The Compartmentalization of Competitive Intelligence in a Company

Over the past couple of weeks, I have spent some time on the phone talking with a number of our current and past clients. What a great experience this has been. I am reminded of the great people that have chosen to work with Primary Intelligence.

The goal of these conversations has been to understand a little bit more about how companies use our intelligence. At Primary Intelligence, we have a strong value proposition and we’re pretty good at communication the message. To us, the true value of what we do is obvious. The list of people in a company that should benefit from our services is well defined. In other words, we’re a simple plug-in solution that solves a set of problems and provides an expected value.

All of which is true to some extent. But, the real fun has been to find out all those little nuances of use, value and such that come into existence within each of our clients’ corporate environments and cultures. We have some very creative clients that are finding bigger and better ways to leverage their intelligence to create more value. We also have a few that are looking forward to a summary of my findings as a “thank you” for their willingness to spend time with me.

Something that is coming out in many of my conversations, however, is the fact that intelligence often has a tendency to be compartmentalized. By this, I mean that there is a tendency for the intelligence to be consumed by a single person or group of people for strategic planning and tactical to-dos, but other departments are often left in the dark regarding the presence of win loss feedback.

Some of the most interesting examples of this compartmentalization occur between sales and marketing. (Can’t we all just get along?) When sales intelligence is purchased by sales, sales operations or sales training, there is often a reluctance to share the data throughout the organization. The intelligence is used by the sales group to accomplish their designs, but marketing, product or corporate executives often do not receive information.

Even more interesting is the reaction from the marketing side. In numerous cases, marketing has told me that they use the win loss data to answer questions about marketing and product. They even put pieces of our intelligence into presentations that are delivered to the executive boardroom. But, when asked about how the sales team uses the intelligence, a long silence happens and then they ask, “What would sales want with this information?”

Personally, I would have thought sales would be eminently interested. But, from some points of view within a company, they can’t see what a sales leader or rep needs to be more successful.

Caveats: We do have plenty of clients that share between sales, marketing, product and others. These phone calls are not a scientific measure. These conversations are as relevant as one-offs on any topic. Some companies use intelligence more effectively than others. Most sales and marketing groups work together to coordinate their intelligence needs. A win loss project doesn’t mean the same thing to every company in every industry.

That said, it is my observation that our clients that create a processes to accept, digest, understand, distribute and act on sales intelligence tend to be leaders in their respective industries. I’m sure that many of these companies have an overall culture that is accustomed to using research, data and intelligence of many types. The fact that they can process our information is the result of a leadership group that expects all leaders to be more fact-based.

What is the takeaway? You might want to look at your company culture and plans for 2008. What types of competitive intelligence are you generating? Does your CI program have ROI potential? How far does it travel and are there any real expectations that the information will be used to make a revenue-enhancing decision (increased sales success, better market positioning, increased competitive strength, faster time to market, etc…)?

What can you do to gain one more champion of your competitive intelligence efforts? Can you reach out to another department and make a friend? Can you find others within your company that are willing to receive your data? How willing are you to listen to other research performed by other departments in your company?

Personally, I believe that the good intelligence should rise above the clutter to the top and it should be used as often as possible, as long as it is relevant, to strengthen the company. Otherwise, the overall value is marginalized.

Progress starts with one person trying to make something a little better. Are you the person to break down some of the compartmentalization of your company?

Competitive Intelligence Newsletter – Before Battle, Know Your Competition

This week, the cover story by Thayne Johnson provides an insightful look into competitive intelligence methods that show competitor movements in real time.. You’ll also find information on how Sales Intelligence matters to your success. Finally, a report from ES Research Group will help your sales leadership make sense of sales effectiveness enhancement companies.

