South Africa’s newest commercial intelligence operation has captured the attention of Biznews blogger Alexx Zarr. This piece touches on an interesting outfit called Foresight Advisory Services Ltd and reminds us that spying is prolific in this globally interconnected world.
Fingers have been pointed in the international media at state-owned enterprises in countries like Russia and China, because some of these organisations seem to possess information that helps ensure they win big deals in Africa and elsewhere. Of course, it isn’t just governments who spy on their citizens. It is very common these days for employers to keep an eye on what their staff are up to on computers in company time.
In the past we could shred our documents. These days you need high-tech protection if you want to keep your secrets to yourself. – JC
SA’s newest intelligence operation: Coming in from the cold, going into the heart of business
By Alexx Zarr
When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions. William Shakespeare
The general public has recently re-discovered that spying is not something that happens only between avowed enemies, or even latent enemies, but also an activity that is inherent amongst friends and allies. Knowing what others are doing, may do or whether they are spying on us, gives advantages. And espionage is not an activity that happens only between nation-states, but amongst any entities that seek advantage or to avoid compromise, including corporate entities, sports teams and individuals.
While we know spying is happening all the time, in both formal and less formal ways, when we discover it we feel surprised. This is much like the Edward Snowden Affair; he told us what we don’t care to know. It seems, the crime is being found out, rather than that it is actually happening.
The USA, for example, deploys immense resources to spy on all and sundry. While we know this, we do not care for anyone to remind us it is so. It is widely known that the Peoples’ Republic of China has vast programs to spy on so-called western countries and companies, for both military and commercial technology reasons. Technology and commercial spying reaps massive dividends for countries and their commercial entities, which then also flows through to military applications. Ideas, innovation, development time and costs, and counter measures are all benefited by useful intelligence.
There is, of course, also domestic spying. Governments keep tabs on its citizens and their various collectives, from social and political groups to crime syndicates. Governments tend to define a vast range of topics, behaviours and dynamics as ‘of interest to national security’. Where civilian oversight and other checks and balances are weak or absent, the width of what is construed as ‘the national interest’ tends to be unconstrained. In such instances governments and other agencies may potentially misuse their powers for purposes other than credible matters of national interest.
There has been a tendency over the past 60 years to rely more and more on non-human intelligence gathering. There are a myriad of technology-based ways to collect intelligence. This is largely what Snowden has presented to us; monitoring voice and data transmissions.
Often we, the public know more about intelligence failures, rather than successes. It is the nature of the beast.
This brings me to the crux of this column. On 5 March 2014 South Africa was introduced to a new commercial enterprise, Foresight Advisory Services (Pty) Ltd, that happens to be in the business of intelligence gathering and processing.
This is not just any old garden variety ‘security’ company that South Africa has a dime a dozen. The six men who comprise the first level of direction have deep roots in the espionage and security business in South Africa. What is also of interest is that their roots belong to two very different trees, although they grew side by side. If I may abuse the metaphor; these roots that intertwined with each other in the past have now grafted together. They fulfil a Nelson Mandela comment that, If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner. While the comment may have related to negotiating South Africa’s future direction, we have a reality that former enemies in a civil war are now business partners.
Looking backwards we would have had on the one side; Mr Lizo Gibson Njenje, Mr (former Ambassador) Moe Shaik, Ambassador Mzuvukile Jeff Maqetuka and perhaps Ms Nolwazi Qata. On the other side would have sat Dr Lukas Daniel “Niel” Barnard and Mr (former General) John George Fivaz.
There are also six senior managers who report to a chief executive officer, Mr Heine van Niekerk. It appears that these staff members also have backgrounds in the intelligence domain.
These six directors and staff bring together different but perhaps similar espionage and intelligence experience from the pre-1994 South Africa. When spies that were adversaries come together to form a commercial enterprise we must surely have something rather unique. I am not yet sure how to read this marriage, but it is certainly interesting.
So what does Foresight Advisory Services (FAS) say they do? They advertise three general areas of expertise, namely, intelligence and risk, security and IT, and business. Within these three rubrics their offerings include, Competitive Intelligence – Competitor Analysis and Competitor Profiling, Behavioural Risk Intelligence (Internal and External), Computer Forensic Services, Adversary Strength Predictor and Negotiation, and Conflict Management.
FAS has offices in Johannesburg and London.
I reckon it will be interesting to read FAS’s annual report and financials, unless commercial intelligence companies don’t need to produce these.
