Blue Square Global (BSG) is a leading boutique intelligence, investigation and risk advisory firm. Founded in 2007, its team focuses on providing a highly individualised service to clients in multinational cases in areas ranging from commercial disputes to asset tracing and enhanced due diligence.
Trust is at the heart of everything BSG does, emphasises CEO Damian Ozenbrook. Constantly striving to provide the best possible service to its clients, its team surveys the landscape regularly for new innovations that might enhance their offering. When the team came across the Videris platform, they knew that it was a must-have.
A platform for high-quality, in-depth investigations
Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) had long played a role in BSG investigations, but Videris offered new possibilities for building on its existing strong foundations by further enhancing depth and quality. Videris brought many of the data sources BSG was already using together in a single platform, so the team would be able to streamline both data collection and analysis without compromising data quality.
Rob Hills, Operations Director at BSG, notes that Videris particularly stood out because it offered both highly accurate data and the potential for efficiency gains. The platform was closely aligned with the team’s philosophy of providing high-quality, in-depth investigative services, and well-suited to the complex, multi-jurisdictional work they carry out.
The Outcome
Once BSG had made the decision to adopt Videris, its SaaS deployment meant that it was quickly accessible. The Blackdot team provided extensive training to ensure that users could gain fast return on investment.
Since then, Ozenbrook and Hills agree that BSG has reaped significant benefits from the adoption of Videris, including:
An analytical edge
Videris offers a range of functionality that enhances the BSG team’s ability to identify, verify and cross-check information faster than they could manually. Specialised functionality such as the ability to trace identities from phone number and email addresses makes new avenues of investigation possible. Ultimately, Videris allows the team to be certain that they haven’t missed information. What’s more, adds Ozenbrook, it has even allowed them to find insights that clients were not expecting to be identifiable online.
Enhanced deliverables
For clients, Videris provides a new way of understanding the complex, nuanced and highly networked data that BSG’s investigations often produce. Videris allows the BSG team to create chart visualisations that showcase both corporate and personal footprints. This creates an enhanced deliverable that allows BSG to effectively bring a case to life for a client.
Staying with the curve
As CEO, Ozenbrook is keen to emphasise that Videris helps BSG to remain abreast of trends and developments in the OSINT space. “We can rely on Videris to keep us ahead” he says, referring to both data integrations and new techniques. By using Videris to stay ahead of the curve, BSG can direct all of its focus on high-quality investigation outcomes.
Faster investigation scoping
Hills adds that the ability to ‘scope’ a case faster has proved an unexpected benefit of Videris. The ability to search across multiple sources and map networks at a click means that it takes little time to understand a potential case and decide how to pursue it. If a case is accepted, the team then benefits from the head start achieved through early scoping and can simply pick up where they left off, allowing them to respond more effectively to urgent requests.
Combining intelligence for the best possible output
Ultimately, says Ozenbrook, Videris is supporting the BSG team to produce the broadest and deepest possible intelligence picture for its clients. ‘We open as many doors as possible with Videris’ he says ‘then see which we can pursue’ – be it with further open source investigation, or with human intelligence sources who can fill gaps with localised knowledge.
‘Overall’ he says, it’s about ‘doing the best job we can for the client’. Blackdot and BSG will continue working together to ensure that the BSG team is able to provide the best service, with trust and quality at its heart.