Cover Story
Sun Tzu Says Know Your Competition
By Thayne Johnson, Primary IntelligenceThe war of business may not be carried out with weapons of war, but battles over prospects, budgets and market share are fought every day. The casualties of war are growth, personal opportunity and in some cases, companies that fall by the wayside. Just like in an army, every member of a business has to take a part in the competitive nature of the business battleground...(For more, click here)

Announcing the 2008 Sales Training Vendor Guide
Corporations continue to spend a significant portion of their revenues on sales training. Unchanged from last year, enterprises spend between $4 billion and $7 billion per year training sales professionals. Of all the excellent sales training vendors out there, only a few are a fit for your organization. This ESR/InDepth™ Report is designed to help your organization increase the return on your sales training investment.
ES Research Group has compiled their findings into a 200 page report. This 3rd party evaluation is a “must read” for companies seeking sales performance enhancement.
For a free summary, CLICK HERE.

BlogCentral
What is Sales Intelligence and Why Does it Matter?
If a business exists to make money (and really, what other purpose does the business entity have?) as efficiently as possible, and the role of sales is to create the revenue streams as effectively as possible, then isn’t sales intelligence...(For more, click here)

The A-List Archive
Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Selects Siemens. What Were the Key Value Factors?
Originally Published in December 2004.
Executives at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital wanted to enhance their medical information systems by upgrading and expanding their current technology. An evaluation of MEDITECH, Eclipsys, and Siemens resulted in the selection of a number of Siemens applications, including several from its Soarian product line. Although Siemens was the incumbent provider, this had very little to do with the decision...(For more, click here)

Competitive Intelligence Webinar Archive

This year, we at Primary Intelligence have covered a number of topics in our webinar series. It has been our pleasure to show our clients and others understand a better way to stronger results from their competitive intelligence efforts.

All of our webinars can be downloaded from our archive page. Help yourself.

If you have any questions regarding any of these topics, let me know (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050). If you would like to receive invitations to future webinars, send me an email. And if you want to contribute a topic or work with us to co-host a webinar, let me know.

The following webinars are available at the archive page:

Three Benefits of Win Loss

In the last five years, win loss analysis has gone from a little known niche project to a recognized best practice. In the most progressive companies, executives demand that sales, marketing, and product development listen to Win Loss feedback and work together to become more competitive.

The opportunity to increase your sales and marketing success sits right at your doorstep. But, do you have everything you need to achieve the greatest potential? Can you make simple changes that will result in gargantuan increases?

Cross-Functional Intelligence Teams

While information provides the fuel for strategic direction, how often does yesterday's "can't miss" intelligence initiative get lost in the shuffle of today's realities?

Overall, too many sales, competitive, and market intelligence initiatives are judged ineffective due to the fact that the intelligence is never used to increase sales, gain a competitive advantage, or capitalize on a new market opportunity.

Sales Confidence – Does Your Sales Team Have Heart?

“The first sale has to occur in the sales rep’s heart.”

This statement has always been true, but often it is difficult to get an accurate measurement of your sales team’s attitudes and their level of confidence in your company, your products, your competition, and their own abilities.

Primary Intelligence would like to invite you to a Webinar explaining the Sales Confidence Index (SCI), a Web-based metric that can be used to analyze your sales team’s level of engagement and provide insight into the areas that will help you create and maintain a dedicated, confident, and effective sales force.

Sales Intelligence in the Sales Force

Companies who use Sales Intelligence typically report an increase in market share and competitive performance by 10% or more. Yet, less than half of sales managers and reps claim to use sales intelligence of any kind.

Is your company taking the lead or are you falling behind your competitors in the use of this critical best practice?

How can your company go beyond general sales information to Sales Intelligence? Primary Intelligence would like to invite you to a Webinar on how to produce intelligence that actually makes a difference to both your marketing and sales personnel.

It was a dark and stormy customer satisfaction survey...

Customer Satisfaction, Account Loyalty, Win-back, Win Loss, Client Retention and Defection. They all have one thing in common – Your customers are talking to you, giving you valuable clues about your business and your performance. And they know almost as much about your competition as they do about you.

The question is: are your competitive intelligence initiatives more like Sherlock Holmes...or Inspector Clouseau?

If your information about your competitive success or failure seems more like lucky bumblings than the result of clever investigation, it may be because you’re overlooking this key source of competitive intelligence.

