Global Intelligence Alliance Customer Seminar & Workshops May 29, 2008 - Helsinki, Finland

Following another GIA invitation (after the successful and fun May 15 event in Stuttgart, Germany where I had the privilege to present alongside with Frieder Spieth of Bosch, Munich) the annual GIA customer summit offered an opportunity to speak about “Executive Buy-In to Competitive Intelligence” to existing GIA customers.

As if this (and meeting the really friendly and fun GIA folks in Helsinki again) wasn’t enough fun I was thrilled to present together with two great minds in Competitive Intelligence: Hans Hedin (VP Business Development Global Intelligence Alliance) and my good friend Michel Bernaiche with whom I also attended one (Competitive Intelligence for Strategic Planning) of the great GIA workshops in the morning of our presentations.





Markko Vaarnas GIA’s CEO and cofounder reviewed GIA’s business performance and service additions (of which the new Rapid Response Service certainly strikes my fancy!) plus an outlook on future developments (regional strengthening into central Europe).



Afterwards Hans Hedin produced some results of the global CI survey 2008 and moved on to introduce in great detail the matrix of a competitive intelligence function evolution or development.



As I have used the matrix at Ciba in an effort to move our CI function to the next level I used this programmatic, structured approach for mandating of all necessary improvement actions and activities which, at the same time, resulted in my presentation at the GIA event leading from Hans’ World Class CI Function approach to an actual utilization case study of this very matrix and approach.

The presentation was very well received which reflected in many discussions at the night of the event and even more e-mail exchange in the days following the GIA summit. Again: GIA events prove time and again to be excellent networking opportunities.



As the last presentation that day my very good friend Michel Bernaiche (whom I met right there in Helsinki at the GIA customer summit 2006 and have met several times at GIA and SCIP events since) of Dunkin’ Brands focused on a CI topic which is dramatically under-represented but needs more attention in the years to come: counter intelligence!

Michel’s presentation was a clear eye opener for me as it visualized the clear need of an integrated, well established and maintained counter intelligence function that should span across several classical business functions such as security, legal, communications to name just a few.

Find some additional notes at my market & competitive intelligence blog markintell.com.

Now for the socializing highlight: a trip with a two mast sail ship “name…” across the Helsinki bay. Find some photo’s neat photos underneath. We all had a ball after some serious work and fruitful business exchange again.

GIA Breakfast event in Stuttgart May 15, 2008

In their effort to extend their business model and services throughout Europe the Global Intelligence Association (GIA) provided a deeper look into their portfolio and capabilities at the first GIA Breakfast event in Stuttgart May 15, 2008 at the noble Möwenpick Hotel.

Niko Porkka Solutions Manager, Germany and Markko Vaarnas, CEO Global Intelligence Association introduced the ways and opportunities „Towards a World Class Market Intelligence Operation“. Additionally the brand new “Global Market Intelligence Study 2008” was introduced. More than 400 global companies were surveyed for their market & competitive intelligence functions and capabilities.

As keynote speakers for this event Frieder Spieth of Bosch Power Tools was invited as well as myself. Frieder introduced the Intelligence Desk solution at Bosch that provides an internal repository and dissemination option for intelligence serving the global power tools business.

My presentation focused on the implementation of the Intelligence Plaza application and service at Ciba with the impact on top management buy-in and decision support.

First I introduced Ciba’s intelligence needs and issues: Establish Marketing & Sales Excellence, Genuine support needed to Ciba’s strategic marketing efforts, Limited internal MI resources, Flexible external services necessary, Globally coordinated Market Intelligence, Consolidate externally and internally available market information, One user-friendly interface instead of many, Measure and control costs of business information.

Challenges, as mentioned in many of my earlier best practice presentations that we needed to address:

Efficiency
Hundreds of employees using hundreds of different sources and systems
No defined common intelligence flow: paths, interfaces, joints
Mostly intelligence stays where it is picked, no cross-segmental utilization

Performance
No control over who does what beyond own group, region
No intelligence channeling across company
Missing vendor strategy

Reliability
Many link collections not maintained
Dead links, outdated documents
Missing sourcing strategy and processes

Cost impact
Unknown number of reports, studies purchased, no cost control
Potential duplication of contracted consultant work and acquired studies

Legal
License situations not transparent

Quality
No mutual understanding of preferred provider

Lack of Professionalism
No mutual basis and expertise in marketing research and analysis
No common way and standards to visualize intelligence simply and effectively across all businesses, “don’t make me think” reporting

Logically I moved on to the impact and the inner workings of the mutual partnership with GIA lining out the benefits we enjoyed since working with GIA’s intelligence knowledge and the Intelligence Plaza service in particular.

