Examples
Bridge the Gap Between Sales and Marketing
Develop a Competitive Intelligence (CI) Program
Capture Valuable Information from Sales
Win/Loss Analysis
Key Customer Insight
Product Opportunity Analysis
Trade Show Intelligence
Interactive Workshops
CI Software Requirements
Bridge the Gap between Sales and Marketing
To integrate a client’s sales and marketing knowledge, we conducted a brainstorming session with both groups to gather and organize their collective competitor data. We developed a baseline SWOT analysis later refined through separate sessions with Marketing and Sales as well as intelligence gathered through other sources. The brainstorming sessions helped us identify Marketing and Sales’ differing perceptions of their company, their competitors and customer decision-making criteria, as well as the gaps in competitor data.
Armed with data from multiple brainstorming sessions and from many internal and external interviews, we were able to create Side-by-Side Competitor Comparisons and Competitor 360 Degree Radar Screens based on key customer buying criteria. Thus we could provide market and customer insight and recommend actions our client should take to remain competitive in their rapidly changing marketplace as the result of deregulation.
Article: How to Encourage Cooperative Communication from Sales
Develop a CI Program
The client’s CI process development team consisted of cross-functional employees who volunteered to participate. We prepared a CI process value proposition based on how much a recent competitor’s “surprise” product had cost the company. This was a great CI engagement document as everyone in the company was impacted by this surprise product. We conducted interviews with executives and key CI users to define the company’s KITs (key intelligence topics). We overcame stumbling blocks such as a difficult executive who questioned IF the company really needed a CI process.
We organized the company’s sources of CI, defined the gaps, and set up an action plan to fill the gaps. We concluded with a network map of how various groups in the company would need to interact to affect a strong CI process. A subset of this was a connection map linking people to expertise including both internal and external sources.
Articles: Impact Strategic Decisions with Competitive Intelligence
Tips on Setting up a Competitive Intelligence Process
Capture Valuable Information from Sales
In a major reorganization, our telecommunications client retired one sales force and hired a new one. We were asked to tap the expertise of the new sales force quickly, and develop a competitive intelligence process. Individuals previously employed by competitors were interviewed to establish baseline-competitor profiles, which included a SWOT analysis. Specific sales needs for marketing materials, customer testimonials, industry consultant support, and Intranet sales support were identified.
We jumpstarted the client’s competitive intelligence process by consolidating intelligence from its sales force. Key communications issues between sales and marketing were resolved. We greatly added to the competitor profiles that Sales had started, and put them into a format that could easily be updated.
Articles: Capture Competitive Intelligence from Your Sales Force
12 Tippers to Guarantee Your Success in Collecting from Sales
Win/Loss Analysis
This should be re-named win/win analysis as both our clients and their customers benefit from this process. We have conducted and created numerous win/loss analysis programs. Before embarking on win/loss, we help clients define their specific objectives for win/loss.
Many customers ask us to concentrate on the losses, which is demoralizing to their account reps and provides skewed results. Win interviews render insight that losses never will since your customers want to continue their relationship with your company.
We have learned that many companies have an excellent customer intelligence process when they win business. Yet they do not capture why they won a deal. When they lose deals, customer insight is altogether lost as Sales moves on to the next opportunity without recording why they lost and when the competitor’s contract will expire.
We help sales management teams develop a Win/Loss analysis process which feeds their customer insight and product development processes. In the short-term, our recommendations help clients improve their sales professionalism and value proposition, while over the long term, win/loss analysis often improves customer retention and increases sales close rates.
In a recent case, we learned that one of the customer’s testimonials didn’t provide prospective customers with in-depth knowledge of their service and lacked enthusiasm for the product. We also uncovered a win case that wasn’t really a win, since the customer couldn’t readily use their product and felt trapped in their 2-year contract. We also found that the win interviews rendered as much competitive intelligence as the loss interviews, which the client had not expected.
Articles: Increasing Sales through Win/Loss Analysis
Win/Loss Analysis: The Cooperative Angle
Customer Insight
Our client faced deregulation in the electric utility industry which freed them to market their services outside of their regulated territory. They seeked customer insight to determine which customer sites they should target first. We gathered data on our client’s largest customer with presence across the US. We engaged in numerous interviews with the client’s customer, utility industry experts and regulators.
It was clear from this process that certain states would be more receptive to deregulation than others, and that our client’s largest customer would prefer for our client to service as many locations as possible across the US. The major barrier would be the regulatory environment in each state.
Market Opportunity Analysis
A utility company client hired us to research the US cement industry to determine if their byproduct could be marketed as an ingredient in the cementious material process. We contacted key players, industry experts, and government officials, and concluded that the market for this product was saturated, not lucrative, and the client would lose money if they entered it.