Turning Competitive Intelligence into Revenue

Q: Are your competitive intelligence initiatives bringing a measurable and sustainable ROI to your company?
o Yes
o No
o Unsure
o Huh? ROI from CI? Our CI is more like a black hole from which no revenue can escape!

Unfortunately, many organizations find themselves having to answer “No” or “Unsure” to this question. If your company is one of these, you should download Primary Intelligence’s Webinar, “Competitive Intelligence with ROI.”

This Webinar will explore ways that you can transform your competitive intelligence efforts from simple data-gathering exercises into revenue-enhancing tools. We’ll be discussing simple evaluative criteria that allow you to select and prioritize your strategies for the greatest effectiveness, as well as tools and techniques for maximizing the ROI of your intelligence programs.

Keep tabs on us in 2008. We'll make sure to keep the good stuff coming.

Using Win Loss to Win Back Business (After they have experienced the competition)

During our most recent webinar (hosted on 10/25/2007 and available for download here), Ron Sathoff and I talked about three of the biggest benefits of Win Loss. One of those points was the ability to win back business that was previously lost to a competitor.

At Primary Intelligence, we emphasize competitive intelligence that will help your sales, marketing and business development organizations create more revenue, strengthen competitive positioning and refine value propositions to be more effective than your competitors. Our goal is to provide your company with increased revenue through your sales and marketing efforts.

How do we do this? Primarily, we use Win Loss studies to measure competitive performance during some of the most valuable times; namely, when your company, product and sales performance are being compared with your direct competitors. We also take the opportunity to ask about the key loyalty drivers based on their current experience with their new vendor.

Using these data, combined with additional client satisfaction questions based on their current experience, Primary Intelligence provides a win-back index that helps prioritize sales and account management efforts with your lost deals long before their current vendor starts to worry about retention.

Imagine begin able to target your competitors’ defectors before the competitors can develop retention strategies.

One of our current health insurance clients said that using this system, they were able to win back 7 of 30 losses within 12 months of the initial loss. What would a 23% win back rate do for your company’s top line revenue?

If you have any questions, experiences or thoughts, let me know. I’d enjoy talking with you to understand how you achieve these same types of results. (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)

Using Win Loss to Produce Tactical Competitive Intelligence

During our most recent webinar (hosted on 10/25/2007 and available for download here ), Ron Sathoff and I talked about three of the biggest benefits of Win Loss. One of those points was the level of actionable competitive intelligence that is available through debriefs of your recent sales prospects.

At Primary Intelligence, we emphasize competitive intelligence that will help your sales, marketing and business development organizations create more revenue, strengthen competitive positioning and refine value propositions to be more effective than your competitors.

How do we do this? Primarily, we use Win Loss studies to measure competitive performance during some of the most valuable times; namely, when your company, product and sales performance are being compared with your direct competitors.

Some examples of this type of reporting and analysis include:

Competitive landscape analysis:


The chart above shows the frequency of encounters with specific competitors. In many cases, we’ll identify changing trends in the major players in different industries. We help show when the boutiques and upstarts are gaining traction. We’ll show the competitors that fight the hardest and those that fall by the wayside when you are in the opportunity. Of course, all of these findings can be filtered by vertical, company size, etc…

Competitive Performance Analysis


To increase your effectiveness and win more business, you have to know where you compare on key decision-making criteria versus you strongest competitors. Your prospects watched you perform and compared your capabilities with other companies in the deals. Over time, your strengths rise to the top while your weaknesses become very apparent.

With this type of intelligence, you can pinpoint today’s strengths and tomorrow’s improvements. Make sure that you are able to address perceived areas of deficiencies before the competition can exploit them.

Not only will this information help you sell more effectively, but you can keep tabs on the competition. Over time, you can watch where their strengths and weakness scores move. You can infer the areas that the competition has targeted for improvement and move to counter their gains.

SWOT Tables, Illustrated with Examples


Finally, let’s make the Strengths and Weaknesses section of the SWOT mean something. Direct quotes from your prospects explaining specific strengths and weaknesses put teeth into your recommendations. Sales people usually like this stuff the best because they can read a few sentences and use that information right away.

