Corporate Espionage

Corporate Espionage

Espionage is the practice of spying or usage of spies to obtain information about the plans and activities. According to me, the espionage is something that everyone should avoid and not just corporations. Now, in this essay I would like to write about the corporate espionage or the industrial espionage where the spies are employed to know about the competing companies. The corporate espionage is illegal and hence, unethical. It is estimated that economic espionage has caused business losses in the trillions of dollars over the last decade alone.

Corporate Espionage was not so popular until there were some Hollywood movies, even though it was prevalent in the corporate world. In the movie, ‘Duplicity’ cast by Julia Roberts as Claire Stenwick and Clive Owen as Ray Koval. They are former government operatives turned corporate spies. These spies collect big paychecks from rival companies as corporate spies. They grab a formula for a product that will earn a fortune for whichever company patents it first. Not just in the movies, there are so many such corporate espionage incidents in the real life.

For instance, The Proctor & Gamble (P & G) company employed spies to nab a shampoo formula from the Chicago Unilever company. According to the website Investopedia, later the P & G Company paid ten million dollars to the Unilever company (Beattie). Also, the Microsoft vs. Oracle espionage. Larry Ellison, the head of the Oracle, hired detectives in order to lay their hands on documents by bribing the cleaning staff at Microsoft’s Washington office. Microsoft spokespeople referred to the admission as a “Black eye for Oracle” – and with the levels of animosity between the two chiefs (Larry Ellison and Bill Gates (Microsoft)), it’s surprising there were no actual black eyes (Crowley).

Now, I shall elucidate why the corporate espionage incidents are not so popular. Though we rarely hear about it, the espionage is an international grand scheme that spans individuals, corporations and also countries. In 1999, Fortune 1,000 companies lost more than $45 billion from the theft of trade secrets, according to a survey by the American Society for Industrial Security and Price Waterhouse Coopers. Today, theft of trade secrets is estimated to be around $100 billion (Robinson). First of all, the company would appear to be very vulnerable, which in turn will lead to much more self employed espionage to grab more secrets of the corporations and sell them in the market to make their own profits. And all of this displays the weakness in the company.

In addition to this, the corporation would appear to be an easy target for the competing companies to spy. If the company is weak, vulnerable, easy target that would definitely trigger fear in the shareholders. If not many people are interested in the company the value of the company in the market will