Corporate Strategies in International Events

Terrorism has not spared the corporate world.  Due to these events, the need for companies to develop strategies in light with international situations grew.  Dealing with domestic and international terrorism is becoming compulsory.  The new global environment is becoming more and more competitive and therefore needs to be addressed with corporate intelligence and strategy.

The present challenges are no longer addressed by theories such as equilibrium-based and complex adaptive systems.  This cause-and-effect economic model focuses on historic competencies by companies.  The theory has led to failure as research reveals.  Another ineffective theory is the complex adaptive systems, based on Darwin’s ideas on evolution.  Darwin’s hypothesis does not work with corporate strategy because some refuse the idea of ‘self-organization’.

The theory most likely to be effective is the complex dynamic systems.  When thinking about the global environment, this theory provides a more realistic foundation.  The levels of both complexity and dynamism are involved in a competitive environment.  The theory successfully recognizes a very vital aspect which is the environmental rate of change.  It avoids the problems related to the two aforementioned theories.

The speed of environmental change accelerates the impact of events brought about by the terrorist attacks.  Corporate strategy and intelligence must be able to think out of the box and deal with the impact of terrorism extremely fast.

Corporate counter-terrorism is best defined as the development of corporate strategy and intelligence skills that enable the firm to effectively anticipate or deal with the discontinuous events of a complex, dynamic environment.  Terrorism is considered illogical and the impact of terrorist events is magnified by the environment rate of change.  An organization must take an overdue look at the role of intelligence function; long enough to prepare for the discontinuities of terrorism.

The key to creating an effective corporate counter-terrorism approach is by using systems thinking and a systematic ‘outside-in’ analysis.  The five (5) tiers that intelligence must be focused to develop an effective counter-terrorism strategy are (1) Global, (2) National, (3) Regional, (4) Corporate perimeter, and (5) Corporate premises.  The company must develop strategies for dealing with each potential threat in analyzing each area.  Strategy, intelligence and security functions must be highly cooperative and autonomous at the same time.

The ten (10) forces in speeding up change and complexity are the following: (1) Market, (2) Technology, (3) Ideological, (4) Economic, (5) Psychological / Social, (6) Legal, (7) Governmental / Political, (8) Moral, (9) Environmental, and (10) Media.  These forces must be observed considerably to come up with a systematic approach to preventing the impact of terrorism in a corporate perspective.