Competitive Disruption was the initial threat upon which the need for a CI platform was decided. What was the mandate? Which preparatory steps were needed before choosing a supplier? What did the supplier need to deliver? And how fast? Would top management decide on the KITs? Or did the end users have the final say? Learn more from my presentation of 20. October 2015.

1. Marcel Brussee
Competitive Intelligence Consultant

2.  Overview
 Key Factors for a Speedy and Successful
Implementation
 Briefing
 Proposals
 Supplier selection
 Selected platform
 Deliverables and time line
 Costs
 Conclusion, lessons learned

3.  How it began
◦ Backgrounds & origins
 Briefing (RFP)
◦ Summary of identified requirements
 Platform/Supplier selection
◦ Specialised help
◦ What to expect
 Quick Start
◦ Build up a global intelligence program in less than
one year

4.  Backgrounds & origins
◦ Identified backlog in information supply
 Continuous market updates needed
 Uneasy feeling our competitors may be 5 years ahead
 Surprised by patent registrations
◦ Assignment
 Desire to close the gap
 Eagerness to return to leadership position

5. “A systematic program
for gathering and analysing information
about your competitor’s activities
and general business trends
to further the company’s goals.”

6.  Budget
 Dedicated staff member
 Tools follow products (content) follow needs
(KITs) follow stakeholders’ definition
 Sponsors
 Internal network
 Communications
 Big egos need not apply
 Quality control
 Key account management

7.  Summary of identified requirements
◦ Top down definition of
◦ Key Intelligence Topics
 Timing
 Budget
 Deliverables

8.  Business Objectives:
◦ “Close the gap in information collection and
analysis to create insights for our (executive)
management. Recent developments have made us
realise that we have lagged in our market focus,
and need to quickly polish up our competitive
insights.”

9.  Research Objectives:
◦ A structured competitive monitoring (mandatory part)
 Competitive products
 Importance of attributes of competitive appliances
 (Dis)Satisfaction on innovation level
 Our comparison against the competition
 Which competitor is most threatening
◦ Continuous updates on what is going on in our market(s)
◦ Technological developments
◦ IP issues that may threaten our competitive advantage
◦ New products in development
◦ General developments in (future) products use

10.  Timing:
◦ Proposal expected within 2 weeks
◦ Platform/Supplier selection within 1 week
◦ Contract negotiations, agreement and signing
within 1 week
◦ Project design within 2 weeks
◦ First tangible results within 2 weeks
◦ First “finished” product within 6 months

11.  Deliverables:
◦ A research proposal was requested which:
 would provide evidence of understanding our research needs
 would demonstrate the appropriateness of the proposed
methodology
 would provide a detailed breakdown of costings, including
estimations of expenses
 would provide details pertaining to any subcontractors to be
involved
 would provide a detailed time schedule
 would details the staffing and other resources to be made
available
 would provide an indication of costings for subsequent research
in the target markets.

12.  Five suppliers were approached
◦ Price differences
◦ Level of support
◦ “Look and feel” of user interfaces
 Three suppliers were shortlisted
◦ External advice for final selection
 Kurt Kobel (Phonak, past president SCIA)
 long time experience with multiple platforms
 as such well versed in estimating CI manager’s needs

13.  Based upon
◦ Superior understanding of company needs
◦ Superior understanding of CI manager’s needs
◦ Superior ability to deliver at requested extremely
short delivery times
◦ Superior analysts support
◦ Superior flexibility to switch to different platform
backbone if so desired
now:

14. We offer relevant, timely external intelligence that helps make the right
decisions, efficiently. We call it Informed Leadership.
…stay aware of all
developments in your
business environment
…understand what
these developments
mean for you
…decide on your
optimal strategy for
success
www.m-brain.com

15. Competitive
products
Market developments
Technology
developments
Product use
developments
Threatening
IP issues
New products in
development
Counterfeit / Piracy
Opportunities
business model

16. • Identifying and meeting
intelligence needs
• Monitoring services
• Strategic analysis
• Intelligence software
• Intelligence best
practices

17. TIME SAVING:
50 users x 6h/month = 300 h/month
DIRECT MONTHLY MONETARY SAVINGS:
50€/h x 300h = 15,000€

18. Preparation phase Setup phase MI Launch
January April June
• Kick-off
project
• Dashboard,
• bi-daily
newsletter
Roll-out,
Launch in
sales
offices,
Add
topics
Communication to
rest of company
• Competitor
profiles
• Geographical
markets
defined
• Patent watch
started up
Workshop
higher mgt.
Workshops
local mgt.
Definition additional
stakeholders and
their KITs

20. Level Year 1

21. Goal Year 2

22. License fees for software platform:
Up to 50 users: monthly fee 1,500 EUR
Up to 100 users: 2,500 EUR per month
Analyst fees: 5,000 to 10,000 EUR per month,
depending on scope and deliverables after pilot phase
Remember:
TIME SAVING: 50 users x 6h/month = 300 h/month
DIRECT MONTHLY MONETARY SAVINGS: 50€/h x 300h = 15,000€

23.  Briefing can be drawn up very quickly by
approaching the right people (Ivory Tower)
 If you have time, interview stakeholders
throughout the whole organization (Direct
Democracy)
 Suppliers response turned out to be
extraordinarily quick
 First results can be available in an amazingly
short time frame
 Selling the project should not be extremely
difficult

24.  Users’ habits die slowly, very slowly
 At least one dedicated user should allocate
(enough) time to elevate insights
 Identify at a very early stage which users do not
log into the platform
 Feed them the information directly until they do
 Integrate internal information sources & reports
at an early stage to promote the use of the
platform
 At every interaction, ask the users what they have
learned from the information and how they
intend to use it

25.  The platform was very well received
 The users are very appreciative of the
information provided…
 …but are reluctant to give up their habits of
keeping local information to themselves
 Active participation should be made
compulsory by the highest hierarchical
manager
 Ideally, the sales force should be included in
the collection of data/information

26.  Marcel Brussee
◦ marcel.brussee@bluewin.ch
◦ http://ch.linkedin.com/in/marcelbrussee
 M-Brain
◦ www.m-brain.com
◦ Dorotheenstrasse 1
◦ 45130 ESSEN
 Carsten Gayer
◦ Managing Director M-Brain
◦ carsten.gayer@m-brain.com