Slide 1: Teleconference: Building Competitive Intelligence To Win In Your Markets Rolf M. Schonhowd Senior Analyst Forrester Research May 30, 2007. Call in at 10:55 am Eastern Time
Slide 2: Theme High-tech strategists: invest and involve competitive intelligence professionals or compete blind Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. 2
Slide 3: Agenda • What is competitive intelligence (CI)? • CI’s strategic importance • How to increase CI’s effectiveness and visibility among internal stakeholders • Recommendations • Open Q&A Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. 3
Slide 4: Agenda • What is competitive intelligence (CI)? • CI’s strategic importance • How to increase CI’s effectiveness and visibility among internal stakeholders • Recommendations • Open Q&A Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. 4
Slide 5: What is competitive intelligence? Competitive intelligence (CI) is the process by which organizations gather and use analyzed information about products, customers, and competitors for their shortterm and long-term planning Thus, it is about making the organization more competitive relative to its existing set of competitors and potential competitors Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. 5
Slide 6: Agenda • What is competitive intelligence (CI)? • CI’s strategic importance • How to increase CI’s effectiveness and visibility among internal stakeholders • Recommendations • Open Q&A Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. 6
Slide 7: CI plays an important strategic role for strategy professionals In essence, the role of CI for strategists is to: • Be an advisor in an increasingly competitive environment • Help them make informed and better decisions • Assist in avoiding unnecessary failures due to a lack of insight • Provide support in differentiating the company to improve its competitive positioning Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. 7
Slide 8: May 2007, Trends “High-Tech Strategists: Invest In Competitive Intelligence Or Compete Blind” CI’s strategic importance © 2007, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
Slide 9: CI provides strategic value on different levels At the company level, it provides insight to support the corporate strategy: » CI professionals should be a key member of a strategy team » CI should address business aspects, such as where are the competitors investing and what are the competitors’ margins » Strategy games such as war-room games and scenario analyses are meaningful tools to build new strategies » An example: – A competitor has acquired another key competitor in the market to strengthen its market position – In this situation, CI professionals can establish a war room to assist corporate strategists with what needs to done to counter this competitor move Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. 9
Slide 10: CI provides strategic value on different levels At the marketing level, it provides insight to support marketing strategy » CI is often located in the marketing department, so it is natural for it to support marketing » The CI team will play an important part in providing relevant insight to all four P’s in the marketing mix as part of deciding on an overall marketing strategy » An example: – New competitors are entering the market with similar products, and the marketing strategists need to reevaluate the company’s go-to-market strategy – In this situation, the CI unit can play a role in analyzing the new competitors’ value propositions by investigating their recent marketing campaigns, product launches, and channel strategies Entire 10 contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 11: CI provides strategic value on different levels At the product level, it provides insight to support product development » Product managers must assess their own products’ competitive weaknesses or competitive strengths relative to rival offerings » At the same time, product managers must develop new products and features to meet new needs among customers » An example: – A company has found out that its customers’ needs have changed due to new technology customer needs and it is thus planning to launch an improved product – In this situation, the CI unit can play a critical role in providing “features and functions” comparison analyses of new competitive offerings, and make recommendations as to where to focus and position the new product to gain competitive advantage Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Entire 11 contents © 2007
Slide 12: CI provides strategic value on different levels At the sales level, it provides tactical intelligence on how to outperform key competitors » Sales executives should involve CI to support the sales force and bidding teams with current intelligence to position their company’s solutions favorably and thus improve the win rate significantly » CI can improve the sales force’s understanding of which tactics will give their firm the best strategic position without suffering competitive attacks » An example: – The sales force knows which competitor they are up against in offering global outsourcing enterprise unified communications solutions – The CI unit can provide in-depth analysis on where the specific competitor has its weak points related to the customer RFP and what strong points their own company should emphasize to increase its chances of winning Entire 12 contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 13: Agenda • What is competitive intelligence (CI)? • CI’s strategic importance • How to increase CI’s effectiveness and visibility among internal stakeholders • Recommendations • Open Q&A Entire 13 contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 14: Guidelines for establishing a successful CI unit • Appoint a CI manager: » A “jack of all trades” » Strong communication and negotiation skills » The role should be appointed on a full-time basis » The CI manager must have sales skills; these are important to give the CI unit visibility and identity • Build a CI plan: » Conduct an internal stakeholder analysis to detect key CI requirements » Present a CI plan to inform all relevant internal stakeholders » The CI plan should be a yearly plan to give direction, but needs to be evaluated at least every month Entire 14 contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 15: Guidelines for establishing a successful CI unit • Build a CI team with exceptionally curious individuals: » This is an essential ingredient in providing valuable and updated intelligence because the job requires a lot of digging • Establish strong internal relationships: » Relationships can be formal or informal » Find common interests and key intelligence requirements Entire 15 contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 16: Guidelines for establishing a successful CI unit • Find an internal champion: » Deliver high-value projects for a senior executive early in the process; in return, the exec will support future CI budgets and activities • Strive to get some quick wins: » Try to make a good start when establishing a CI unit by providing critical intelligence early to senior executives » It is important to promote your successful intelligence projects to obtain trust among senior managers around executing new projects Entire 16 contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 17: Guidelines for establishing a successful CI unit • Build a CI intelligence portal: » Create a portal where all the latest CI reports are available » This portal will be highly important for disseminating and promoting the CI unit » It makes it easy for internal stakeholders to access all the data » Company executives will usually rely more on person-to-person interaction in understanding intelligence • Become an expert; don’t go too wide! » If the CI unit doesn’t have the budget to employ several people, stay away from trying to do everything » Focus on a few key business areas and build on this success » Become an intelligence specialist Entire 17 contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 18: Agenda • What is competitive intelligence (CI)? • CI’s strategic importance • How to increase CI’s effectiveness and visibility among internal stakeholders • Recommendations • Open Q&A Entire 18 contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 19: Recommendations To create a winning strategy, high-tech strategists should: • Support CI as a business unit and make use of CI as a critical source for insight • Make sure that CI people have easy access to you and vice versa • Strive to collect intelligence to avoid competitive blindness Entire 19 contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 20: Recommendations High-tech strategists must always think about creating competitive advantage: • To ensure your company stays successful, see the CI unit as a key member of the strategy process inside the organization • In the long term, competitive intelligence can give you the business edge you need to create a successful strategy — while you, as a high-tech strategist, will earn recognition from your peers as being responsible for crafting the company strategy positioning of moving away from a red ocean to a blue one Entire 20 contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 21: Recommendations Become a blue-ocean* strategy practitioner! • Blue oceans are untapped and uncontested markets that provide little or no competition for anyone who wants to dive in, as the markets are not crowded • Rather than competing within the confines of the existing industry or trying to steal customers from rivals, develop value innovation and break away from the competition • Value innovation is a new way of thinking that moves away from typical differentiation and low-cost strategies; blue ocean is about creating differentiation and low costs simultaneously * Blue Ocean Strategy was created by Professors W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, of the INSEAD business school. Entire 21 contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 22: Thank you Rolf M Schonhowd +31 (0) 20 305 4338 rmschonhowd@forrester.nl www.forrester.com Entire 22 contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.