Boy. Today’s post has really come across as a commercial… more so than usual. But, that’s the way things go some days.. even in Australia. (Gold stars for anyone that posts or replies to me with the source of the “even in Australia” comment.)

Competitive Intelligence Newsletter – Tips for Beginners

This week, the cover story provides some of the basics that even seasoned competitive intelligence veterans need. You’ll also find information on why sales doesn’t receive as much intelligence as you might like. Finally, a report from ES Research Group will help your sales leadership make sense of sales effectiveness enhancement companies.

Cover Story
The Top Three Box Office Flops for Beginning CI Researchers
By Ron Sathoff, Primary Intelligence
For a lot of people (myself included), a good piece of Competitive Intelligence research can have all the beauty of a piece of art, such as a poem, a painting—or even a film. Like these art forms, CI can inspire or instruct those who take the time to understand it, and can even effect significant change. However, unlike a beginning filmmaker, whose poor initial efforts may only result in a bit of ridicule at a local film festival, a “flop” from a beginning CI specialist may have some significant consequences—for both the researcher and his or her organization (For more, click here)

Announcing the 2008 Sales Training Vendor Guide from ES Research Group
Corporations continue to spend a significant portion of their revenues on sales training. Unchanged from last year, enterprises spend between $4 billion and $7 billion per year training sales professionals. Of all the excellent sales training vendors out there, only a few are a fit for your organization. This ESR/InDepth™ Report is designed to help your organization increase the return on your sales training investment.
ES Research Group has compiled their findings into a 200 page report. This 3rd party evaluation is a “must read” for companies seeking sales performance enhancement.
For a free summary, CLICK HERE.

BlogCentral
Why Doesn't Competitive Intelligence Flow to Sales?
Only 56% of sales managers claim competitive intelligence as one of their tools. A higher percentage of sales reps (68%) say that they use competitive intelligence to sell. All this seems to beg the question… why isn’t the sales department organizing competitive intelligence initiatives more often (For more, click here)

The A-List Archive
A-List – R-G Crown Selects S1 over Fundtech for Online Banking Services
Originally Published in June 2005.
R-G Crown Bank acquired 18 banks from SouthTrust Bank in October 2004 and wanted to implement new online banking solutions in order to provide better service to its customers and satisfy federal banking regulators (For more, click here)

Three Benefits of Win Loss You Can’t Ignore – Analytics & Strategy (1 of 3)

There are few revenue-generating competitive intelligence tools more valuable than Win Loss. If done correctly, a Win Loss exercise provides insight into competitive strengths/weaknesses, marketplace innovations, loyalty factors and steps to improving win rates. From a tactical standpoint, Win Loss derived intelligence can show steps to increase a company’s competitive positioning right now.

I know that today’s post will be a pretty strong commercial, but Primary Intelligence has developed sophisticated predictive analytics that crate an unparalleled strategic view. Let me show you what I’m talking about.

Below, you will see an example of a Strength/Weakness evaluation based on data from recent sales opportunities, taken from a win loss study of 50-60 opportunities. Half of the data come from new business that was won and the other 50% come from opportunities that were lost to competitors:


The data are sorted from biggest negative competitive gap (weakness) at the top to the biggest positive competitive gap (strength) at the bottom. The scores are based on a 1-10 scale where 1 is Poor and 10 is excellent.

If you were to make strategic changes in your company based on the data in this table, you would probably look at the weaknesses and evaluate the most effective ways to close the competitive gap.

But, would this make a difference? What would happen if you were to increase your performance in Overall Solution Cost or Understanding Needs by ten percent? (A 10% improvement would mean that you increase your score of 8.1 to 9.1) How much would your win rate increase? Would making improvements in your weaknesses correlate with a stronger competitive preference, or would you be pulling the wrong levers and pouring time and money down the drain?

Traditional intelligence looks at Strengths and Weaknesses
• Should you “fix” weaknesses or accentuate strengths?
• Strength/Weaknesses don’t always correlate with decision making.
• Where is your opportunity to increase win rates and market share?

