# Corporate competitive intelligence > **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou. > > Cite as: "Corporate competitive intelligence," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/corporate-competitive-intelligence/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *The private-sector discipline John Kiriakou entered on leaving the CIA in 2004: collecting human-source intelligence on rival firms for a big-four accountancy. He was the fourth CIA officer Deloitte had hired into a group that paired former intelligence collectors with corporate research analysts, and his requirements were a rival's pricing models, its discount structure, and which of its top-producing partners were unhappy enough to be poached. All the major firms, he says, run the same operation against each other.* - **Where Kiriakou did it:** [Deloitte & Touche](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/deloitte-consulting-career), Washington DC, from 2004 - **His standing:** The fourth former CIA officer the firm had hired into the group - **The model:** Ex-intelligence collectors paired with corporate research analysts - **Targets:** Ernst & Young, KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers, IBM, Accenture and others - **Requirements:** Pricing models, discount policy, disgruntled top-producing partners, expansion plans - **Success rate:** 'Wildly, in some cases' **Corporate competitive intelligence** is the private-sector application of intelligence collection that [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) moved into after resigning from the [CIA](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia) in 2004. ## Why he left The reason he gives is domestic. *"I left the CIA, as funny as it might sound, to spend more time with my children."* An acrimonious divorce had taken his ex-wife and two sons to north-eastern Ohio to be near her parents, and he knew his career would shortly send him overseas again *"to some place not family friendly — Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, something like that."*[1][2] A friend knew somebody at [Deloitte & Touche](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/deloitte-consulting-career), which was looking for someone to head competitive intelligence in its Washington office. He applied, was offered the job within a couple of weeks, resigned from the agency and started the next day.[2][3] ## How the group was built Kiriakou was *"actually the fourth CIA guy that Deloitte & Touche had hired."* The competitive intelligence group had been created on a simple design: hire former CIA officers, or others with experience in intelligence collection, and pair them with the firm's corporate research analysts *"to collect and analyze intelligence on their competitors."*[3] His own brief was collection rather than analysis: *"my job was to collect first-person human source intelligence on Ernst & Young, KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers and a myriad of consulting firms like IBM and Accenture and others."*[4] ## The requirements The targets are commercial but the shape is familiar. *"We tried to steal their pricing models, or how they determine discounts. Or — interestingly, at least to me — we tried to figure out which of their partners were disgruntled, so we could steal them, provided that they were top producers."*[5] The reason pricing matters he sets out as arithmetic: *"if you're going to go into a bid with a price of 24 million dollars, let's say, we want to know that, so we can go in with a bid of 20 million dollars and win the job — because a 20 million dollar contract of course is better than a zero dollar contract."*[6] The full requirement list he gives is *"the bidding process, it's discounts, it's disgruntled partners, it's plans to expand service lines or offerings — anything that might give you a corporate leg up."*[7] ## Everybody does it Asked whether the targets were doing the same back, his answer was *"absolutely — to each other. They all have the same groups."*[5] Asked whether he was any good at it: *"wildly, in some cases."*[7] ## See also - [Deloitte Consulting Career](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/deloitte-consulting-career) - [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) - [Central Intelligence Agency](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia) ## Sources 1. Why I Was Targeted (RAI pt 9, probe dup) (2023-04-25), at 1:34. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh7Ujo6BsEs&t=94s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-04-25-real-news-reality-asserts-itself-why-i-was-targeted-rai-pt-9-probe-dup/ 2. Why I Was Targeted (RAI pt 9, probe dup) (2023-04-25), at 2:05. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh7Ujo6BsEs&t=125s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-04-25-real-news-reality-asserts-itself-why-i-was-targeted-rai-pt-9-probe-dup/ 3. Why I Was Targeted (RAI pt 9, probe dup) (2023-04-25), at 2:37. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh7Ujo6BsEs&t=157s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-04-25-real-news-reality-asserts-itself-why-i-was-targeted-rai-pt-9-probe-dup/ 4. Why I Was Targeted (RAI pt 9, probe dup) (2023-04-25), at 3:08. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh7Ujo6BsEs&t=188s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-04-25-real-news-reality-asserts-itself-why-i-was-targeted-rai-pt-9-probe-dup/ 5. Why I Was Targeted (RAI pt 9, probe dup) (2023-04-25), at 3:39. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh7Ujo6BsEs&t=219s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-04-25-real-news-reality-asserts-itself-why-i-was-targeted-rai-pt-9-probe-dup/ 6. Why I Was Targeted (RAI pt 9, probe dup) (2023-04-25), at 4:11. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh7Ujo6BsEs&t=251s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-04-25-real-news-reality-asserts-itself-why-i-was-targeted-rai-pt-9-probe-dup/ 7. Why I Was Targeted (RAI pt 9, probe dup) (2023-04-25), at 4:41. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh7Ujo6BsEs&t=281s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-04-25-real-news-reality-asserts-itself-why-i-was-targeted-rai-pt-9-probe-dup/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/corporate-competitive-intelligence/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt