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Business Intelligence: How to Investigate Any Company Using OSINT

01.01.1970, 00:00:00

Greetings, Esteemed Readers!

In the previous article on the topic of business intelligence, we explored the basics of this OSINT field — specifically, how it works and what types of information can be associated with legal entities. We also discussed some particularities related to searching for specific data.

So, if you haven’t read that one, it makes sense to start there in order to better grasp the overall context.

In this article, we will focus on the practical side of business intelligence as a process — what, where, and how to search, put simply. The format will be a checklist with concrete tools that are worth using in specific situations, along with brief explanations of nuances and edge cases.

Investigation Preparation

Let’s begin with preparation.
There is an important rule in OSINT that should be learned as a dogma: “If it’s not written down – it’s forgotten.”
And when it comes to business intelligence, this rule becomes especially critical. Simply because the amount of information we’ll have to work with will almost certainly be enormous.

Moreover, we’ll often need to revisit previously viewed data to compare it against newly obtained information.

Another important point — information (of any kind, not just business-related) has an unpleasant habit of changing or disappearing, no matter where it’s found. There’s a popular saying that “the Internet never forgets.”
That might be true, but in practice, you often can’t find the same thing twice.

Therefore, another mandatory habit is to archive all sources that hold any significance, and to do so in a way that preserves where the data was found and how it appeared at that time.

How you record evidence depends mostly on where your materials will eventually be used, and partly on how often you’ll need to return to the original source.

The optimal approach — and the “minimum viable program” in most cases — is to save the required webpage in a web archive (https://web.archive.org, https://archive.is) and make a screenshot of that page.

You can use https://www.printfriendly.com to take a full-page screenshot, not just a visible portion. It even has a browser extension that saves the entire page with one click — and in most cases, that’s sufficient.

For a more advanced workflow, you can use applications like https://hunch.ly.
It keeps a browsing log of every site you visit, and allows you to separately save links, pages, files, and personal notes. It’s a fully functional tool — free for 30 days, after which it costs $110.

Another option is https://www.osint-tool.com, which works as a browser extension.
Besides logging visited websites and allowing you to save them, it also collects information such as emails, phone numbers, links, and more. It even adds a quick-action menu for using search engines, image search, saving fragments of pages, etc.
The toolset includes a variety of utilities that can be applied directly to collected data. Overall, it’s a very capable instrument, though paid — $8 per month.

Data Collection

At the next stage of preparation, you need to determine your starting data points — in other words, understand where to begin and what constitutes your initial position.
And to understand where to begin, you must first define where you want to end up.

That is, a clear understanding of the goal leads to a clear understanding of how to start your work.

Most often, the starting point is a company already known to us — or a person who owns some business. Less often, it might be a product.

These are essentially the three main objects we deal with most of the time: companies, individuals, and products.

At this stage, it’s best to make a separate list of all known firms and people connected to the matter at hand.
This will be your initial dataset, which you’ll expand and refine during the investigation.

By the end, you’ll analyze it, draw conclusions, and answer the main questions before you.

To visualize the process, imagine our work as weaving a web:
At the center are the initial data points, and gradually, by identifying connections and key objects, we expand the web. The connections are the threads, and the discovered objects are the nodes.
The larger the web, the less likely it is that something can remain hidden from us.

Registration Data

Once you’ve established your starting data and defined your investigative goal, you can begin collecting information.
Always start with company registration data, since this ensures precise identification.
It would be unfortunate to waste time studying something, only to realize later it belonged to a completely different entity with a similar name.

The amount of registration data available varies by country of registration, but the standard set includes:

  • company name
  • registration address
  • registration number (and other numerical identifiers specific to a given country)

Additionally, you should record information about directors, founders, and key officers — these are essential elements that will serve as the foundation for tracing relationships and uncovering other relevant data.

This information is typically found in commercial registries, which exist in nearly every country.
There are two main approaches:

  1. Look directly at the national registry;
  2. Use aggregator platforms that collect data from multiple national registries.

The best practice is to check both — and to search both by company name and by the owners’ surnames.

Some of the most useful company information aggregators include:

  • https://opencorporates.com — one of the primary sources we’ll use. It aggregates registry data from numerous countries, allowing quick cross-country identification of companies with similar names.
    If you search by person, it also helps determine in which countries that person owns businesses.
    OpenCorporates displays registration data, historical changes, and links to the official registry in the respective country.

  • https://www.northdata.com — another corporate data aggregator. Its country coverage is smaller than OpenCorporates, but it sometimes includes additional financial or product-related information, so it’s worth checking too.

If you want to locate national registries of specific countries, use directory lists of such registries.
There are many, though none covers every country completely. The most informative ones include:

When studying registry data, pay close attention to chronology — for example, if you notice that founders or directors have changed, record the date of change.
While such details may seem minor at first, later they can become important contextual markers, helping correlate events or understand a broader pattern.

Characterizing Information

After gathering registration data, the next step is to collect characterizing information — a general term referring to all informational activity that occurs around a company outside of its core business processes.

