal and business characteristics, psychological portraits, business connections and experience, participation as founders or shareholders in other commercial projects, the presence of parallel financial interests who has the right to act by proxy, whether there were any loss of passports in the company's management, whether there are disqualified persons, etc.);
relations within the enterprise (relations and their exacerbation in the management team, the presence of groups and family clans, the relationship between the management team and the labor collective, the presence of informal leaders in the team, the degree of their influence on the team, other factors indicating internal tension in the enterprise, etc.). d.);
security system (presence of a "roof" cover, positions in local and federal authorities and law enforcement agencies, own security service or security outsourcing, conflict resolution methods, etc.);
information about the financial position (financial position, last balance sheet, sources of financing, nominal and real production costs, nominal and real profits, relationships with banks, average turnover on accounts, distribution of profits, relations with tax authorities, debts to the budget, debts to their counterparties , facts of unsuccessful investment projects in other areas of activity, financial problems, etc.);
trends for further development (plans, etc.);
partners (relationships, terms of cooperation, debts of the company to its partners and vice versa, etc.);
competitors (competitors and enemies, forms of confrontation characterizing data on the leaders of the opposing side, etc.).

Information collection methods

Desk accessible methods (media, Internet, books, CD-ROM, etc.);
office hard-to-reach methods (market research, small-circulation collections, intra-company reports, documents in foreign languages, etc.);
field methods (surveys, interviews, visits to exhibitions, presentations, observations, etc.);
operational methods (use of "human factor");
methods of using consulting companies specializing in the collection of information.

The work on collecting information about a legal entity can be systematized as follows:

Obtaining information (submission of documents) from the legal entity itself:

constituent documents (Charter);
registration certificates;
licenses or documents confirming participation in self-regulatory organizations;
documents confirming the right to be at this address (contract for the sale of real estate or a lease agreement for premises with payments for payment);
annual balance;
certificate of the absence of an arrest on property from the Federal Bailiff Service;
extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities indicating the date (no later than one month);
documents confirming the powers of the relevant officials (primarily the general director), indicating the terms of these powers and the maximum amount of the transaction that the general director can conclude;
order to appoint a chief accountant;
certificate of participation of the organization in arbitration proceedings;
certificate on the ratio of the transaction amount to balance sheet assets (signed by the general director and chief accountant);
results of audits or rating companies;
information on the qualifications of employees (if necessary);
certificates for the supplied products (if necessary);
bank account statements and their details;
certificate of no tax arrears;
documents confirming the fulfillment of obligations (insurance, bank guarantee, pledge, etc.);
filling out special questionnaires, the questions in which are selected in a special way.

Obtaining information from the registration authorities:

a request to the MCI (registration authority at the location of the enterprise), or to the chamber of commerce and industry of the subject of the federation;
a request to the tax office at the place of registration;
a request to the funds (social insurance, pension, medical) for registration.

Obtaining information from the media:

study of the press for a certain period of time in order to mention the given enterprise, the persons who head it, or the persons who founded it.

Obtaining information from other sources:

obtaining information about the enterprise, its managers (employees) and founders from the databases of MCI, EGTS, BTI, traffic police;
obtaining information from law enforcement agencies (based on the results of custom inspections);
obtaining information from companies providing information services;
obtaining information from detective agencies;
obtaining information on marketing research documents;
obtaining information from the bank of the enterprise under study.

Obtaining information by operational methods:

obtaining information through company employees;
obtaining information through partners and counterparties of the company under study;
obtaining information through the lease of space in the company under study;
obtaining information through technical means;
obtaining additional information through external observation (work activity, vehicles, warehouse occupancy);
obtaining information by initiating interest in concluding an agreement and making an offer to send an invoice agreement (this way you can get information about the real name of the company, the form of the agreement, the name of the person who will represent the interests of the company, the company's account, etc.);
visiting the organization under study under the guise of a client with an attempt to conclude an agreement (in this case, you can get forms of agreements, account details, the true name of the organization, the names of officials, see the decision-making procedures in the organization, etc.);
conducting a survey of company employees under the guise of marketing research;
obtaining information from people who previously worked in this company;
obtaining information within the initiated litigation. If you sue the organization (albeit on fictitious grounds), then you can demand important documents and information through the court. This allows paragraph 2 of Art. 57 Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation and paragraph 4 of Art. 66 APC RF. The only thing that is necessary in this case will be to prove that these documents cannot be obtained by the party in the case on their own and that they are necessary for the consideration of the case in court;
obtaining information through minority shareholders or on their behalf by proxy. For example, a shareholder holding 1% of the company's shares may be required to submit a register of shareholders.

According to paragraph 1 of Art. 91 of the Federal Law "On Joint Stock Companies", the company is obliged to provide shareholders with access to the following documents:

an agreement on the creation of a company;
charter of the company;
document on state registration of the company;
documents confirming the company's rights to property on its balance sheet;
internal documents of the company;
regulation on a branch or representative office of the company;
annual reports;
accounting documents and financial statements (in the presence of 25% of the shares);
minutes of general meetings of shareholders;
reports of independent appraisers;
lists of affiliated persons of the company;
lists of persons entitled to participate in the general meeting of shareholders;
issue prospectuses, quarterly reports of the issuer and other documents;
other documents.

Ways to obtain official information from information databases and registers of state organizations:

1. Obtaining information from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (Statistical Register) and the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs. The register contains the following information about the legal entity:

name of the legal entity (full and (if any) abbreviated name, including company name, for commercial organizations in Russian);
organizational and legal form;
address (location);
method of formation of a legal entity (creation or reorganization);
information about the founders of the legal entity:
for a legal entity (name of the founder, OGRN or registration number - for legal entities registered before July 1, 2002, the date of registration, address, amount and share of the contribution to the authorized capital);
for an individual (last name, first name, patronymic, TIN (if any), details of an identity document, address, amount and share of the contribution to the authorized capital);
the name and details of the documents submitted during the state registration of a legal entity;
information on legal succession - for legal entities created as a result of the reorganization of other legal entities, for legal entities whose constituent documents are amended in connection with the reorganization, as well as for legal entities that ceased their activities as a result of the reorganization (name of the legal entity, OGRN or registration number (for legal entities registered before July 1, 2002), date of registration, name of the body that registered the legal entity);
information on amendments to the constituent documents (date of registration of amendments, date of receipt by the registering authority of notification of amendments made to the constituent documents);
information on the termination of the activities of the legal entity (the method of termination of the activities of the legal entity, the date of the decision to terminate the activities, the name of the body that made the decision to terminate the activities of the legal entity);
the size of the authorized capital;
information about a person who has the right to act on behalf of a legal entity without a power of attorney (last name, first name, patronymic, position, details of an identity document in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation, TIN);
information on licenses obtained by a legal entity (name of the licensing authority, license number, date of the decision to grant (reissue documents confirming the existence of a license, suspension, renewal, cancellation) of a license, the duration of the license, the name of the territory where the license is valid, the licensed type activities).

The rules for maintaining the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and providing the information contained therein were approved by Order of the Ministry of Finance of Russia dated November 23, 2011 No. 158n. No. 157n. This register is maintained by the Federal Tax Service.

2. Obtaining information from the Unified State Register of Taxpayers. It contains a huge amount of information, but little is available from it. The rules for maintaining and obtaining information from this register are approved by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of February 26, 2004 No. 110. This register is maintained by the Federal Tax Service.

3. Obtaining information from the Unified State Register of rights to real estate and transactions with them. It contains information about the property, the type of registered right to it, the date and number of state registration, as well as restrictions (encumbrances) of rights. The procedure for providing information is contained in the Procedure for providing information contained in the unified state register of rights to real estate and transactions with them, approved by order of the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia dated May 14, 2010 No. 180.

This register is maintained by the territorial divisions of the Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre and Cartography.

4. Obtaining information from the state land cadastre. The rules for providing information from the state land cadastre were approved by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of December 2, 2000 No. 918. This register is maintained by the territorial divisions of the Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre and Cartography.

5. Obtaining information from registers of licenses, which, according to the Federal Law "On Licensing Certain Types of Activities", are maintained by licensing authorities.

6. Obtaining information from the unified federal register of bankruptcy information fedresurs.ru

7. Obtaining information from the registers of seals of organizations. For example, in Moscow, such a register is maintained and provides information from it to the Moscow State Unitary Enterprise "Moscow Register" gupmosreestr.ru

Obtaining information from official websites of state bodies.

Website of the Federal Tax Service nalog.ru

information on debts on property, transport, land taxes, personal income tax;
base TIN of individuals;
extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and EGRIP;
information about legal entities in respect of which documents have been submitted for state registration of changes to the constituent documents and changes to the information about the legal entity contained in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities;
notices of legal entities published in the journal "Bulletin of State Registration" on the adoption of decisions on liquidation, on reorganization, on the reduction of the authorized capital, on the acquisition by a limited liability company of 20% of the authorized capital of another company, as well as other messages of legal entities that they are obliged to publish in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation;
information published in the journal State Registration Bulletin on the decisions taken by the registering authorities on the forthcoming exclusion of inactive legal entities from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities;
legal entities whose executive bodies include disqualified persons;
addresses indicated during state registration as the location of several legal entities.

Website of the Federal Bailiff Service fssprus.ru

seized property of debtors transferred for sale;
register of debtors - organizations and individual entrepreneurs;
register of individuals put on the wanted list in the framework of enforcement proceedings;
information about persons who are wanted on suspicion of committing crimes;
information about the search for vehicles of debtors within the framework of enforcement proceedings.

Website of the Federal Antimonopoly Service fas.gov.ru

Website of the Federal Service for Financial Markets fcsm.ru

general information about issuers and the structure of the authorized capital;

Website of the Supreme Arbitration Court arbitr.ru

electronic guard (tracking the registration of cases for specific participants or for a specific case);
bank of decisions of arbitration courts;
court calendar.

Website of the Federal Migration Service fms.gov.ru

verification of the validity of the passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation;
checking the validity of work permits and patents of foreign citizens and stateless persons;
checking the invitation of a foreign citizen.

Website of the Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre and Cartography portal.rosreestr.ru

reference information on real estate objects;
provision of information contained in the state real estate cadastre

Website of the Main Interregional Center for Processing and Dissemination of Statistical Information of the Federal State Statistics Service gmcgks.ru

provision of statistical information (composition of indicators of the annual balance sheet, information on fixed assets, stocks and costs, cash, capital and reserves, financial performance, cash flows, receivables and payables, etc.);
data on the financial statements of organizations

Website of the Central Bank cbr.ru

liquidated and liquidated legal entities;
legal entities, with which there is no connection with the specified address (location) entered in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities
information about the addresses of the websites of credit institutions;
credit institutions registered with S.W.I.F.T.;
information about persons that have a significant (direct or indirect) influence on the decisions made by the management bodies of banks
information on revocation of licenses from credit institutions

Some organizations providing information services for the provision of official information from government agencies

Internet project "Prima-inform" - direct access to the official databases of Rosstat, FAS, Federal Tax Service and other departments (prima-inform.ru)
the company StatService (gnivc.ru) is the official distributor of information services "Tax Certificate" from the Federal State Unitary Enterprise GNIVTs of the Federal Tax Service of Russia.
journal "Bulletin of state registration" vestnik-gosreg.ru
extracts from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and EGRIP;
information base on the decisions taken by the registration authorities on the upcoming exclusion of inactive legal entities from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.
Kommersant Publishing House kommersant.ru
information about bankruptcy proceedings.
National Association of Stock Market Participants skrin.ru
Comprehensive Information and News Disclosure System (SKRIN) - information on organizations, affiliates and founders, annual financial statements, comparison of issuers' indicators, information on individual entrepreneurs
Kommersant-kartoteka company kartoteka.ru (previously called Valaam-info)
extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and EGRIP;
search for a legal entity as a founder and search for an individual as a founder;
electronic monitoring of information changes in registers;
annual financial statements of legal entities;
information about insolvency (bankruptcy);
analysis of the financial activity of a legal entity;
preparation of business references.
consulting company "Business Lighthouse" blh.ru
extract from IGRUL and EGRIP;
balance sheets of Russian enterprises;
drawing up a business certificate for a legal entity;
getting statistics codes.
reference service of legal entities egrul.ru
extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities for a legal entity (according to PSRN or TIN);
accounting reports of enterprises;
extract for an individual from the database of the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, EGRIP (by full name, TIN, OGRNIP);
verification of the passport of an individual.
Interfax interfax.ru This organization represents the systems:
the information and analytical base "SPARK" ("System of professional analysis of markets and companies") integrates, in addition to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and the EGRIP, a number of bases of other organizations, plus an array of company news since 1992;
e-disclosure.ru information disclosure system by e-disclosure securities issuers;
complex news analysis system SCAN scan-interfax.ru information product for searching, selecting and analyzing news information;
all-Russian information directory GDE24 gde24.ru. Reference data on enterprises and organizations in Russia;
privatize.ru privatization portal.