In overview of our (Ciba’s) market & competitive intelligence model rounded up this presentation tailor-made for this specific German audience.

In summary of this interesting and lively exchange I would suggest the German market to finally catch on to the concept and opportunities to integrate market & competitive intelligence into common business practices and processes.

Structured approaches to business intelligence are being studied and considered more seriously and step by step we will see this market to explore more sophisticated market intelligence options.

SCIA event May 20, 2008: Round tabel discussion "The integration of CI into key business processes"

At the May 20, 2008 SCIA (Swiss Competitive Intelligence) event we tried a new, interactive format with our members which has proven very successful indeed.

Hans Hedin of the Global Intelligence Association (GIA) introduced the recent global study on the state of competitive intelligence in international corporations.
He also focused on the evolutions matrix of competitive intelligence functions which visualizes various states of development of classic market intelligence functions and activities such as competitive intelligence processes, competitive intelligence organization, competitive intelligence culture, competitive intelligence scope, competitive intelligence deliverables, etc.

I have successfully used the matrix in my developments of the competitive intelligence function at Ciba and presented the findings along with Hans on May 29, 2008 at the GIA Helsinki Customer Summit.

A subsequent roundtable discussion on process integration moved the event into an even more interactive format which has proven very satisfying for the participating SCIA members. Following a summary of the discussion:

Business processes integration are crucial for any competitive intelligence (CI) operation. Within the discussion between the SCIA members in the room and the panelists Hans Hedin, Marc Limacher, Maarit Seppä and Jens Thieme plus Kurt Kobel as the moderator and facilitator of the discussion some of the following remarks were being made and we would like to trigger a discussion among our members on their individual experience in that regard.

- Planning and process integration can be vital indicators for education needs as they might unveil skill gaps in implementation (Thieme)
- Some or many processes within an enterprice might not even be known as such. It might be worthwhile to visualize and communicate to make sure their importance and rightful existence are supported (Seppä)
- Processes within a Marketing & Sales organization are highly visibly and strongly required to carry CI activities, this visibility can be taken advantage of (Limacher)
- A good option for CI process intagtration offer controling/finance operations. Investor relation could host the intelligence activities in such a setup as observed in some major Swiss financial companies (Hedin)
- Sales force involvement to close the communication feedback loop and enrich the intelligence base are crucial and could/should be secured by processes as well (Kobel/Limacher)
- Networking activities need to be part of any CI operation and processes can help to enforce networking as a business tool (Kobel)
- Differences across various industries were stressed as well, especially in the light of varying product life cycles (Limacher)
- Crucial bridging between group services and business areas such as R&D and Marketing & Sales and any other relevant intelligence-driven decision level need to be supported by cross-departmental processes and planning tools (Thieme)

Audience responses, contributions:
- As CI develops more and more, in-depth expertise is required and process integration can only be helpful
- CI needs to be driven via key champions within an organization, doubling the effort with process integration would be a plus
- If there were cross-departmental processes it might be possible to get to know what new recruits could add to the company's intelligence base, HR was mentioned several times as a resource for CI
- In order to support intelligence flow something like an internal exchange breakfast was mentioned as a succesful format
- A concern was discussed: "What if the CI Ferrari is not recognized as such but as a bicycle at best?" - this might be an education issue to management!

Another topic area that was discussed very lively was raised by the moderator Kurt Kobel: "How formal does CI need to be?", some ideas and responses:
- There will always be a fair share of ad-hoc activities in CI but it also depends on existing processes and product life cycles (Thieme)
- It seems to be important to embedd CI into already existing processes as much as possible (make friends with process owners, mutual support) (Thieme)
- Follow up on key intelligence requirements! (Hedin, Seppä)
- Deliver something to intelligence owners to establish two-way flow (Limacher)
- A seat at the table is crucial (audience)

With this recap we would like to invite you to contribute more ideas and kick off a discussion among SCIA members.

Many thanks for making SCIA such a lively, great sharing experience, looking forward to your feedbacks and your personal appearance at one of our next events.