The Investigative Due Diligence - also known as IDD – has been designed to offer all the necessary information that the client needs, giving aninvestigative flair to the activity, something that is expected to any investigative agency.
The root of the IDD is the Business Due Diligence, that is the analysis of the organizational structure, the shareholders structure and the governance of an enterprise, but with the fundamental feature of an "investigative styling".
The IDD is an in-depth research on the topic of interest, expanding its content as much as it is deemed necessary. If the search for information is a crucial moment for the correct framing of the events that are taking place, the selection and analysis phases of the contents are equally complex and sensitive.
Research and selection together allow to identify consistent results, excluding homonyms and gross errors from the investigation. At the same time, however, they impose the "qualitative leap" of the activity, which will be automatically oriented towards the analysis of the information deemed relevant.
Although the entire process of making the document has its intrinsic investigative style, it is at the moment of the analysis that it reaches its zenith, observing the whole investigation and its conclusions with that critical eye and investigative skills that Dogma possesses thanks to the strong experience built up over the years of complex investigations.
The Investigative Due Diligence is required in all cases where it is necessary to know the target in detail. Whether it is about an acquisition or merger, or a competition-related topic, the IDD is a valid tool in order to have a complete, comprehensive and updated strength of the profile of the target company.
In general, Dogma deals with national and internal Investigative Due Diligence activities with the same method and this is possible thanks to an important peculiarity: it is an international company, with five offices, three of which are among the most important international centres - Milan, London and New York -, to which it adds a series of partners based all over the World.
Thanks therefore to the widespread and flexible organizational structure, Dogma is able to reach quality information in a very short time.
We successfully carried out IDD in almost all corners of the World, collecting company information in Angola, Nigeria, South Africa, Mozambique, Cuba, Brazil, Aruba, Santo Domingo, India, Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Oman, Turkey, all Europeans countries and many others.
The first great added value that Dogma is proud of is its own team: a cohesive and heterogeneous group of specialists who carry out their activitieswith care and passion.
To date, however, professionalism alone is no longer enough and that is why we use numerous innovative software and investigative approaches.
Among the tools used, Dogma takes advantage of the best research databases of natural and legal persons available on the market and with an overall information coverage of 3 billion people and close to 370 million companies.
We then deemed it necessary to expand our reach by acquiring intelligence-dedicated tools necessary to create connections and links even where they would seem non-existent: therefore we read between the lines of the registrants of the domains, we verify the IP addresses and the servers listed using all the information available through a correct and aware analysis of Internet domains and devices of the IoT era.
To all these tools and numerous others, above all there are three methods of intelligence that we apply:
Human Intelligence is the archetype of investigations: information gathering also takes place through numerous contacts and stable relationships that the investigative agency deals with. Making use of validated and reliable humint sources means having correct, quality information from sources close to the target on which the research is being carried out.
On the other hand, Open source intelligence allows the collection of information through freely available resources. In the era of big data, a research method such as the Osint allows to search, select and control information. Distinguishing a fake news from a real news is extremely important, because that news - grafted within a specific context - could represent the reputational criticality that leads to the choice of concluding a deal or not.
Socmint instead allows the investigation and acquisition of numerous information from social networks, acquiring the entire informative background containing photographs, opinions, reports and much more.
Finally, the best practices that we are pleased to share, because fully entered the among the steps necessary to carefully develop an investigation, are two.
The first is the concept of "Devil Advocacy", which leads an individual on the team to become critical in the proposed decision, contrasting the conclusions with which the staff is united. This decision method helps prevent group thinking by increasing the chances of a high quality decision.
The second - called "lateral thinking" - allows instead to remember how necessary it is to approach an investigation without predetermined schemes, while maintaining an agile thinking and employing a cognitive effort that allows the finding of non-canonical solutions, to which everyone slowly risks to get used to.
Dogma is at complete disposal of its customers to set up the Due Diligence that best suits their needs. We operate seven days a week, because we know that intelligence - the production of knowledge from apparently unrelated-data sources - must be fast, clear, precise and punctual. Every day we face the challenges that our work poses and overcome them. Always.
Author:
Paolo Procaccini
Dogma S.p.A. Senior Intelligence Analyst