SPARK information arrays contain information about companies in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan (with the ability to order information about foreign companies):

company details, registration information, licenses;
composition of management, company structure, co-owners, subsidiaries, branch network;
affiliation between individuals and legal entities;
messages from the state registration bulletin: creation, liquidation and reorganization of legal entities, changes in the authorized capital, purchase of shares in other companies, other information;
financial statements of companies and statistics adapted for fundamental analysis, financial and calculated ratios, including sectoral ratios, information on audits;
financial statements of banks and insurance companies;
scoring assessments, including credit risks and reliability of the company;
determination of the reliability of the company from the position of calculating one-day firms (due diligence index);
description of the company's activities, plans for its development, significant events, announcements of corporate events, information about the company's obligations;
information on participation in public tenders;
securities, calendar of events for stocks and bonds, quotes, information about the registrar;
analyst recommendations, reviews and comments;
database on bankruptcies and decisions of arbitration courts;
company domain name analysis;
media reports, various public information;
patents for trademarks, inventions, utility models, industrial designs;
payment discipline index (companies voluntarily exchange data on a monthly basis, whether their counterparties pay current bills on time).
law enforcement portal of the Russian Federation 112.ru
database on private security organizations;
database of invalid passports;
determination of the district police officer in the territory of interest;
addresses and coordinates of the nearest law enforcement agencies.
Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation tpprf.ru - register of reliable partners,
Moscow Chamber of Commerce and Industry mostpp.ru - a register of reliable enterprises in Moscow,
search for a company by postal code in the information system Law and Finance (ispf.ru),
search for patent information around the world, including in Russia (ru.espacenet.com ),
search for a land plot on a cadastral map (maps.rosreestr.ru),
tracking the movement of wagons across the territory of the CIS (zerno.zol.ru and gdevagon.ru),

Moscow Center for Economic Security (businessinfo.ru):

information bases on the organizations of the Russian Federation;
identification information on organizations in Moscow (including extracts from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and information on the number of enterprises in Moscow);
technical characteristics of residential and non-residential premises in Moscow;
verification of TIN for individuals and legal entities, pension fund insurance certificates, correspondent accounts of Russian banks, current accounts of legal entities of the Russian Federation.
information portal for searching information about government organizations and legal entities in Ukraine and Belarus (ekb-security.ru),
information portal for checking licenses issued to Russian enterprises (ekb-security.ru),
information portal for access to databases of legal entities in some foreign countries (ekb-security.ru),
information portal for access to databases of insolvent companies and individuals abroad (ekb-security.ru),
Mosgorusluga mgr.ru - obtaining information from the Office of the Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre and Cartography in Moscow on the rights to real estate and transactions with it,
information portals providing images from satellites (google.ru),
company B.K. and partners (bkip.ru) - verification of bank details (BIC directory and payment details verification service), as well as verification of TIN, OGRN and OGRNIP,
company Audit - IT (audit-it.ru) - verification and restoration of bank accounts.

Getting information on the Internet

The procedure for searching for the necessary information on the Internet:

factual information about the organization of interest can be partially obtained from several sources - the organization's own website (organization history, details, management, list of services provided or products manufactured, long-term plans), the website of the regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the websites of the regional and city administrations;
information about the organization's shares can be obtained from the websites of the Federal Securities Commission, the websites of information and consulting companies, as well as the media investigating economic problems (for example, the magazine "Expert");
information on the organization's balance sheet, as well as the organization's debt to the budget, can be obtained on the website of the local branch of the Ministry of Taxes and Duties;
investment information can be obtained on the website of the regional Administration and on the websites of consulting agencies;
information on development prospects, as well as analytical reviews in the dynamics of the entire industry, can be obtained on the websites of industry magazines, websites of local media;
information about companies working with the securities of the organization can be obtained from the websites of announcements for the sale of shares and promissory notes;
personal information about the management of the organization can be obtained from the websites of local media and websites of local authorities;
compromising materials can be obtained on the websites of local and central media, special websites specializing in compromising evidence.

Conducting business intelligence about a company from its official website can be carried out according to the following scheme:

analyze all the information published on the official website and draw conclusions about the company's activities based on it;
analyze all information published on the official website for confidentiality. As a rule, the publication of confidential information on the site most often occurs in a company where the content of the site is entrusted to technical staff, who rarely attaches importance to the issue of restricting the dissemination of confidential information and believes that the more information is posted on the site, the better. For example, they often post lists of partners/customers with their contact information;
sometimes it is possible to obtain confidential information through a “feedback form”. Any site provides tools for organizing feedback between its visitors and the company. At the moment, the most common are the placement on the pages of the Internet resource of the electronic addresses of the company's personnel or the ability to send a letter to the company directly from the site. You can try to send a letter from a site visitor and kindly ask to clarify the consumer characteristics of some product of interest. In the future, having received a response, you can send another message with a request to describe in more detail the technical side of the product and the stages of its production. To motivate all this as “arguments for further work with the company”. Thus, you can try to get confidential information. To prevent such things from happening in a company, it is desirable that all emails come to one mailbox, it is advisable to entrust the processing and sending of correspondence to one person who knows what information can and cannot be sent to potential customers;
analyze the placement of company news and press releases on the website. The collection and analysis of this information can make it possible to determine the strategic directions of the company's development, to understand where the company is moving in development, what it wants to achieve, what it pays more attention to and what is the main thing for the company. To prevent this from happening to the company, it is desirable to supplement important news information with coverage of other, minor aspects of the company's activities. Also, never post news on the site that describe events in the near future. Always describe facts that have already passed;
from the official website of the company, you can get information about corporate policy, about the working day of the company, the names and positions of employees, which can be used in social engineering attacks;
according to vacancies and requirements for job seekers, you can get information about what the company plans to do (for example, if a bank needs a specialist in plastic cards, it can be concluded that this bank will enter the market with plastic cards in the near future);
analyze the section "partners", "regional offices", "subsidiaries". The information in these sections can also be used for social engineering, as people in the central office or company usually do not know employees of remote offices, which allows attackers to disguise themselves and extort various confidential information. In the event that the company has regional offices, then with a high degree of probability all these territories are united into a single corporate network. At the same time, trusted relationships are established with remote branches and the requirements for access control from these offices are significantly lower than with similar access, but from the Internet. Therefore, you can try to hack the remote office server and attack the head office from it;
having obtained information about the contact numbers of the company, one can try to detect modem inputs that are activated during off-hours for access to the Internet (for example, to download e-mail) or for other purposes (for example, to update the database of the legal advisory system);
analyze the rating systems and catalogs of the company's Internet resources. To obtain such data, counters are used. They are often available and placed on each page of the Internet resource and record its viewing. By the indicators of the counter, you can see the pages and sections of the site that are the most viewed. If they contain information about products or descriptions of services, it becomes clear what exactly visitors are focusing on. Having this information, you can pay more attention in your work to those goods and services that are of interest to visitors, and thereby increase your sales. Using the counter that records information about visitors, you can get information about the regions that are interested in a particular product, that is, make it possible to get a map of the distribution of the interest of visitors to the resource by region. In addition, you can intercept potential customers/partners as soon as they show interest in your competitor's website. Counters can allow you to analyze the behavior of site visitors. The statistics of the counter allows you to view the transitions of visitors through the pages, which makes it possible to study their motivation, identify the reasons for their adoption of a particular decision. In addition, for example, if the e-shop site counter is open, then you can get traffic and behavior statistics, which means sales, income and other commercial information.

Search for the necessary information in databases:

information resources presented on the Internet;
professional Russian databases;
professional foreign databases;
semi-legal databases on the market.

Search engines that collect information from the invisible part of the Internet

sitesputnik.ru (search in the visible and invisible parts of the Internet, search for information indexed by other search engines, search for links, blogs, etc.);
r-techno.com (for example, R-techno's Web Insight product - search in the invisible part of the Internet);
tora-centre.ru/avalanche.htm (search for information by your Internet robot).

The collection of information in the invisible part of the Internet is carried out according to the following scheme:

advanced information search;
search by your Internet robots;
obtaining information using incorrect software configuration or security vulnerabilities;
search for information with temporary access;
search for old versions of files and sites;
search for open files and folders;
search for open FTP;
search for information through information partners;
search for information through social networks;
search for information through blogs and forums;
analysis of XLS files (for passwords);
obtaining information through distance learning tools;
obtaining information through the means of collective work or collective storage.

Information resources with databases presented on the Internet

AK&M - information retrieval system Data Capital (akm.ru or disclosure.ru);
Prime-TASS - economic information agency (prime-tass.ru);
Finmarket - information and analytical agency (finmarket.ru);
FIRA PRO - database of enterprises (pro-demo.fira.ru);
Counterparty is a resource that allows you to get online access to the reports of Russian companies from anywhere in the world around the clock. The database contains quarterly reports, lists of affiliates, annual financial statements and company contact information. Also, by accessing the database, you can get an up-to-date extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and search for companies by the full name of the general directors and founders (k-agent.ru);
Rosbusinessconsulting - information and analytical agency (rbc.ru);
MIAC - Interbank Information and Analytical Center (bpl.ru);
RTS - Russian trading system - over-the-counter market for corporate securities (rtsnet.ru);
MICEX - Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (micex.com);
AUVER - association of bill market participants (auver.ru);
Information resource of the Russian business community in Internet-BUSINESS.RU (business.ru);
Bulletin of NAUFOR (naufor.ru);
National Credit Bureau (creditnet.ru);
Information system "Labyrinth" of the Panorama Center (information on organizations and individuals) (panorama.ru or labyrinth.ru);
WPS - media monitoring agency (wps.ru);
Mobile - news agency (information on banks) (mobile.ru).

Specialized resources with databases by business sectors and territories

Specialized resources for IT and technical systems verification:

a system for determining the site address by its IP address (www.2ip.ru);
system for checking the IP address with obtaining information about its location (www.2ip.ru);
system for checking the existence of E-mail (www.2ip.ru);
domain verification system with obtaining information about the owner of a registered domain name (www.host.ru);
website traffic determination system (www.2ip.ru);
site hosting determination system (www.2ip.ru);
full site analysis system (www.2ip.ru);
system for determining the distance between IP addresses (www.2ip.ru);
a resource with secret codes for undeclared capabilities of cell phones (www.sbmobile.ru);
system for determining DEF and ABC codes of Russia by mobile operators - determining the territorial affiliation of a subscriber by cell phone number (www.sbmobile.ru);
system D - telecom. System for monitoring overdue receivables and combating fraud in communication systems (www.creditnet.ru) .