An 18-month follow-up confirmed that more established industry players had only made small inroads. The decision not to enter this market saved the company millions of dollars. They had been on the cusp of signing 10 year contracts with major cement producers which would have cost millions of dollars in penalty fees if they cancelled them before the contract was up.
Article: Opportunity Analysis in These Tough Economic Times
Trade Show Intelligence
We were hired us to collect market intelligence and competitive data at a major office furniture trade show for a second year. They had some specific questions, and as we visited the competitor’s exhibit area, they were not that attentive to any of us visitors, yet we sensed a certain buzz among the exhibitors.
As we asked what was up, a key distributor mentioned that this competitor was hosting a cocktail party that evening and weren’t we going to go. Thus, we were invited to this cocktail party by one of the competitor’s distributors. Many other distributors also attended, and we were introduced around. Through this stroke of good luck, we were able to provide our client incredible insight as to the competitor’s products, what sold, what didn’t and why, which far exceeded their expectations. From that experience, we learned that informal gatherings can be a key source of competitor and market intelligence.
We learned that at trade shows you need to be prepared for surprises in your collection plan. In the previous year, we didn’t realize that we needed to set up an appointment with an account rep in order to get a tour of their latest office furniture enhancements. So we stood just outside of the competitor’s huge exhibit area, and waited for a large group to approach, and asked if we could join them in their tour of the competitor’s space. It turned out this was one of the competitor’s largest customers, so we were lucky since the account rep answered all our questions to retain their client’s business. Their client was happy we asked our questions since they hadn’t thought of them. They had questions we hadn’t thought of. My client was pleased with the intelligence we gathered.
Articles: Communication Cooperatively through Trade Shows
Use Trade Shows as Fact Finding Missions
Assess Your Effectiveness at Trade Shows
Interactive Workshops
Connect Sales, Marketing and Product Development to Gain Customer Insight
We were hired by the Commercial Director of a manufacturing company based in Europe. Sales was not collecting or communicating crucial market intelligence that marketing and product development needed to develop state-of-the-art products and thereby maintain the company’s leadership position. They already had a process in place for Sales to share such communication, and we could tell that customers were ready to share, and that Sales just wasn’t asking! We found out that Sales did not clear clearly understand marketing and product development’s questions!
We delivered a highly interactive seminar to teach sales and marketing elicitation and interviewing skills, which included breakaway sessions to clarify each of marketing and product development’s key questions and developed ways to pose these questions which would motivate customers to answer. Each attendee had opportunities to role play both the Sales and Customer roles as well as observe their colleague’s skill. At the conclusion, Sales biggest takeaway was, “I never realized the how much more effective I could be if I planned the details of an interview before each sales call.” Not only will they gain better customer and market intelligence, but they will close more deals through the interviewing and elicitation skills we taught!
Promote Competitive Intelligence Awareness
We were hired by a CEO to heighten his management team’s awareness of competitive intelligence through delivering a one-day customized workshop. We sprinkled the company’s salient data throughout the workshop and focused on areas of competitive intelligence that the CEO perceived as their weaknesses.
It was so successful that he wrote: “…met my expectations and, in fact, exceeded my expectations because the Team took on the responsibility to create and implement the Win/Loss process….Ellen, you made the sale. Thanks.”
Competitive Intelligence: Soup to Nuts
A conference firm hired us to develop and conduct two 2-day competitive intelligence interactive workshops in Tokyo and Seoul. Due to simultaneous translation we had to factor in a slower pace for the curriculum while covering a wide spectrum of competitive intelligence:
- Developing and Implementing an Effective Competitive Intelligence Program (also counterintelligence)
- Secondary and Human Source Intelligence Gathering Techniques
- Developing Strategic and Tactical Competitive Intelligence Analytical Tools
- Competitive Intelligence Software
Our curriculum attracted a sellout crowd in Tokyo, and this was the first time that such a workshop had been conducted in Seoul. It was a rich experience as the cultures in Japan and Korea are so different from each other.
CI Software Requirements
Our client was tasked to develop and implement a Knowledge Management IT solution to collect, store and share competitive intelligence with employees, particularly product marketing, product management, Sales and key executives—ultimately about 1500 system users.
We helped the CI team organize a framework to identify user’s expectations, to thoroughly discover all the sources of data, design and implement system requirements (including maintenance), and identify the beta test team for the system. We connected them to CI software providers and assisted in the assessment process. We provided coaching throughout the process.
Articles: Questions to Ask Competitive Intelligence Software Providers
Boost Competitive Intelligence Effectiveness through Databases
