Q&A About Ethical Intelligence Practices with:

Gwendoline Savoy
Market Intelligence Director
Scytl Secure Electronic Voting

By Patricia Jacoby
Publications Editor
Frost & Sullivan





Gwendoline Savoy, a distinguished participant in SCIP’s Women in Intelligence, Strategy and Analytics (WISA) Shared Momentum Roundtable at the SCIP 22nd Annual European Summit, provides an international perspective on building - and improving - ethical CI practices. Among her responses, she notes that some CI professionals are not educated enough about the ethical gray areas that invariably exist. She also believes that it is necessary to establish detailed, global guidelines for CI ethics best practices.

1. As a participant in the Women in Intelligence, Strategy and Analytics (WISA) Shared Momentum Roundtable, one of your major topics of discussion is how women—and men—are driving change in their disciplines. Do you believe women can be a positive force for change when it comes to improving ethical intelligence practices? Why or why not? 

Yes, I do believe that women can be a positive force for change when it comes to improving ethical intelligence practices.

Building an ethical culture or improving ethical practices not only requires that people be aware of ethical challenges, but also that they have a clear and sincere intention to take them seriously. Women are conscientious professionals with a high sense of responsibility who think collectively and work for the common interest. These are necessary qualities when it comes to implementing or improving ethical practices within an organization.

2. Do you think CI professionals are educated enough by their organizations about the ethical gray areas that inevitably exist inworking as a CI professional? Ways to address or improve? 

In my experience, which is based on CI practice applied to SMEs, I would say no. Having that said, I think it is the role of any CI professional to get informed and educate their organizations about good practices, clarify potential grey areas and define the processes to follow to carry out CI functions. 

3. What about European privacy laws? Can you comment on how the EU Data Protection Directive has affected or will affect intelligence practices and the use of data in CI? 

As my business relates to Governments and elections, I haven’t really been affected by European privacy laws and I don’t think the General Data Protection Regulation to be enforced next year should further affect my practice as a CI professional. 

This new regulation will affect our business which is why our R&D and security teams are currently assessing the impact of this new regulation, but from a CI perspective I shouldn’t be affected.However, for those businesses who specialize in B2C activities, I do believe EU Data Protection will affect them, and particularly from a consumer intelligence perspective. To what extent? I don’t know yet.

4. Do you think there are important regional differences in ethical intelligence practices? For instance, are there any important distinctions between different European countries and approaches? Things to learn from other countries? A need for a centralized European Code of Conduct?

I don’t think there are differences in terms of ethical intelligence practices, but I do think there are differences in how these practices are framed, documented and communicated throughout an organization. These differences are due to: 

• Different levels of CI maturity throughout European countries. In my opinion, countries like France, Germany or Switzerland are much more advanced in their CI practice than countries like Spain or Italy, where CI is still emerging 
• The company culture
• The level of experience of the CI director/manager within an organization

Rather than establishing a European code of conduct, I think that organizations such as SCIP are perfectly positioned to establish detailed and global guidelines regarding best practices in CI ethics.

5. How do you see the role of social media and digitization affecting the CI industry and ethics? 

Social media usage has grown and diversified intensively over the past 10 years and its monitoring has become a globally accepted tool for competitive intelligence. Internet and digitization have made access to information much easier but at the same time CI professionals are provided with so much content that they need to be able to filter, select and process the right data to provide actionable intelligence. In this sense, I think the CI industry has evolved quite significantly.

Regarding ethical practices, it is true that social media should be used carefully--and ethically-- as misinformation is also used to confuse or undermine one’s competitors. Social media has also become a place where it is easy for an employee to “leak” internal information.

Since social media is public, and open to anyone, it is the role of CI professionals to educate employees about social media usage and triangulate any information of interest they could detect through social media.

6. What challenges do you see on the horizon for CI and ethics as globalization continues? 

As globalization continues, organizations increasingly face fierce competition as well as technological disruptions. They need to adapt to new environments, anticipate market evolutions, get ahead of their competition and maximize profit faster. 

However, getting ahead sometimes means doing whatever it takes, even if you’re acting unethically. This is the reason why I believe that establishing a global CI ethical code of conduct to which any CI professional can refer is of paramount importance. Also, considering that an increasing number of organizations are relying on the CI function to define their strategies, I would also further educate CI professionals and organizations on the potential legal and financial consequences of illegal CI practices.

Gwendoline Savoy is a market intelligence professional with over 10 years of experience in international markets, elections / B2G industries and high-growth IT companies. In her current position as Director of Market Intelligence at Scytl, Ms. Savoy supports the management, sales and product teams by delivering actionable intelligence and strategic direction. She has built the market intelligence function from scratch and assisted the company in closing a $104M funding in 2014. Ms. Savoy holds a double Master’s degree in Marketing and has previously worked for Invest in Bavaria, Germany and for the Ardennes Chamber of Commerce and Industry in France. She speaks fluent French, English, Spanish and German.