Professional Russian databases:

Servers of organizations – generators/suppliers of reference legal systems:

World information resources are divided into three main sectors:

business information sector;
sector of scientific, technical and special information;
mass consumer information sector.

The business information sector is divided into:

exchange and financial information;
statistical information;
commercial information;
business news in the field of economics and business.

Servers of world news agencies, (stock exchange and financial information):

Servers of world news agencies (commercial information):

Unofficial market information databases that can be used to conduct business intelligence:

"Banks of the Russian Federation" - information of the Central Bank, analytics, balance sheets, loans to legal entities, profit and loss statements, loans to shareholders, details, founders, personalities, subsidiaries and affiliates, issued certificates and bonds, promissory notes, etc. on banks of Moscow and Russia;
"Producers of goods and services in Russia and the CIS" - detailed information on enterprises and organizations with a complete list of goods and services offered;
"Unified State Register of Enterprises of Russia" - registration data on all enterprises in Russia, including data from local registration chambers and data from the State Statistics Committee, broken down by regions;
"Statistical reporting of the largest Russian enterprises" - information on 50,000 largest Russian enterprises, including economic indicators, statistical reporting, balance sheets, volumes and list of products, export-import operations, etc.;
"VIP" - information on politicians, businessmen and public figures of Russia. Ability to search for information on legal entities;
"Labyrinth" - a dossier on politicians, entrepreneurs, government agencies, commercial structures;
"Customs" - a base for export-import operations carried out in Russia. Complete and detailed information about the buyer, supplier, customs declaration number, product description, product code according to TNVED, quantity, cost, transaction date, banks servicing the transaction, customs terminal, etc.;
"Press" - media workers - full name, place of work, phone number, date of birth, topic of publications, etc.;
"Telephone directory of departments and largest enterprises of the Russian Federation" - the largest enterprises of the Russian Federation, federal and municipal authorities and control, ministries, departments, commissions, state committees, supervision, etc. - Full name. employees, direct phone numbers, addresses, positions held;
"Moscow Registration Chamber" - legal entities and private entrepreneurs in Moscow. Requisites, statutory data, founders of legal entities, subsidiaries and higher organizations, branches and successors. A complete history of any legal entity from the moment of its creation (re-registration, change of management, founders, directors, accountants, addresses). Contains remarks of the State Tax Inspectorate on violations in the submission of financial statements;
"Moscow Regional Registration Chamber" - legal entities and private entrepreneurs of the Moscow Region;
"Business-info" - legal entities and private entrepreneurs in Moscow;
"Moscow Land Committee" - information on land plots, including the exact address, area, data on the organization or individual, contact phone number, contract number, start and end dates of the contract, characteristics and purpose of the site;
"Moscow Real Estate" - tenants and owners of non-residential premises in Moscow, detailed information on any tenant and owner, complete information on leased space, premises, their technical characteristics, data on lease and sale agreements, lease terms;
"Private property" - apartments in Moscow and their owners. Ability to search for previous owners of the apartment;
"GIBDD Moscow" - information on motor vehicles registered in Moscow since 1960 and their owners. There is information on the documents - the grounds for registration, contains special marks and comments from the traffic police (replacement of units, being on the Interpol wanted list, transit numbers, etc.);
"Theft" - information on vehicles that have been wanted since 1984;
"Driver's licenses" - information about individuals who have the right to drive vehicles, an archive of old-style driver's licenses, drivers detained in a state of intoxication, temporary permits, information about violations by drivers;
"Individuals of Moscow" - information about registered residents of Moscow - full name, registration address, date of birth;
"OVIR" - a database of foreign passports of individuals in Moscow and the region;
"Stolen passports" - information on lost, stolen and invalidated civil, foreign passports, national passports of CIS citizens, citizenship inserts, marriage certificates, passes, forms, official seals and stamps;
"Wanted-conviction" - information on individuals who are wanted or have a criminal record;
"Spetsuchet" - information on persons who are registered with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and have a criminal record in Moscow and the region. Possibility to check the criminal past of a person;
"Irbis-3" - checking an individual for special registration and involvement in an organized criminal group. Information on established connections, controlled objects, detentions;
"Administrative violations" - information on administrative offenses committed on the territory of Moscow;
"Road accidents" - detailed information about accidents that have occurred since 1998 on the territory of Moscow and the region, including data on the participants in the accident, cars, circumstances and causes of the accident;
"Crime" - reports on Moscow and the region on crimes and offenses, incidents and thefts over the past 5 years. The ability to check a physical, legal person, car for involvement in a particular crime;
"Seized notebooks" - information on the owner, seizure data, telephone and address information, passing telephone numbers with comments from law enforcement agencies, the ability to check the phone of an individual or legal entity for presence in notebooks;
"Economic crimes" - tax crimes and violations, debt to the budget, currency and export control, tax crimes of individuals;
"Debtors of the State Tax Inspectorate of Moscow" - the results of the year, information on violations in the submission of accounting reports by legal entities in Moscow, information on violations of the submission of quarterly reports by RF issuers to the FCSM";
"Unified telephone directory" - data on phone owners in the Moscow region.

For completeness of information about a legal entity, information is usually collected about individuals who are managers (decision makers).

Analytical work of the security service

Analytical work in business intelligence is built in the following areas:

analysis of competitor's activities;
analysis of the competitive environment surrounding the company.

Methods of analytical work:

carrying out analytical work without the use of IAS;
carrying out analytical work with the applications of IAS;
carrying out analytical work only IAS.

Some IAS working with open sources of information:

information and analytical system "Galaktika-zoom" of the corporation "Galaktika" (www.galaktika.ru) - information search, revealing the essence of the text, comparison of documents, dynamics of changes over time, formation of dossiers on individuals and legal entities, etc.);
information and analytical system "Semantic Archive" of the company "Analytical Business Solutions" (www.anbr.ru) - the creation of information repositories, information search, the formation of a dossier on accounting objects, identifying relationships between accounting objects, highlighting the main objects of information, highlighting "semantic fragments”, search for information duplicates, presentation of information in an object-oriented form, search for implicit links between objects, creation of digests, etc.;
information and analytical system "Checking the Borrower" of the company "Analytical Business Solutions" (www.anbr.ru) - search and verification of information, formation of a dossier on the borrower, etc.;
information and analytical systems "Trend" and "Monitoring" of the company "Verbin and Partners" - monitoring information according to specified scenarios and tracking the dynamics of changes in the parameters of accounting objects;
software complex ellectum.bis of the Informburo company (www.informburo.ru) – collection of information, building links between accounting objects;
information and analytical system for monitoring and analyzing the media in real time "Medialogy" of the company "Medialogy" (www.mlg.ru) - identifying links between accounting objects, identifying negative information on accounting objects, comparing objects, collecting information in blogs, cutting off informational noise, contextual and object search for information, thematic search for information, analysis of objects in dynamics, search for business clients according to specified accounting parameters, etc.;
automated information system for data verification "Expertise" of the research and production company "Kronos" (www.cronos.ru) - search for factual and statistical information and its processing, formation of a dossier on accounting objects, work on "models of a potential intruder", etc. ;
automated system "Monitoring-contractor" of the research and production company "Kronos" (www.cronos.ru) - tracking changes in information on counterparties, performing financial analysis of the counterparty, identifying signs of unreliability according to the methods of the Federal Tax Service of Russia, identifying links between counterparties, etc. ;
information retrieval system "Dauphin" of the AP-systems company (www.ap-system.ru) - integrated information retrieval, dossier formation, integrated processing of links, creation of information collections, etc.;
FactExtractor (Russian Context Optimizer www.rco.ru) is a text-based fact-finding program for text analysis and detection of various types of facts associated with given objects - personalities or organizations. Formation of a dossier on the object of accounting or certain aspects of its activity, covered in the media. The program allows not only to find fragments of the text, which refers, for example, to a person's trips, her meetings, contracts, transactions, but also to accurately determine all places of travel, counterparts and counterparties, names of goods, and so on.

Some IAS that allow you to create corporate databases:

automated information system "Economic security" of the research and production company "Kronos" (www.cronos.ru) - the formation of an individual database of the company on contracts, organizations, persons, events, telephones and other objects of accounting with building relationships;
automated information system "Arion" of the company "METTEM" (www.memsys.ru) - accumulation of corporate information, its indexing, structuring and processing;
automated information and analytical system "Astarta" of the company "Cognitive Technologies" (www.cognitive.ru) - collection, processing and analysis of unstructured information received from the Internet, printed materials, media, and other sources. Automatic subject detection, document search, automatic training of rubricators, etc.

Some programs that allow you to analyze the economic condition of a counterparty company:

program "financial analysis: professional + business valuation" of the company "Finanalis" (www.finanalis.ru) - financial analysis of the company based on accounting, valuation of the enterprise, analysis of the probability of bankruptcy, analysis of the cash flow statement, financial planning, company analysis in terms of credit risk, etc.;
“AuditExpert” program of the company “Finanalis” (www.finanalis.ru) – analysis of the financial condition of the company based on the data of the balance sheet, research of financial and economic activities, comparative analysis of several companies, valuation of the company’s property, etc.;
program "Master of Finance: Analysis and Planning" of the company "Finanalis" (www.finanalis.ru) - a program for comprehensive retrospective analysis and forecasting of the company's financial condition based on balance sheet data. Analyzes: liquidity, financial stability, profitability, break-even, turnover, profitability, labor efficiency, etc.;
the program "Your financial analyst" of the company "Audit - IT" (www.audit-it.ru) - a system for intellectual analysis of the financial position and results of the organization's activities according to financial statements. The system conducts a complete financial analysis, draws up an explanatory note to it, evaluates the value of the organization, prepares advice on improving the financial condition, and assesses the likelihood of a tax audit.

General methods of information analysis

synthesis method (logical combination of information elements that do not externally have connections into a system of a single direction). In the process of this method, a reasonable hypothesis is put forward. In the future, the emphasis is on finding the missing elements of the hypothesis;
analogy method;
elimination method;
method of cause-and-effect relationships;
statistical method;
expert method;
situational (game) methods;
content analysis method.

Text analysis methods

Before starting the analysis of the text, it is brought into a dry, formalized text, in other words, any formations and add-ons (emotional, advertising, psychological, propaganda, profanity, slang, etc.) are removed. Further, the arguments are built in accordance with the rules of logic and the text is analyzed.

Text analysis involves:

analysis of the distribution of service terms to determine the professional affiliation of the author of the text, as well as adherence to certain patterns;
analysis to determine the level of education of the author;
analysis of the information content of the text style (clearness, unambiguity, relevance, completeness of thought, etc.);
analysis of the structure of the text, logic, phraseology, the concept of building a letter (planned or random);
analysis of syntax and punctuation (literacy) of the text;
analysis to determine authorship (comparison with other texts by the same author);
analysis to determine the time of writing the text;
analysis of the author's emotionality;
analysis of the argumentation of facts and identification of distortion (lack of argumentation, false argumentation, incomplete argumentation, etc.);
analysis to determine the recipient of the text (to whom the text is addressed or interested);
analysis to determine the customer of the text;
analysis of the publication status (yellow press, reputable magazine, etc.);
analysis of information commenting on the text (reaction to the text);
analysis of other publications, statements of this author;
analysis of other publications on this topic;
content analysis of the text.

