Essay Example: Industrial Espionage in Uber Company

Industrial espionage is an illegal activity of investigating competitors to gain a business advantage. It happens when one takes trade secrets of a company to be used by a competitor (Harris, J. R., 2017). Industrial espionage is done for the commercial purposes, and it differs from the competitive legal intelligence. Industrial espionage is an illegal activity that has been prohibited by economic espionage act.

Uber is an international company that offers transportation services. It is headquartered in San Francisco, United States. It carries out its operations in in 633 cities globally. It has been accused of industrial espionage, which faces a danger of being closed Uber has been accused of using technology to track his competitor's drivers. Uber has been defending itself against these accusations through its ability to innovate and hire the best talent in the market. In my opinion, Uber has not been practicing industrial espionage. Instead, I feel it has been practicing competitive intelligence. Competitive intelligence is the collection of information about your competitors strengths legally and using them in making a strategic business decision (Bose, R., 2008). Uber has been using this strategy in knowing what their competitors are unable to provide to the market and taking advantage of it.

In the world today, knowledge is power and being ignorant can hurt a company. Uber has been working the information collected from its research to strategize itself. This strategy has given Uber a competitive advantage making its competitors worry about it fast growth. Uber Company has been employing the use of both tactical and strategic intelligence activities to edge out its competitors. This helps the company in capturing the market share and opportunities available in the market. This makes it different from the unethical methods accused to have used to gain success.

Uber has just been using what is available in the public domain about its competitors to strategize itself. Information on competitors website cannot be treated as illegal to analyze them and using them as Uber has been accused. So far the Uber company has no known idea that has been claimed to have been stolen from any competitor. It has been working purely on its innovation and risk-taking in the new unknown markets, which has worked well for the company.

The team that has been accused of being Uber espionage team has is a team that has been helping Uber in the market analysis. It is clear that corporate espionage is not done publicly and it involves things that are hidden. It involves individuals going undercover and even paying off inside informants. In Ubers case, the company has taken measure to cover its tracks from external spies by using a self-deleting message system. This is allowed for countering industrial espionage. All that Uber did was just collecting the competitor's information that was available in public through legitimate activities which it was disclosed.

Uber Company has been the most popular transporting company. It has also unveiled self-driving fleets to the public in Pittsburgh and San Francisco. This all progress is because of its innovative and best understanding of the market. This is gained through market research and use of competitive intelligence strategies. The Uber Company should work on making its moves public to avoid any suspicion from its competitors.

Reference

Harris, J. R. (2017). Industrial Espionage and Technology Transfer: Britain and France in the 18th Century. Taylor & Francis.

Bose, R. (2008). Competitive intelligence process and tools for intelligence analysis. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 108(4), 510-528.