1. A few definitions

It was in the early 1990s that market intelligence became a major concern for companies. In most cases, these were large industrial groups developing their international operations, and wanting to be kept informed about the movements of their competitors, the evolution of technologies, the solidity of their suppliers, etc.

Prior to this, these large groups had systematically collected data on specific topics, or sought out critical information on particular subjects. In this context, we can cite the case of Japanese trading houses which, from the late 1970s onwards, transferred to Japan as much information as possible on all subjects likely to be of importance to a Japanese company in their networks. It is also certain that at this time, some companies were already carrying out operations akin to intelligence practices....