Types of content analysis of the text:

quantitative content analysis, which involves the analysis of the frequency of occurrence of certain terms in the text;
qualitative content analysis, which involves analysis even on the basis of the single presence or absence of a certain term.

In the process of text analysis, the following are distinguished:

components that can be classified as facts;
components that can potentially be classified as facts;
components that cannot be classified as facts.

At the same time, we must not forget that the following distortions introduced into the texts are possible:

unintentional logical errors;
incorrect construction of logical structures;
intentional misrepresentations;
emotional distortions.

There are also psycholinguistic expert systems for text analysis or preparation for the greatest impact on the target audience. For example, the VAAL (R) system, which, in addition to content analysis, allows:

evaluate the unconscious emotional impact of the phonetic structure of words on the subconscious of a person;
generate words with given phonosemantic characteristics;
evaluate the unconscious emotional impact of the phonetic structure of texts on the subconscious of a person;
set the characteristics of the desired impact and purposefully adjust the texts according to the selected parameters in order to achieve the desired effect of the impact;
evaluate the sound-color characteristics of words and texts;
produce emotional-lexical analysis of texts;
tune in to various social and professional groups of people that can be distinguished by the vocabulary they use;
perform secondary data analysis by visualization, factor and correlation analysis.

Analysis of the competitive environment

When analyzing the competitive environment, pay attention to the following:

trends in changing legislation governing business;
market trends in business;
new technologies;
business resources;
organizations that currently offer similar products or services;
organizations that are offering alternative products or services right now;
organizations that might offer similar products or services in the future;
organizations that could eliminate the need for a product or service altogether.

Business intelligence to study a competitor includes the following areas:

study of the current state of affairs of a competitor;
studying the resources and capabilities of a competitor;
studying the intentions of a competitor.

Methods for analyzing the activities of legal entities:

5 forces method by Michael Porter;
due diligence method;
SWOT method (matrix method of enterprise analysis, assessing the strength, weakness, opportunities and threats of the company under study);
method of sabotage analysis;
expert methods.

The competitive environment development forecast is based on Michael Porter's "five forces" model of competition and includes the solution of the following subtasks:

assessment of the activities and plans of competitors (by the SWOT method, by the method of the Boston group, etc.);
assessment of the activities and plans of suppliers of raw materials and components (by the method of relations, by the SWOT method, etc.);
assessment of the possibility of the appearance of substitute goods (patent analysis, analysis of publications in scientific and technical publications, analysis of exhibits of specialized exhibitions, etc.);
assessment of the plans of customers and buyers of products and services (survey method, communication method, expert methods, etc.);
assessment of the possibility of the emergence of potential competitors (expert methods, media analysis, etc.);
assessment of the administrative and state resource (a feature of Russia);
assessment of the criminal environment (a feature of Russia);
assessment of the judicial system (a feature of Russia);
media assessment (a feature of Russia).

The Due Diligence method is mainly used when buying a business and includes the following areas:

the financial analysis;
legal analysis;
tax analysis;
market position analysis.

SWOT analysis method:

This method involves entering into a special table of data characterizing the activities of the company. The table consists of four blocks:

strength block - this block analyzes the company's strengths, including:
products (high quality, low cost, competent pricing, strong advertising, etc.);
service/personnel (high professionalism of personnel, development of employees, social programs, service support, trademarks and positioning, etc.);
engineering and development of new products (equipment modernization, technology improvement, quality improvement, etc.);
management (low management costs, mobile structure, unified coordination, rapid passage of management signals, etc.);
weakness block - this block analyzes the weaknesses of the company, including debt obligations, low-skilled workers, labor conflicts, poor product quality, bad image, outdated equipment, inefficient technologies, etc.;
opportunity block (oportunities) - in this block, the capabilities of the company are analyzed, including:
administrative opportunities (lobby, connection with the authorities, dependence of the authorities on the company, the ability to influence the adoption of government decisions, etc.);
economic opportunities (opportunities to increase production volumes, to reorient production, to improve quality, to reduce prices, to attract investment, to obtain loans, etc.);
criminal opportunities (the ability to use crime, dependence on crime, the interest of crime in the company, the plans of crime in relation to the company, etc.);
scientific and technical capabilities (interaction with research institutes, modernization of technologies, investments in science, other participation in scientific activities);
market opportunities (strong competitive position, growth in demand, market power of the manufacturer, lack of substitute products, etc.)
threats block - this block analyzes external conditions that can harm the company, including shortages of raw materials, increased government regulation, the emergence of new competitors, increasing interest rates on loans, etc.

After filling in the table, combinations of the obtained characteristics are considered. Combinations "opportunities - strengths" can be used as guidelines for strategic development, combinations "opportunities - weaknesses" can be used for internal transformations, combinations "threats - weaknesses" are considered as limitations of strategic development, combinations "threats - strengths" - as potential strategic Benefits.

Diversion analysis method

This method involves a special modeling of the occurrence of undesirable phenomena, in order to then, having found ways to neutralize them, to prevent their real occurrence. In fact, we are talking about inventing sabotage, hence the name of the approach. Naturally, after a sabotage is invented, one should check whether it has been implemented in practice, whether there is a possibility of its implementation, and if such a possibility is not excluded, it is necessary to decide how to prevent this.

Stages of the method of sabotage analysis

definition of a sabotage task in the form: “Given a company carrying out certain types of activities. It is necessary to create the maximum possible number of harmful effects associated with this company”;
the main parameters of the company and their values for the normal operation of the company are determined;
harmful phenomena that can disrupt the normal operation of the company are identified and their experimental analysis is carried out, sharply increasing or, conversely, reducing the parameters of these phenomena;
dangerous zones (pain points) are determined, i.e. the company's most vulnerable areas. As a rule, typical danger zones include zones of concentration of flows passing through the system (flows of people, cash flows, information flows, etc.), zones where employees perform a large number of different functions, zones of contact with the external environment (zones of contact with customers , with competitors, with regulatory authorities, etc.), zones of docking of different systems, departments (for example, the purchasing department - the sales department - the advertising department - the accounting department, due to inconsistencies at the junctions of these departments, emergency situations often occur), zones, in which responsible decisions must be made under conditions of high uncertainty, lack of time and information (in stressful circumstances), etc.;
the causes of harmful phenomena are analyzed and it is determined which of them can be implemented in this task;
the exacerbation of the simulated situation is analyzed, i.e. how to enhance the harmful effects.

Methodology for conducting an analysis of a legal entity:

first contact analysis;
analysis of the submitted documents (constituent documents, certificates of registration, registration with government agencies, etc.);
analysis of economic activities and capabilities of the company;
analysis of the financial condition;
analysis of the company's charter;
analysis of founders, company executives and decision makers;
analysis of the legitimacy of the company's activities;
analysis of proposed contractual relations;
visual analysis of the company's premises;
analysis of attributes, style, image of the company;
analysis of the organizational structure of the company.

It is possible to predict the reliability of partners - legal entities with a certain degree of probability, based on the following information:

Time of existence of the company and organizational changes that have taken place. Danger signs:

short time of existence;
frequent change of name;
frequent change of organizational and legal form;
frequent change of legal or actual address;
the company was bought from a company that created several legal entities in advance specifically for sale;
frequent change of bank or account;
there are no "primary" documents or they are lost;
frequent change of place of tax registration;
change of directions of activity.

Company registration address. Danger signs:

registration at one address of a large number of organizations;
mass phone;
address (building at this address) does not exist.

Company name. Danger signs:

an abbreviation like "International" or "Ltd" in the name of an unknown company, the founder of which is one or more individuals (each country has its own designations of legal forms: Ltd, Plc, Inc, Corp, AG, etc. Therefore, Russian business structures , including in their name, for example, Limited or Ltd, act illegally - these terms mean belonging to countries whose legal system is based on British law);
the name copies, in whole or in part, a well-known brand or a well-known respectable company.

material values of the company. Danger signs:

administrative premises are absent or not adapted to the tasks;
there are no fixed assets necessary for activities (transport, warehouse, retail outlets, etc.);
there are no permanent phones, secretaries and other "attributes" of the organization;
no inventory items.

Founders (managers) of the company. Danger signs:

the founder (head) is a person whose performance of functional duties is difficult or impossible (old age, student, military serviceman, convicted or serving a sentence, is on long-term treatment, without a fixed place of residence, a refugee, a forced migrant, incapacitated, etc. .);
a large number of founders;
existing conflicts between the founders (managers), as well as between the leaders and the workforce;
frequent change of founders (managers);
the founder (manager) is a person with lost documents;
the founder (head) is also the founder (head) of a large number of companies;
inconsistency of the status of the founder (head) with his appearance and financial situation;
the founder (head) is often found among its counterparties;
the founder (individual or legal entity) has previously established an unreliable company;
instead of managers, other persons (especially not related to the company) represent the interests of the company by proxy;
the absence of the founder (manager) of permanent registration or permanent residence in the region.

Company employees. Danger signs:

in the state only the general director and chief accountant;
the presence of disqualified persons;
the presence of persons with lost documents;
the use of foreign labor without a permit or with canceled permits;
the salary of the company's employees is less than the living wage.

Economic activity. Danger signs:

lack of regular economic activity;
absence of a bank account;
lack of financial statements submitted to the tax office;
the organization is included in the list of legal entities controlled by the tax inspectorate in the first place;
"zero" tax or accounting reporting for one or more tax periods;
provision of invalid or incorrectly executed documents (TIN, balance sheet, lease agreements, etc.);
negative image of the company, interest in the company on the part of state regulatory and law enforcement agencies;
dynamic deterioration of the parameters of the company's activities;
the irregular nature of the company's business;
the company conducts single non-core operations;
small authorized capital (illiquid authorized capital);
lack of long-term partners;
negative reviews of counterparties;
lack of economic feasibility in the company's operations;
the company uses non-market prices or prices fluctuate greatly;
the company uses non-standard means of payment (promissory note, barter, assignment of claims);
the company conducts financial and economic operations that are not typical for registered types of activities according to OKVED;
the presence of large accounts receivable;
the presence of ties with unscrupulous companies (organizations) or dangerous individuals;
cases of fraud in the past life of the company or the past life of the owners (managers) of the company;
existence of judicial or administrative proceedings involving the company or its founders or managers.

Company organization. Danger signs:

absence of subsidiaries (parent) companies;
a large number of shareholders;
lack of government orders;
the company is not a member of trade unions (for example, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs);
the company is registered with the legal form of LLC;
the company transfers ownership of itself (shares) to a legal entity that is currently in liquidation;
the company is in fact a small business (headcount, turnover), but at the same time acts as a counterparty of a large taxpayer with large amounts of transactions.

The legal side of the company. Danger signs:

documents are certified by a notary who has resigned, or whose signature was previously forged;
lack of a license for activities that must be licensed;
the constituent documents of the company are created non-standard or do not correspond to the actual activities of the company;
lack of legal purity of creation and functioning.