The larger the company, the more informational activity it generates — journalistic investigations, competitor actions, government initiatives, employee leaks, etc.

All of this can be of interest in an OSINT investigation.

Mentions in the Media

One of the mandatory directions to work on is media mentions of the company, especially investigative reports.
This is important because such publications often contain partial analysis already done for you — and sometimes even sensitive or insider information, or leaked documents.
Moreover, any investigative report usually focuses on problematic aspects of the company’s activity, which by itself may be valuable.

Even if the publication is a promotional or descriptive article disguised as PR — it may still contain factual details worth noting.

However, media publications require caution.
Journalists are not always objective — some may embellish facts or omit information.
Therefore, even the most convincing reports should always be verified.

They might be genuine, high-quality investigations, or merely paid pieces — from competitors, the company itself, or even black PR attempts.
Yet even such biased materials can contain useful data.

In general, media materials should be evaluated not by opinions or conclusions, but by factual content — while we form our own assessment based on corroborated data.

As for finding such publications, ordinary Google searches are usually enough — perhaps refined with filters, keywords, or operators like site:, intitle:, intext:.

If the workload is large or you prefer automation, you can use Gemini (or ChatGPT) and request a summary of media mentions about a specific company, possibly within a defined time frame.

It’s also worth noting that some corporate intelligence aggregators (e.g. YouControl) include media mentions in their profiles and even mark them as negative, neutral, etc. These indicators can also be valuable.

Business–Government Relations

Another highly informative direction is the company’s interactions with government structures.
This is fruitful because running a business without interacting with state institutions is practically impossible — from basic registration and licensing to audits, court cases, or regulatory checks.

In some jurisdictions — like classic offshore zones — government influence is minimal, often limited to registration and documentation. But that’s an exception.
In most countries, bureaucracies seek involvement in all areas — from licensing and reporting to financial oversight and law enforcement inspections.

To make orientation easier, here are key areas always worth attention — either because they’re informative in themselves or because they help evaluate the nature of the entity under study.
The main advantage is that such information is usually publicly available — you just need to notice and interpret it properly.

Courts.
Court decision registries are open-access in most countries. Business intelligence aggregators often collect judicial history as well.
You should always review these records — without exception.

Court decisions can contain a wealth of information: real estate or other property, details about counterparties, employees, or produced goods.
They also often reveal disputes or problematic issues concerning the company.

Law enforcement.
The objective is the same as with courts — to obtain additional, characterizing information about the company or its owners.

However, tracing a company’s interactions with law enforcement is usually more difficult unless you have direct access to official databases.
Such information must often be gathered indirectly — for example, through court records (if the company was involved in criminal proceedings) or through media publications.

If the organization is well-known, at least regional outlets may have reported about such cases — and if the incident was high-profile, then certainly so.

Inspections.
Not all inspections are negative — many are routine or procedural.
For instance, a licensing authority might be required to periodically inspect compliance.
Sometimes tax authorities conduct “desk audits,” reviewing quarterly or annual reports without even leaving their office.

Sometimes inspectors, to justify their activity, document minor technical violations — resulting in small fines or warnings.

All of this can be useful, as it reveals what the company does, where it operates, and what level of state oversight applies.
Such data can be found in official inspection registries or on regulator websites.

Public Procurement and Tenders.
In most countries, this information is public — as part of transparency, fair competition, and anti-corruption principles.

Though in reality, it rarely works perfectly — officials and businesses have long learned to bypass these safeguards.
Still, such data remains very revealing.

Beyond uncovering possible corruption links, participation in public procurement provides insight into the company’s activity, scale, and specialization.

For instance:

  • A company that consistently wins tenders from the same institution likely has connections with it — possibly with its leadership.
  • Conversely, if a company participates dozens of times and never wins, it might serve as a decoy bidder to ensure that a preferred participant wins.

Either scenario expands your circle of potential investigative targets.

Company Documents

The next logical direction, derived directly from the previous one, is company documentation.
This follows naturally because bureaucratic systems require paperwork for almost every action.
Every registration, transaction, or interaction generates documents — and documents contain information.
The task, then, is simply to find them.

There are several approaches to this.

You can use search operators like filetype: combined with the company’s name or tax ID, for example:

LLC "Horns and Hooves" filetype:pdf OR filetype:docx OR filetype:xlsx

If the company has an official website, it’s always worth checking for documents using:

site:companyname.com filetype:pdf OR filetype:docx OR filetype:xlsx

At this point, you might find that the company’s website hosts a large number of documents.
In such cases, it’s useful to use Metagoofil to download them all at once — it’s much faster and more reliable than doing it manually.

Besides containing valuable content, documents often include metadata, which Metagoofil extracts automatically.
Metadata can reveal employee names, department titles, email addresses, and phone numbers — all of which are potentially useful.

Company Products

Every business exists to make money, and that almost always involves selling something to someone.
Products are, therefore, another important source of information.

It doesn’t matter much whether the company produces food or software — what matters is how unique the product is.

