December 5th, 2009
A friend of mine started a small business in one of America's larger cities. I'm not much of a techie and I never understood exactly what he was selling, but I became fascinated at the competitive nature of his business when the success of his product began to create animosity toward him from the established supplies in the region.
Industrial espionage is not confined to James Bond movies. The success my friend experienced was based on two simple facts. First, he was able to sell his gadgets (which had something to do with making walkie talkie-type devices function better) for less than the competition. Second, his worked better. Those two factors combined to make marketing a simple matter of word-of-mouth. It also made his competitors very interested in the specs on his little devices – and in his business plans.
My friend had gone to ADT Security to protect his wife's jewelry and the antique furniture they had. It never dawned on him at the time that what he really needed to protect were the documents in his home office. But his security system has stopped two break-ins this year and the most recent one involved and employee of one of his competitors.