Based on the results of the analysis, in the presence of raster signs of danger, we can conclude to which group of companies the company under study belongs. Dubious companies fall into several categories:

director company. Used to make payments for personal services, hide personal income from taxes, and maintain private financial security for one or more people, usually the owners of a company. Such structures do not show tangible business activity. Signs: founders one or a small number of individuals; the head is one of the founders; registered as an LLC; located near the place of residence of its head (founder); the type of activity is related to cash;
zombie company. Almost a "dead" company that performs certain specified functions. Represents a clear, hidden and doomed bankrupt. Signs: as a rule, re-registration does not pass and does not update its installation data; the absence of a taxable base, and in the balance sheet, with the exception of the positions of the authorized capital and borrowed funds, the overwhelming number of zero positions;
giro-company, or operating company. It is used to accumulate incoming income on your accounts and conduct financial transactions in order to cash them out, "launder", transfer funds to offshore zones. As a rule, there is a short time. Signs: founders - several legal entities that are either registered in offshore zones, or are characterized by a large geographical spread; a significant positive or negative balance of credit and debit turnovers of the company for a long period, at least six months;
stand company (pseudo company). A one-day company that is used to set up possible sanctions for fraudulent transactions. Signs: registered to fictitious persons or according to lost (stolen) passports, as a rule, in the form of an LLC; the composition of the founders consists of companies registered in offshore zones; the minimum authorized capital at the time of registration;
camouflage company. Legal "roof" for illegal activities. It is created in order to cover up the criminal or frontier activities of the parent company - to give outwardly plausible benign signs to the company initiating fraudulent transactions. It can also be created for doing business in the segment of increased entrepreneurial risk. Signs: external requisites and attributes of real companies (sometimes very famous ones) are used, often unaware that fraudulent operations are being covered up in their name; the company itself is a dwarf one with a "penny" authorized capital, but the founder is one legal entity, a large company with significant capital;
phantom company. Non-existent, "inflated" company. Has a bank account for falsified documents without any registration.

Behavioral aspects in identifying an unreliable partner:

fussiness in negotiations on obtaining a loan, obtaining goods for sale;
overestimation of their opportunities in the business world;
repeated verbal assurances of their solvency, responsibility for the loan taken, goods;
stories about their business connections in commercial and financial circles, about their capabilities, which are difficult to double-check;
the vagueness of statements, the lack of references to specific people who can double-check his statements;
offer more favorable than usual terms of the transaction;
haste when signing the contract, the desire to explain this by being busy, the need to leave for the next meeting, etc.;
negligence in the execution of the contract, the desire to stipulate a number of points orally or present them as self-evident;
provision of guarantees by unsuitable means.

Analysis of possible crisis situations in the company's activities

3 simple parameters can clearly signal the possible approach of a crisis:

the life of the company in the market;
company's sales volume;
the number of company employees.

company life time. According to statistics, 4% of companies survive for 10 years, no more than 20% of start-up companies reach the third year of their development, the most crisis years of company development are 2-3 and 6-8 years of development. The first crisis is mainly related to the financial stability and financial management of the company, the second is mainly related to the management crisis and has a managerial connotation.

Company sales volume. As a rule, a company's crisis occurs during periods when the company's sales volume reaches 100-200 thousand, 3-6 million, 50 million and 800 million dollars a year. These difficulties can be caused by business consolidation processes: the purchase of new equipment, the emergence of new business processes, etc. At this point, the old solutions no longer satisfy the company, and new solutions have not yet been found. At the same time, the company can also move into a new weight category of business. If a company crosses this line, then in the future it will need to use new tools in business management, as well as in financial planning and marketing.

The number of company employees. The crisis comes when the company employs 7, 30, 250-500, 1000 people. At these moments, the company and the management of the company face the greatest difficulties. In order to resolve them, it is necessary to take a fresh look at the existing structures of relationships, subordination, organizational interaction of business processes that take place in the company.

Analysis of the security of business proposals and contracts

Security analysis of business proposals and contracts is carried out according to the following scheme:

study of the owners or initiators of the project (study of its entrepreneurial activity, environment, correspondence of the business weight of the initiator to the level of the presented project, etc.);
verification of the level of representativeness (documentary confirmation of the authority of the representative, familiarization with the agency contract of the trustee, a call to the representative's company, etc.);
determination of the order of information (accuracy of the representative’s information, how many transmission links the information passed through and how it could be distorted. A trustee of the company, even with the right to negotiate, in a large game of the host company can be used as a pawn, not knowing either the rules of the game or goals);
business weight of the representative in the company;
personal interest of the representative;
presence and number of intermediaries;
contact analysis (accidentally or not you were contacted, chance, as a rule, works for the worse);
analysis of the negotiations (“beware of the Danes who bring gifts”);
study of the mechanism of income generation.

When studying the mechanism of income generation, the following should be taken into account:

the reliability of the project increases with the growth of autonomy;
single-product projects specialized in the production of a limited product range are dangerous;
focus on the human factor is a sign of the weakness of the idea;
a sign of a strong mechanism for the formation of income - the place of formation of profit is as close as possible to the places of formation of its bulk;
the smaller the scale of the income generating mechanism, the better. Even if the business is scattered, the main part of the profit should be generated centrally, and not just accumulated;
you can not respect the law, but you can not ignore it;
the simpler the mechanism for generating income, the closer it is to money;
The "reciprocal" part of the mechanism of income generation should be scrupulously investigated. If it is rather weak, that is, replete with all kinds of responsibility, then the project should be, if not completely rejected, then at least seriously improved.

The analysis of the financial stability of the company according to the presented balance sheet takes place according to the following scheme:

Stage 1 - obtaining the necessary documents from the company under study:

balance sheet (form No. 1);
income statement (Form No. 2);
capital flow statement (Form No. 3).

Stage 2 - verification of the authenticity of the submitted documents.

Stage 3 - preliminary analysis of the balance in the form of compliance with the following indicators:

sum of "total by sections" = sum of rows within sections;
line 399 "balance" = line 699 "balance";
line 480 "retained earnings of the reporting year" (form No. 1) = line 170 "retained earnings (losses) of the reporting period" (form No. 2);
line 010 "authorized capital" (form No. 3) = line 410 "authorized capital" (form No. 1);

If these conditions are not met, then the submitted documents are drawn up incorrectly.

Stage 4 - the assessment of the financial stability of the company is carried out according to the following scheme:

line 010 "authorized capital" (form No. 3) must be less than line 185 "net assets" (form No. 3)

This ratio is provided for by the Federal Law "On Joint Stock Companies" and failure to comply with it indicates the possibility of a financial collapse of the company.

line (490+640+650-390)/line 699 (form No. 1) must be at least 0.5.

In this way, the autonomy coefficient is calculated (the ratio of equity to the total balance sheet), which shows how much the company is able to pay its own funds to investors or shareholders when the appropriate time comes. The growth of the autonomy coefficient indicates an increase in the financial independence of the company, reducing the risk of financial difficulties in the future. The names of the balance sheets are as follows:

490 - "total for the section";

650 - "consumption funds";

390 - "total for section III";

699 - "balance".

lines (290-230-244-252)/(690-630+640+650) (form No. 1) must be at least 2.

Thus, the coverage ratio is calculated (the ratio of the cost of all working capital to short-term loans and borrowings and accounts payable of the enterprise). This value shows how much the company is able to pay off all its assets for debts. The names of the balance sheets are as follows:

290 - "total for section II";

230 – accounts receivable (payments for which are expected more than 12 months after the reporting date)”;

244 - "debts of participants (founders) on contributions to the authorized capital";

252 - "treasury shares purchased from shareholders";

690 - "total for section VI";

630 - "calculations on dividends";

640 - "deferred income";

650 - "consumption funds".

line 050/line 010 (form No. 2).

Thus, the coefficient of efficiency of enterprise management is calculated. It shows how much profit falls on the unit of sales. Normative values of the profitability ratio are differentiated by industries and types of production. In the absence of norms, the dynamics of the indicator should be traced. An increase in profitability indicates an increase in profitability and strengthening financial well-being, while a decrease indicates a decrease in demand for the company's products. The line names are as follows:

050 - "sales profit";

010 - "revenue (net) from the sale of goods, products, works, services (minus value added tax, excises and similar obligatory payments)".

In addition, there is Benford's empirical law. This mathematician found that in arrays of numbers based on real-life data, the number 1 in the first place is much more common than all the others (in 30% of cases). Moreover, the larger the number, the less likely it will be in the first place in the number. The law applies to any number in life, whether it's street addresses, stock prices, population, death rates, river lengths, or company accounts. The IRS uses this law to detect tax fraud. If the number “1” is less common in the tax return than in 30% of cases, then this is a clear signal that not everything is clean with the declaration. And for auditors, an anomaly in the sequence of numbers is a reason for a more thorough check of specific accounting documents.

Analysis of the solvency of customers when issuing loans is carried out according to the following scheme (for individuals):

the presence of a client’s connection with bank employees who make a decision on issuing a loan (family, friendship, love, commercial or other types of relationship);
the amount of wages and the availability of property;
legal capacity of the client;
the presence of guarantors;
the age and degree of danger of the client's life (in the event of the death of an individual, the probability of repaying the loan is very small);
previously taken financial obligations and their fulfillment;
appearance and demeanor of the client;
the possibility of accepting collateral as a guarantor of the issuance of a loan;
verification of submitted documents for authenticity (especially passports).

Analysis of the solvency of customers (legal entities) when issuing loans is carried out in 3 stages:

Stage 1 - assessment of creditworthiness based on the analysis of business risk - obtaining information about the client by a credit officer, the initial determination of the need to issue a loan to him and an approximate assessment of creditworthiness. It is built according to the following scheme:

obtaining information about the client company: legal form, year of establishment, methods of valuation of the collateral, costs of its storage (and whether the collateral is subject to damage and markdown), staff qualifications, main suppliers and buyers of the company, conditions for the sale of goods (services);
obtaining the necessary documents, from which it is clear that the client needs a loan (financial statements for the last three years, tax return, financing forecast, description of products put on the market, project business plan and industry forecast, notarized copies of constituent documents, application , which indicates the purpose and amount of the loan, the term, the proposed security of the loan);
obtaining information about the loan: what is the amount, how it was determined, how the forecast of financial needs was justified, how the client expects to repay the loan on time, is there a guarantee from other companies;
obtaining information on the client's relationship with other banks: why the client came to this particular bank, whether he took loans from other banks, when and under what conditions, whether there are outstanding loans and what are the amounts and conditions for their return;
analysis of the state of countries and partners with which the client is dealing. If a revolution or an economic crisis is brewing in a country, banks, suppliers and buyers in that country may be behind the curtain of the game. The history of partners, their policy of playing in the market also influence the choice of financing decision;
analysis and evaluation of the discontinuity of the circulation of funds, the possibility of not completing this circulation effectively. An analysis of this risk makes it possible to predict the sufficiency of the sources of loan repayment. The factors of this risk are associated with individual stages of the circulation of funds. A set of such factors can be represented as follows:
supplier reliability;
seasonal supply;
duration of storage of raw materials and materials;
availability of storage facilities and the need for them;
environmental factors;
the procedure for the acquisition of raw materials and materials;
fashion for raw materials and materials.
assessment of the legal basis for making and completing a credited transaction related to the specifics of the borrower's industry.