If the company merely resells someone else’s goods, it’s usually not worth going deep unless your target is the manufacturer.

But if the company is a producer, this automatically creates a large bureaucratic trail — linked to intellectual property rights, trademarks, and other registrations.

For obvious reasons, businesses handle these matters very carefully.

Almost every country maintains a registry of intellectual property that includes trademarks and ownership information.
If you’re conducting a deep investigation, these registries must be checked.

However, as with company registries, there are global aggregators that can provide sufficient overview data:

  • https://branddb.wipo.int — a global trademark database managed by WIPO.
    You can search by name, image, or rights holder, or browse registered brands by country.
    It allows downloading search results or full extracts per country.

  • https://www.tmdn.org/tmview — the EU Intellectual Property Office trademark database.
    Functionally similar to WIPO BrandDB, but with a slightly different interface and often broader European coverage.
    Ideally, check both.

These databases are especially useful when studying businesses that operate across multiple countries.

By searching a product name, you can determine where its trademark is registered — implying where it’s being sold — and also identify the company or representative who registered it in each country.
Each of these details can open new directions for further investigation.

Beyond trademark registration, it’s equally important to monitor product distribution and sales.
If something is sold in a country, it must have reached it somehow — either through local production or importation.

There are two main scenarios:

  1. Local production — meaning there’s a manufacturing facility you can locate, along with related data (offices, staff, taxes, etc.).
  2. Importation — in which case it’s possible to track the route from production to destination.

Don’t forget that you can try tracking not only the finished goods but also the raw materials or components used in production — which sometimes yields even better results.

International trade is a complex domain, and understanding it fully requires hands-on experience.
However, at minimum, you need to understand the difference between export and import, and the concept of an HS Code (Harmonized System) — a numeric classification used for goods in customs documentation.

You can look up HS codes at https://www.tariffnumber.com.

Searching by HS code can sometimes identify exporters, but this only works if the product is relatively unique.
Otherwise, results will be overwhelming.

Still, HS codes can be useful for comparing multiple companies to determine whether their products use the same materials.

Tracking International Shipments

When analyzing trade, the key details to note include:

  • Exporter/Importer — who supplies and who receives the goods
  • Transport company — not always relevant, but note it if available
  • Country of origin / destination
  • Type of product shipped
  • Transaction dates

Useful resources for trade and shipment tracking:

  • https://en.52wmb.com — a large database of import-export operations, including customs declarations, company data, product details, and shipment routes.
    Most data requires a paid plan, but it’s worth it for serious work.

  • https://www.importgenius.com — another customs data resource. It provides informative results even in its free version.

  • https://www.exportgenius.in — organizes import/export data by product category, country, partner, port, and importer/exporter names.

  • https://www.track-trace.com/container — allows tracking a container by number, identifying the owning company and its route.

  • https://opensupplyhub.org — global supply chain data search by company name, country, industry, or product type.
    Useful for identifying manufacturers and sometimes raw material suppliers.

  • https://comtradeplus.un.org — UN Comtrade statistics for international trade flows.
    It shows which goods are exported from one country to another, helping identify trade routes and potential suppliers.

Financial Information

Financial information represents the quantitative reflection of a company’s activity.
Analyzing it helps estimate the scale of operations — though one must be careful not to drift from OSINT into accounting without tangible results.

Still, the well-known principle “follow the money” remains valid.
While it encompasses more than financial reporting, those reports can serve as a starting point for that approach.

A deeper exploration of how to apply financial analysis will require a separate article, but the basics are straightforward:
By studying a company’s financial activity, we can see who invests in it — meaning who has interest or influence — and where the company spends its money.

That might include investments in other firms, expansion, real estate acquisitions, or transfers to offshore accounts or shell structures.

The “follow the money” principle works because money never moves aimlessly — it eventually reaches a final beneficiary, who spends it for specific purposes.
The challenge is tracking those flows accurately, sometimes requiring data beyond open sources.
The minimal practical option in such cases is obtaining a bank statement or transaction report.

  • https://www.annualreports.com — a database of annual reports of large companies, mostly publicly traded ones.
    Not all reports are free, but it’s worth checking; sometimes you can find valuable insights.

Counterparties and Business Partners

No business operates in isolation — every company interacts with others: suppliers, distributors, contractors, and so on.
Business, by definition, is the creation of interconnected chains — supply of goods, raw materials, or services.

The old saying “Tell me who your friends are, and I’ll tell you who you are” applies here as well.
Single, one-time interactions might not mean much, but analyzing long-term connections, especially in the context of supply chains, can reveal important insights — hidden schemes, proxy relationships, or individuals connected to the company unofficially.

In such cases, again, obtaining bank transaction data would be ideal — as it lists all counterparties.
If that’s not possible, you can infer partnerships from sales and distribution channels:
If a product is being sold somewhere, it must have reached that point somehow — identifying how is key.
This can be done by studying the product itself and the entities that sell it.

The approach depends on the specific context.

Conclusion

That’s all for today.
Stay tuned and don’t forget to return for new information!