Protecting Your Organization's Innovations
- 24 February, 2009 08:26
- Comments
Global economic competition, to a large extent, has replaced the Cold War political and military competition. As a result, countries now pursue national economic interests through a myriad of activities, including espionage. Their goal is to maintain and sustain a competitive advantage in the global market place as quickly and affordably as possible, preferably at YOUR expense. This has placed US businesses in an even greater position of risk as countries and companies increase the targeting of innovative US based research, technologies, and products.
The targeting and theft of US innovation, be it in the form of intellectual property, trade secrets, research, prototypes, etc., has significant dire effects on the nation. In an attempt to quantify the impacts of this information theft, the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive estimated that the "combined costs of foreign and domestic economic espionage, including the theft of intellectual property, is as high as US$300 billion per year and rising." These findings were consistent with the Trends in Proprietary Information Loss report prepared by the American Society for Industrial Security, which surveyed Fortune 500 companies and concluded "over the past few years this annual report has highlighted the fact that documented losses of trade secrets and other proprietary information cost US companies tens of billions of dollars annually." Similarly, the Department of Justice estimates that the loss of research and technology information annually cost US companies as much as US$250 billion and the Chamber of Commerce estimates 750,000 jobs are annually lost as a result of this information theft. The theft of US innovation erodes our industrial base, our economy, and weakens not only the competitive advantages of our companies, but our Nation as a whole. To maintain a competitive edge US companies and governmental organizations must continue to foster innovation and must also protect the innovation from competitors.
What can US companies and government organizations do to protect their innovation from competitors?
US commercial and governmental organizations should establish an integrated Innovation Preservation Process (IPP) into their overall business strategy. The IPP is not solely a security function, but a multi-disciplined collaborative effort with the mission to maximize the lifetime of innovation and the associated return on investment. This multi-discipline team includes executive management and representatives from each organizational unit concerned with the innovation.
Identifying your innovation is the first step in the IPP. Innovation presents itself in ideas, concepts, applications, etc., that when applied to your services and products, ensure market sustainment, promote market growth and enable market development.
Recommended
Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.
- Bookmark this page
- Share this article
- Got more on this story? Email CIO
- Follow CIO on twitter
-
Why change management doesn’t work
-
Larry Page wants to see your medical records
-
Dual-Persona Smartphones Not a BYOD Panacea
-
After two-year hiatus, EFF accepts bitcoin donations again
-
CIOs struggle to deliver timely mobile business apps: survey
-
In Control at Layer 2: A Tectonic Shift in Network Security
Network hacking and corporate espionage are on the rise and set to intensify. Information security risks remain commonplace, and most organisations need to increase vigilance. This paper has analyses the realistic threats to fibre optic Ethernet networks – both at the LAN and WAN level. Read now. -
Mobility Apps: What every developer should know
Learn how others have delivered industry-leading, multi-platform management and security solutions. In this whitepaper, we look how app developers can develop, deploy and manage apps that enterprises can rely on today and into the future. Click to download! -
Real-Time Protection Against Malware Infection
Malware is at such high levels (more than 60 million unique samples per year) that protecting an endpoint with traditional antivirus software, has become futile. More than 100,000 new types of malware are now released every day, and antivirus vendors are racing to add new protection features to try to keep their protection levels up. Read more.
Get exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis. 