Stage 2 - analysis of the financial condition of the borrower, taking into account financial ratios. The main principle of using financial ratios: each indicator should reflect the most significant aspects of the financial condition. There are 5 groups of coefficients:

liquidity and solvency ratios. An indicator of the solvency of a bank client for a period or for a certain date is the absence of overdue or prolonged debt to the bank, suppliers, budget, workers and employees. The degree of insolvency of the client is characterized by the size and duration of non-payments, the turnover of various types of overdue debts for the reporting period, etc. The values of these parameters are summarized, resulting in liquidity and solvency ratios;
turnover ratios. Turnover is the duration of the passage of means of individual stages of production and circulation. The results of the analysis should give an answer to the question - does the enterprise really experience an objective need for additional borrowed funds, or whether this need was formed due to shortcomings in the organization of the trading process and non-optimal construction of settlements with suppliers and buyers. The turnover ratio is the sum of the duration of turnover, the number of revolutions for a certain period of time, sales proceeds, periods of repayment of debts, the cost of sales of products and the time of transition of working capital from a commodity form to a monetary one;
coefficients of financial stability. The financial stability of an enterprise shows the stability of its activities in the light of a long-term perspective. It is related to the degree of dependence of the enterprise on creditors and investors. If the structure "equity-borrowed funds" has a significant excess towards debt, the enterprise may go bankrupt when several creditors demand their money back at an "inconvenient" time;
profit ratios. In the process of analyzing the financial condition, it is important to identify how effectively the existing assets and financial resources are used to obtain profit and maximize it. Profitability analysis is very important for a bank. Its data is used in evaluating the range of products, as well as opportunities for additional profit by increasing the production of more cost-effective products. The analysis is necessary for a generalized assessment of the level of profitability of the enterprise and the determination of the main directions for the search for reserves to increase its efficiency. The profitability ratio includes indicators of sales proceeds, profitability of working capital and equity, net profit;
coverage ratio. The coverage ratio is the ratio of working capital to short-term debt. It shows the credit limit and the sufficiency of all types of client funds to repay the debt. If the coverage ratio is less than 1, the lending boundaries are violated and the borrower cannot be granted a loan: he is not creditworthy.

Stage 3 - creditworthiness assessment based on cash flow analysis. During this analysis, bank analysts examine changes in fixed assets, equity outflows, growth in accounts payable, financial costs (interest, taxes, dividends), loan repayments, etc. The difference between the inflow and outflow of funds determines the amount of total cash flow. For the analysis of cash flow, data are taken for at least 3 years. If the client had a steady excess of inflow over outflow of funds, this indicates its financial stability - creditworthiness. Fluctuations in the value of the total cash flow (short-term excess of outflow over inflow) indicate a lower rating of the client. The systematic excess of the outflow over the inflow of funds characterizes the client as insolvent. The average positive value of the total cash flow can be used as a limit on the issuance of new loans, i.e. it shows in what amount the client can repay debt obligations for the specified period.

Company charter analysis

Obtaining statutory documents is possible (and quite legal) in the following organizations:

consulting companies - developers of constituent documents, assisting in registration;
registration authorities of administrations and property management committees or local justice authorities;
tax inspections;
pension funds.

The analysis of the Charter has the following objectives:

identification of criminal and non-business purposes of creating a company;
identification of activity restrictions;
disclosure of the real intra-company structure;
identification of decision makers;
forecasting the next development of the situation.

When reviewing the Bylaws, the following should be taken into account:

place and time of registration of the Charter. The older the company, the more reliable it is, as a rule. When creating a one-day company, the place of registration plays an important role. This may be due to:
favorable local administrative resource;
local tax regime;
convenience for the maintenance and maintenance of the company, for example, regional banks can adhere to a softer regime for controlling the targeted spending of funds, lower interest rates on loans.
who is the developer of the Charter. As a rule, charters are created by consulting companies organizing turnkey enterprises. But sometimes the charter is created directly by the founders of the companies or their lawyers;
charter orientation. Statutes are generally divided into four main groups:
"director's charter" - personalized for the personal characteristics of a particular leader and his management style. Depending on the relationship between the CEO and the Board of Directors, the Articles of Association may have various shades of opposition and restrictions on activities;
"team charter" - is created to manage the company's activities by a certain group of stakeholders from the sphere of direct formal management;
"lobbyist charter" - is developed for the interests of groups of informal leaders who prefer to remain in the shadows;
“parsive charter” - usually pursues general collective goals, for example, the interests of ordinary shareholders. In accordance with the direction of the documents, such decision-making procedures are selected that effectively curtail the rights of individual participants in the management of companies by transferring their functions to collective management bodies.
analysis of procedures. The analysis of the procedures reflected in the Articles of Association consists of an analysis of the following factors:
decision quorum analysis. For example, the rule “A decision is considered adopted if at least half of the members of the Board of Directors present at the meeting voted for it” provides behind-the-scenes decision-making by the management team. The decision-making process is greatly simplified. The rule “A decision is considered adopted if at least half of the total number of members of the Board of Directors voted for it” ensures that decisions are made by the team in the face of opposition from the CEO. The phrase “The CEO has the right to vote” shows that the CEO has weight and importance, and the phrase “The decision at the meetings of the Board is made by a simple majority of votes from the total number of members of the Board” shows possible confusion and vacillation within the Board.
quorum of the meeting of the Board of Directors. Usually, the larger the quorum of the meeting of the Board of Directors (sometimes ½ or 2/3), the more the Board of Directors team opposes the director's board.
competence of the general manager. For example, the phrase "Appointment and dismissal of members of the Management Board - only by decision of the Board of Directors" refers to the "command charter" and that the CEO is not a sole decision maker.
rules for making decisions by the Board of Directors. For example, the phrase “When voting for a decision option, it is allowed to use the written consent of a member of the Board of Directors who is absent at the meeting” indicates the possibility of manipulation when making a decision.
election deadlines. If the Articles of Association stipulate the possibility of repeated re-election of members of the Board of Directors for a maximum period of two years, the positions of the group of managers are strong. If the director has a maximum term of office and the opportunity to be elected an unlimited number of times, and there is a rule “The CEO is the chairman of the Board of Directors by position”, this indicates a very strong position of the CEO. The phrase "The meeting cannot dismiss members of the Board of Directors before the expiration of their term" suggests that the team will work quietly until the expiration of their terms.
competence of the general meeting of shareholders. General rule: the higher the competence of the general meeting of shareholders, the more confidence they have in the management team.
CEO's competence. The issues of the powers of the CEO should be studied in the following areas:

The maximum deal that the CEO has the right to conclude. The maximum increased amount indicates a serious connection between the CEO and the team or the company of actual unity of command. With a decrease in the amount of transactions, the likelihood of distrust or control by the Board of Directors over the activities of the CEO increases.

Appointment and dismissal of members of the Management Board. If the appointment and dismissal of management occurs by decision of the CEO, then we have a “personal charter”, but a similar phrase in the Charter can also reveal the secret intention of the CEO to form his own working team. If the fate of the members of the Board is decided only by a unanimous decision of the Board of Directors, then we can probably talk about tight control over the CEO by the team or the lobby.

early release from duty. The norm “The Meeting cannot dismiss the general director before the expiration of his term of office”, coupled with the establishment of a maximum term of office, speaks of signs of unity of command.

Voting: the right to a decisive or double vote. The absence in the Articles of Association of the norms “The General Director has the right to a decisive vote” or “The General Director has two votes in voting” indicates a possible command or lobbying orientation of the Charter or a strict control of the General Director and distrust of him.

Approval of internal regulatory documents of JSC. The norm “Regulations on the Board of Directors of JSCs, Regulations on the Management Board of JSCs, Regulations on the Audit Commission of JSCs is approved at a meeting of shareholders” may correspond to control by shareholders;

Approval of the Chairman of the Board of Directors. The norm “The Chairman of the Board of Directors is elected from among the members of the Board of Directors present” is focused on the team, the norm “The Chairman of the Board of Directors is the General Director or his deputy” is focused on the leader;

powers of the Board. The norm "The Board develops the staffing table and ensures the selection of personnel" may indicate the presence of a managerial lobby in the company's management. The norm "The General Meeting may decide to transfer part of its rights to the competence of the Board" - allows you to curtail the rights of the Board of Directors and give room to informal leaders;

Call for an emergency meeting. The rule “Any two members of the Board of Directors have the right to convene an emergency meeting” reveals the strong influence of a certain group of like-minded managers, the rule “A meeting of the Board can be convened by a decision of at least half of the Board” speaks of a managerial lobby. If the right to convene an emergency meeting belongs to the CEO, this means that he has the opportunity to initiate the adoption of the decision he needs by calling the meeting at a good moment, when the main forces of his opponents are dispersed or removed;

Execution of decisions. The norm “Regardless of participation in the decision-making at a meeting of the Board of Directors, all members of the Board of Directors are obliged to familiarize themselves with the decision taken against signature and accept it for execution” makes it possible to protect the direct authors of the “decisions”, blurring the responsibility for them to the entire Board of Directors;

Veto. The norm “The Board of Directors has the right to suspend the decisions of the General Director” speaks of the weakness of the General Director, the norm “In case of disagreement of the members of the Board with the decision of the General Director, the latter carries out its decision by informing the Board of Directors of disagreements with the members of the Board” speaks of a strong General Director;

Management responsibility. The norm “The CEO is personally responsible for the performance of the JSC” allows us to make an assumption about the existing distrust of the CEO or a possible set-up of the CEO by a group of managers;

property relations. Poor reflection in the Charter of the regulation of property issues, especially the principle of distribution of profits, can become a stumbling block in the later stages of a company's development. Limiting the authority of management may provide a clue to understanding the external indecisiveness of management. Owners are protected from possible encroachments on the part of hired management personnel in the following forms:

limiting the scope of decisions made, prohibiting independent strategic moves;
limit on the size of an independently concluded transaction;
exclusive rights of members.
charter capital. It is desirable that the authorized capital be expressed in real money, and not in the form of equity, securities, etc. In addition, it should be borne in mind that the authorized capital is the company's emergency reserve in case of repayment of creditors' claims, so it is necessary to analyze how the position of maintaining the statutory fund is fixed in the Charter.
dispositive norms. These include what is not in the law, but what the founders of the company would like to see. For example, it is possible to drag accelerated depreciation rates into the Charter, the possibility of creating branches, in fact, completely on the rights of a legal entity, etc. Any non-standard provisions of the Charters require answers to the question “Why?”

Analyzing Organization Attributes

Let's look at checking the attributes of a company using the example of checking seals. At present, it is quite simple to make any seal, however, there are some signs that allow us to talk about the use of fake seals:

only photocopies of papers or fax messages are at your disposal; the partner makes sure that not a single original of a document sealed with a native seal catches your eye;
you have never seen a printing device of a partner, all stamps are put in your absence;
paper that has a fuzzy print impression has a rough texture, supposedly explaining the poor quality of the print. Perhaps such paper was not chosen by chance, for camouflage of a rough fake;
the print has an untidy appearance: thin lines of printing are smeared, fuzziness and swims in thin elements;
if computer graphics are used instead of a print, then the lines of the circles have a suspiciously correct geometry, there is no difference in line thickness, breaks and blurs;
the brokenness and untidiness of the prints may indicate that the company is stamping some tickets, mailing forms, etc. with its own seal day and night. You can check this moment by examining the handle of the seal - if it is wooden, then from frequent use it should be at least wiped off.

Corporate style analysis

When analyzing corporate identity, pay attention to the following:

the presence or absence of business cards, their cost, design;
compliance of the quality of repair and furnishing of premises with the profile and level of the company;
the presence or absence of a company uniform;
conducting advertising activities;
how the name of the company was chosen. If the name of the company mentions the name of its creator, then, as a rule, he will try not to tarnish his reputation and family honor with dubious activities;
color analysis in the company logo in relation to the nature of its creator:
purple and deep blue tones may indicate some refinement, the desire to conduct business in a measured way, avoiding sharp exacerbations and overexertion;
blue and light blue scales are considered characteristic of people of an artistic, often swindling plan, reveal high suspicion, secrecy and incredulity;
green gamma reflects calmness and balance;
yellow and sand color may indicate duplicity and the possibility of treason;
gold can symbolize arrogance, arrogance, pretentiousness and ambition, narcissism;
red gamma indicates impulsiveness, nervousness. In business, such a person may have the habit of working with a powerful swoop; long monotonous projects are contraindicated for him;
pink tones and shades reflect femininity and airiness, superficiality of judgments and lightness of promises;
concentrated pink or crimson can correspond to a strong, aggressive and possibly cruel person without any complexes;
monochrome (black, gray and white) can characterize the leader as a person of steadfastness, principle, strong-willed. You can find in them a considerable working potential, but they can chop off the shoulder, they are characterized by maximalism in making decisions.

Analysis of the financial condition of the company

When assessing the financial condition of the company, the following analytical work is carried out:

analysis of the “value” of the company, whether there is anything to lose the company and how quickly this can be done. A company with a high value of low-liquid assets (property that is difficult to quickly sell into cash) will not be able to disappear quickly;
analysis of the statutory fund. The statutory fund must be contributed in cash, and not in securities, property rights, intellectual property. It should be remembered that the main purpose of the statutory fund is the property expression of the limit of liability of the enterprise, which can be touched only in one case: to satisfy the requirements of creditors;
analysis of the value and structure of assets. Misinformation is possible by indicating the total value of assets, including funds raised from third-party investors;
analysis of fixed assets. Perhaps the company works for show, when the fixed assets do not belong to the company, but are leased or even belong to another organization. It is also necessary to clarify the degree of liquidity of fixed assets.
analysis of reserve funds;
analysis of the ratio of fixed assets to working capital. The stronger the emphasis is shifted towards working capital, the higher the potential danger of the enterprise;
analysis of the ratio of own capital to attracted. The more borrowed capital exceeds its own, the more aggressive the company is in relation to sources of financing;
analysis of the company's confidence in the fulfillment of obligations. The company's predilection for bank loans is a sign of a good quality partner who is confident in his own abilities. The use of predominantly equity capital and self-financing reflects the uncertain policy of the enterprise;
analysis of relations with power structures is clearly diagnosed by the presence of budget injections;
analysis of the dependence of the enterprise is visible in the presence of contributions from higher structures and dubious third-party investors;
analysis of the structure of income and expenses;
analysis of the company's investment policy;
analysis of the possibility of malicious bankruptcy. Attention should be paid to signs of possible bankruptcy - a decline in production, mutual debts, a decrease in wages, a reduction in the number of personnel.

Analysis (verification) of securities for authenticity

Establishing the authenticity of a security consists of:

in determining the conformity of the materials used, printing design and details to the sample and technological standards specified in the "quality certificate";
in establishing the presence in the investigated security of the complex of elements of technological, printing and physical and chemical protection provided for it;
in determining the authenticity of certifying details (signatures and seals);
in the study of signs of a possible change in the original content of props and handwritten texts.

In accordance with the current legislation, the decision on the authenticity of securities can only be given by the issuer or a subject authorized by him. At the same time, in practice, this issue is often required to be promptly resolved not only in relation to “one's own” securities, but also in relation to the securities of other issuers.

The fundamental principles for resolving the issue of the authenticity of securities are set out in Art. 144 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, which establishes by law the requirements for securities. According to these requirements, the security is not genuine (commonly referred to as "fake") due to the loss of legal basis due to:

the presence of defects in the form defined by the relevant regulatory documents;
non-compliance of the presented security with a genuine sample in terms of a set of technological features.

Taking into account the above, as well as established practice, the following types of counterfeit securities are distinguished:

defects in the form of the security;
partial forgery;
complete fake.

Security form defect

Shape defects are one of the most common types of counterfeit securities. It consists in the absence of the required details of the security or inconsistency of the security with the form established for it. Establishing a form defect is in many ways a “polemical area” even among specialists, but criminals widely use it, knowingly dooming the owner of such a security to the impossibility of challenging the document in court.

Most often, the form defect is manifested in bills of exchange, while the following is noted:

the absence of the so-called "bills mark" in the text of the document;
writing the word "bill" and the text of the document itself in different languages;
the absence of the date of drawing up the bill and the signature of the drawer;
the absence of an offer (promise) to pay a certain amount to a specific person;
incorrect (non-specific) indication of the payment amount;
various names of the drawer in the text and certifying details, etc.

The fact of a defect in form can only be established by a court. No expert opinions without a court decision have no legal value. Unfortunately, this circumstance is actively used by criminals, resulting in a significant number of facts of fraud with bills, as well as a variety of mechanisms for their implementation.

Nevertheless, some characteristic features of securities with a form defect should be noted. First of all, it is to make the upcoming deal more attractive. For this purpose, securities with potentially high liquidity are selected, and the terms of the transaction imply a significant benefit to the buyer of the securities. The appearance of liquidity is usually achieved either by using the issuer's name (for example, an energy industry organization) or by making false endorsements or other details on behalf of reputable credit institutions.

Considering examples of counterfeit securities in the form of form defects, it is also necessary to note the facts of incorrect registration of signatures of officials in these documents. Still quite often there are documents, including bills, in which, instead of the handwritten signature of the corresponding head, his facsimile is applied; in addition, signatures and other requisites can be reproduced at a very high quality level with the help of modern printing and copying equipment. It should be noted that in relation to bills of exchange, such facts are determined by the court as the absence of the drawer's handwritten signature.

However, based on Art. 160 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, many issuers (and, accordingly, manufacturers of securities) reproduce the signatures of officials (and sometimes seals) by facsimile, printing or other methods. The significance of such requisites from the point of view of protection against forgery is very conditional, since their protective functions are regarded no higher than any other graphic element (vignettes, rosettes, frames, etc.).

For registered securities, such cases are of no fundamental importance, since the transfer of rights to their possession is formalized with the issuer on the order of their owner. For order securities, this way of reproducing signatures and seals is fraught with the potential danger of forgery and fraud with them.

Of particular danger are counterfeit securities with a high designated value. After all, the high indicated cost of paper allows criminals to spend significant funds and efforts on its manufacture and, as a result, obtain a high-quality fake.

The main differences between counterfeit bills and genuine bills are:

in the discrepancy between the methods of applying the digits of the number (in genuine ones - letterpress, in fake ones - using an inkjet printer);
in the absence of a magnetic component number in the paint;
in the absence of a phosphor in the paint of one of the grids of the front side (yellow paint of the grid of fakes does not luminesce);
forgery of the drawer's signature;
forgery of seals;
the basic security elements (microtext, luminescence, etc.) are poorly imitated or absent at all;
missing or fake watermarks;
protective fibers are imitated with colored strokes;
poorly executed iris peal (smooth change in the color of the lines) of the background grid of the front side;
there is no ferromagnetic component in the black paint.

In order to control the authenticity of securities in 1997, a depositary was established at the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, in 1998 it was decided to create a special section for the examination of securities within it. In 1999, such a site was formed: specialists of the appropriate qualification were selected and the initial technical equipment was carried out.

Currently, the depository is capable of:

carry out a full examination of the authenticity of securities and other banking documents;
provide services for the examination of securities for divisions of the Bank of Russia and credit institutions;
provide the information needed:

To select a manufacturer of securities blanks;

To determine the optimal set of security elements for securities forms;

To draw up technical requirements for the manufacture and acceptance of the issued circulation;

To develop methodological materials for personnel training and develop recommendations on technical equipment.

Trainer:

At first, I wanted to give only legal methods of collecting information, but this is not quite the right approach. Therefore, I will bring with related comments) the most used, as well as those that are widely known and surrounded by numerous myths, but in fact are practically not used.

In addition, in the list of methods, I will not mention the methods of economic and business analysis, which, in fact, are used almost more often than some specialized methods for obtaining information, especially when it comes to obtaining preventive information and forecasting the market situation. Intelligence analysts should master these methods, identifying market trends and trends and predicting the situation for the future.

Finally, when choosing one or another method of intelligence gathering, it always makes sense to consider the possibility of obtaining this or similar information in the most economical and risk-free (from all sides) ways that have the least potential for "illuminating" your company's intelligence activities.

Information collection methods are presented in the order of their complexity.

PASSIVE methods

Collection of information from open sources. For example, the media, the Internet, corporate publications and press, industry libraries, etc.

Passive observation - monitoring. Those. organization of continuous monitoring of certain media, Internet resources (including the so-called "invisible Internet" by special hardware), etc.

Using databases. Acquisition and use of databases (including "gray", pirated, etc.) of various ministries, departments, banks, insurance and commercial structures, etc., traded on the intellectual property markets.

Inferential Information or Analytical Open Method. In fact, the derivation of new knowledge based on existing information and previously obtained data.

Basic rules for the work of a competitive intelligence officer:
Do not break the Law - it can punish.
Do not ignore public opinion - it can destroy.

ACTIVE methods intelligence gathering

Telephone surveys and consultations. Collection of information from various sources (industry experts, consultants, employees of competitors, customers and consumers, suppliers, etc.) that have the necessary information.

Polls are conducted using the cover legend. Interviews and consultations may be open-ended or carried out “in the dark”, i.e., when the source does not realize that he is providing important information to the interviewer.

Getting information in (chat) forums. Use of forums, etc. on-line discussions on the Internet to obtain information (from competitors, suppliers, customers, etc.). Provocations of a competitor's employees for statements by targeted questions or topics on a forum on the Internet.

This method is also carried out using cover legend. Just as in the previous method, the collection of information can be carried out openly or "blindly".

Visiting exhibitions and conferences. A very effective method of obtaining information. Visiting specialized exhibitions and conferences allows you to get information on the business profile and make acquaintances. Visiting non-core exhibitions, conferences, other cultural, sports, leisure events, etc. character provides good opportunities for making new acquaintances, etc.

This method is carried out using a cover legend. The collection of information can be carried out openly or "blindly".

Disguised Polls. “Plucking” information from the personnel of competing structures by specially designed (“disguised”) questions at scientific and technical conferences, congresses, meetings or symposiums.

Purchase of competitor's products with subsequent engineering analysis. Those. complete disassembly of the product to see what's new inside.

The purchase is carried out legally, but with the use of a cover story, i.e. not on behalf of your company, but on behalf of some neutral individual or legal entity, so as not to aggravate relations.

Legal visits to competitors. The “delegation” includes the most experienced employees who are able (with a simple inspection) to identify differences and subtleties in the production and business processes of competitors.

Direct covert visual surveillance behind the activities or actions of an object of intelligence interest.

It can be carried out using a cover legend, for example, imitation of road, harvest, etc. works. Another option is observation through a secret observation post.

covert surveillance for contacts of key persons of a competitor organization or other persons of interest in order to establish them or establish their connections, contacts, etc.

Surveys of common customers and/or common suppliers(other representatives of the infrastructure of a competing company) or collecting information from other competitors.

Carried out using a cover legend. The collection of information can be carried out openly or "blindly".

Collecting information under the guise of an applicant for a vacancy or from former applicants. Collecting information from former employees of a competitor's company.

As in the previous case,

Using Relationships: in state authorities; in law enforcement agencies; in the banking sector; in other available and relevant external sources of information.

It can be carried out by acquaintance or using a cover legend. At the same time, specific interests and/or interest in specific objects of reconnaissance interest can be legendized. The collection of information can be carried out openly or "blindly".

Job interviews with employees of competing firms (without the intention of accepting this “candidate” for work in their company).

Carried out using a cover legend. The collection of information is carried out "blindly".

Conversations with experts or representatives of a competitor of an enterprise under the guise of a public opinion poll; survey of a competitor under the guise of marketing research.

ALWAYS carried out using a cover story, on behalf of a sociologist, journalist, etc.

Job offers (false) to leading specialists competitors to find out information of interest from them during conversations and questionnaires with filling out questionnaires, without the intention of hiring them;

Carried out using a cover legend. The collection of information is carried out "blindly".

lure the most competent employees from competing companies (“headhunting”).

Primary approaches to employees of interest are carried out using the cover story, on behalf of the company (recruitment agency) of the intermediary. The collection of information is carried out "blindly".

Employee bribery a competing firm or other persons involved in a competitor's marketing communications.

Organization and maintenance of acquaintances with an employee of a competitor from a third party.

ALWAYS carried out using a cover story, on behalf of a third party that does not belong to the company carrying out the operation.

Conducting false multi-way negotiations about transactions in the course of which additional information is constantly requested with subsequent withdrawal from the contract.

False negotiations with a competitor regarding the acquisition of a license for the products we are interested in.

The method is used when engineering analysis of products is not enough and additional information is required. ALWAYS carried out using a cover story, on behalf of a non-competitor company. The legend used by the company must pass the plausibility check.

Organization of attempted cooperation or cooperation, with preliminary negotiations and exchange of information.

ALWAYS carried out using a cover story, on behalf of a non-competitor company. The legend used by the company must pass the plausibility check.

Organization of cooperation (including negotiations and exchange of information) under the guise of a service provider on behalf of a third company.

ALWAYS carried out using a cover story, on behalf of a non-competitor company. The legend used by the company must pass the plausibility check.

Organizing an investment attempt(full or partial purchase of a competitor's business) from a third party.

ALWAYS carried out using a cover story, on behalf of a non-competitor company. The legend used by the company must pass the plausibility check.

Organization (proposals, declarations) of a merger attempt companies (including negotiations and exchange of information).

ALWAYS carried out using a cover story, on behalf of a non-competitor company. The legend used by the company must pass the plausibility check.

Recruitment. Using a recruited agent to obtain information. The information obtained is studied and compared with the available information obtained from other sources and by other methods.

PRACTICALLY NOT USED!!! .

Recruitment is a very complex intelligence operation, which does not guarantee against "failures" and "flare" of intelligence activities, because the recruited agent, as a rule, is not a professional intelligence officer. Finally, recruitment is expedient for a long time and in relation to "closed" (secret) objects, information about which is not possible to obtain in other ways.

Implementation. The actual introduction of your employee into a competitor's company or the introduction of your people into its infrastructure.

An infiltration, as a special operation, is ALWAYS carried out using a cover story, on behalf of a third party that does not belong to the company carrying out the operation.

The direct infiltration of a competitor's own intelligence officer into a competitor's company provides the intelligence structure with very broad opportunities to obtain information.

At the same time, the existing clichés and stereotypes about espionage misinterpret the content of the activities of an infiltrated intelligence officer and his capabilities, especially in relation to the GOALS and TASKS of commercial intelligence.

Due to LOW PRODUCTIVITY and WIDE OPPORTUNITIES FOR OBTAINING INFORMATION BY OTHER METHODS, this method of obtaining information in commercial intelligence PRACTICALLY NOT USED!!!

As in the previous case, the introduction is advisable for a long time and in relation to objects, which it is not possible to obtain information about by other means.

Use of methods and means of unauthorized access. Use of technical means of audio and video surveillance. Eavesdropping of negotiations conducted in competing firms by intercepting messages and negotiations conducted over technical means of communication with the help of special technical reconnaissance means. The use of technical means for unauthorized access to information media.

in commercial intelligence THESE METHODS ARE RARELY USED, rather as an EXCEPTION. The discovery of special technical means unequivocally reveals the activity of the intelligence officer, and his main work of obtaining information will be significantly complicated by the increased activity of the security service.

Disabling the means of protection and protection of information. Intentional blocking of the operation of information security tools, violation of measures to restrict access or access to information, data or documents classified as commercial and other secrets.

In view of the unequivocal "flare" of intelligence activities and the EXTENDED OPPORTUNITIES FOR OBTAINING THIS INFORMATION BY OTHER METHODS, this method of obtaining information in commercial intelligence NOT USED!!!

Commercial intelligence methods involve complete invisibility of one's own activity, which is almost impossible to detect.

Penetration into personal computers and computer systems(networks) in order to obtain confidential information or personal data from them.

This method, based on the goals and objectives of commercial intelligence, is used by an infiltrated employee extremely rarely, if possible and with strict observance of secrecy measures.

Another situation is when such penetration is carried out from the outside (hacker attack), using passwords set by an embedded intelligence officer.

Carrying out secret and unauthorized copying (reproduction) of confidential documents containing KNOW-HOW technologies with the help of modern office equipment or means of covert copying.

Carrying out theft and unauthorized removal of information about KNOW-HOW technology, about individuals and legal entities, which are subsequently used to organize the production of products and create various kinds of compromising evidence.

Embedded Scout CAN'T AFFORD THEFT anything, firstly, it is a criminal offense, and secondly, the loss of important documents and information is always visible and noticeable. This immediately detects illegal activity and activates the security and law enforcement agencies, which greatly complicates intelligence work or makes it impossible.

Theft of drawings, samples, documentation, etc. Theft of product samples, drawings, documentation on the technology of its production, etc. Theft of drawings and technical documentation.

In view of the unequivocal "flare" of intelligence activities and EXTENDED OPPORTUNITIES FOR OBTAINING THIS INFORMATION BY OTHER METHODS (for example, legal purchase with subsequent engineering analysis), this method of obtaining information in commercial intelligence NOT USED!!!

It must be firmly understood that in a legal business there is PRACTICALLY NO such INFORMATION that could be accessed exclusively by illegal methods.

There are also very exotic methods for obtaining information, for example, "honey trap", implying the use of sexual weaknesses or preferences. In military or political intelligence, this method is used from time to time. The source of information is “substituted”, as a bait, the desired object of passion.

In commercial intelligence, again based on its strategic goals, such methods are practically inapplicable, because in this case, an employee (employee) should work in your intelligence apparatus, ready for adultery for the sake of the prosperity of the company's business. However, this method can be represented as:

Using an Existing Sex Object, to set up a competitor's employee as a source of information.

Organization of sexual contact of an employee of a competing company in order to strengthen personal contacts and its subsequent use as an informant in the dark.

In conclusion of the consideration of methods for collecting information, let me remind you again:

It must be firmly understood that in a LEGAL business there is PRACTICALLY NO such INFORMATION that could be accessed exclusively by illegal methods.

It is a widely known fact that business cannot develop without healthy competition, those entrepreneurs who consider it unnecessary to look closely at competitors and improve their ideas are often left behind.

The very word " competition"involves the struggle (rivalry) between market entities, both for better conditions of activity and for results.

Competitive intelligence represents the lawful collection, processing and analysis of data about competitors and the competitive environment. The goals of competitive intelligence are to identify and achieve competitive advantages, the tasks of competitive intelligence are the analysis of goods with competitive advantages, their pricing, promotion of such goods on the market.

Competitive intelligence is especially effective when the result is to get ahead of your competitor, and not just copy its advantages.

Competitive intelligence uses legitimate data in an ethical manner (this is different from espionage), and the sources from which the information comes are public. Information can be obtained from the Internet, newspaper articles and other publications, from employees of the organization, customers or customers.

Objectives of competitive intelligence:

1. Reveal the strategic plans of competitors. This is necessary to make changes and improve the strategy of your business. In view of the mobility of some activities, it is worth periodically returning to the mission of your business and clearly understanding whether it is still possible to adhere to previously set strategies.

2. Identify the strengths and weaknesses of competitors. Here we need more information about the advantages of competitors. Understanding that it is useless to compete with a competitor in a given area or direction will give you the opportunity to direct your potential to new ideas.

3. Identify ways to ensure competitive advantages. Competitive intelligence reveals ways, to improve your own business, based on the advantages of competitors: these may be technical advantages, organizational or otherwise. For example, by purchasing equipment like a competitor, you were able to produce more goods per day, increase sales, and thereby lower the cost. Thus, you have neutralized your competitor.

4. Assess the market capacity in a certain area, based on the number of competitors. To do this, the sales volumes of all market participants in the industry are added up. Information about the market capacity will let you know if you are doing everything right: if the market size has grown, and sales volume has remained the same, it means that competitors have snatched your share; if the market volume has grown, and your share has not changed, then your business is in the right direction.

5. Assess the need for cooperation with suppliers, buyers of competitors or its absence. It may turn out that the low price of your competitors' goods is due to low costs for transport services or the purchase of cheaper raw materials. You will also need to know about such suppliers.

6. Create favorable conditions for this business development. When completed, it is necessary to competently use the information received, set specific goals for achieving benefits.

Methods of competitive intelligence.

Recall that competitive intelligence is legal, so the methods of competitive intelligence must be legal and obtained from legal sources. When collecting information about competitors, one should be guided by regulatory legal acts, such as the Federal Law "On Trade Secrets", the Federal Law "On Information, Informatization and Information Protection", the Federal Law "On Copyright and Related Rights", etc.

In competitive intelligence, there is the concept of “desk research”. This research is a method of competitive intelligence in which the work is based on the study of information obtained from official published sources:

Analysis of publications, articles received via the Internet and the media about competitors,
- analysis of marketing research in the industry (purchase of past marketing research of competitors), survey of competitors under the guise of marketing research,
- analysis of received financial documents of competitors,
- analysis of the company's structure of competitors,
- analysis of the statutory documents of competitors,
- analysis of the affiliation of structures and economic relationships.

There is such competitive intelligence method, as "dead vacancies": when an employee from a competitor's company is invited for an interview to work on more favorable terms. At this interview, the employee finds out the details of his activities. Naturally, after this interview, no job offers are received, and competitive intelligence has the necessary information.

Competitive intelligence operates: observing (at a distance) and (or) penetrating the organization (when a competitor's (or special) employee is introduced into the competitor's firm).

Competitive intelligence methods are also:

Survey of common competitors, suppliers, customers, former employees;
- purchase of goods from a competitor;
- attending conferences, seminars and exhibitions with the participation of competitors.

Tasks of competitive intelligence:

Identify specific shortcomings in the work of competitors,
- identify products with competitive advantages, determine their pricing policy,
- identify ways to promote such products to the market,
- identify the conditions for cooperation with suppliers (in order to create conditions for yourself no worse than those of a competitor),
- to determine the constant customer base of the competitor and the terms of interaction,
- determine the level of profitability of goods,
- identify competitors' plans for technical development, expanding the boundaries of the market.

Competitive intelligence, as a competent application of the information received, will never let a business stand still.

Fundamentals of business intelligence at the enterprises of the construction complex. Competitive intelligence: everything you wanted to know about it Definition and types of competitive intelligence

Essence and functions of competitive intelligence

What is the main purpose of this type of activity as competitive intelligence

Business intelligence and industrial espionage

The main tasks of business intelligence:

The main areas of business intelligence of the company:

The subject of interest of the strategic direction of business intelligence is most often:

Subjects of interest of the operational direction of business intelligence:

Groups of specialists working in the field of business intelligence:

The main stages of information and analytical work:

Information work of the security service

The work on collecting information about a legal entity can be systematized as follows:

Ways to obtain official information from information databases and registers of state organizations:

Obtaining information from official websites of state bodies.

Some organizations providing information services for the provision of official information from government agencies

Getting information on the Internet

Analytical work of the security service

General methods of information analysis

Analysis of the competitive environment

Analysis of possible crisis situations in the company's activities

Analysis of the security of business proposals and contracts

Company charter analysis

Analyzing Organization Attributes

Corporate style analysis

Analysis of the financial condition of the company

Analysis (verification) of securities for authenticity

Security form defect

Currently, the depository is capable of:

Methods of competitive intelligence.

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