Can you rely on today’s strength and weakness assessments to point your company to the strongest positioning tomorrow? Does a measurement of strengths and weaknesses provide the foresight to recommend company-changing shifts? Where is the crystal ball that will show the actual gains that might be made on performance changes in your company, product and sales efforts?

Primary Intelligence does this all the time. To show your company where the real opportunities exist, we:

1. Interview recent wins and losses where your company competed head-to-head with specific competitors.
2. Measure your competitive performance in 20-30 specific decision influencers
3. Determine strengths and weaknesses (Not the gap score in the table below. Positive gaps indicate weaknesses. Negative gaps indicate strengths)
4. Use predictive analytics to determine the influencers that, it improved, would result in the greatest increases in market share. (Impact column, explained below)

Impact identifies your expected improvement in market share. For instance, in the chart above (a real-world example taken from one of our clients), if you were to improve your company’s performance in Product Knowledge by one point (In other words, if you improved the 7.7 rating to an 8.7), you would expect your win rate and market share to increase by the impact score of 5.7% (at the 90% confidence level).

And, Product Knowledge is already a competitive strength. Overall, you outperform the competition by 5% in this area. The key may be to make this competitive advantage more consistent throughout the company.

In other words, there are influencers that would provide 2x, 3x and 4x the results of others if improvement were made in those specific areas. This could result in gains of millions or billions of unexpected dollars, based on some potentially simple improvements in the right areas.

This approach takes a lot of the guesswork out of the equation. No espionage required. And, yet, the company makes the biggest gains in increasing its client base.

Competitive Intelligence and the Marketing Department Merging (Old News, Interesting Article)

Yesterday, Jon Lowder of SCIP, posted various CI related links, one of which describes the continuing trend to combine sales and marketing efforts.

The article is two years old and written from the pharmaceutical industry. However, I found the overall content interesting and recommend that you give it a read, too.

(Teaser) One of the statements that took me a bit by surprise was, “some experts argue that market research is just a subset of competitive intelligence.[CBD1] ” My personal observation is that CI usually lives side-by-side or as a subset of market research. Please, let me know if you are in a company where market research is a subset of competitive intelligence.

The article can be found HERE. I’ll give you a few paragraphs to whet your appetite:

More companies are folding Competitive Intelligence departments into Market Research. Here's why that strategy makes sense—and some hints on making the new relationship work.

That sort of insight has led to the latest trend in the world of competitive intelligence. Recognizing that competitive intelligence and market research overlap, companies across multiple industries are combining the two functions. The jury is still out on how effective this strategy will be in the long run, and on what the best way is to structure the two functions to work well together. But in the meantime, market-research groups have been turning their attention more and more toward collecting and analyzing competitive intelligence to support specific product goals. The pharmaceutical industry in particular has been integrating competitive-intelligence and market-research efforts to engender greater strategic impact from their market-research functions.

Fifty years ago, market-research groups enjoyed vast resources—large budgets and staffs to support almost any research need—as the industry began to adapt to more consumer-driven markets. Slowly, though, companies pulled back their market-research dollars and eventually shrank internal market-research groups to one or two team members.


The pharma industry witnessed some of the most drastic cuts in market-research resources. In the mid-1980s, pharmaceutical market-research teams were almost non-existent, even in the most-respected firms. Outsourcing became a quiet solution to data collection and cost savings. Most pharma companies outsourced all their market-research work during the 1980s.

The 1990s, however, saw a shift back to building internal market-research teams, which has lasted to the present. Those teams were built to support the blockbuster generation: Find a market gap, use the data to develop a first-to-market product, and brace yourself for the sales upswing. As scores of blockbuster products approach patent expiration and companies begin looking to lifecycle management teams to expand their franchises, market-research resources are settling to a more comfortable size... (for more, click here)

Another Endorsement for Win Loss Analysis

One of our clients in the Blue Cross Blue Shield network was kind enough to provide an assessment of the success of their win loss program, which they have outsourced to Primary Intelligence:

“The real value of the Primary Intelligence System to us, is their uncanny ability to drill through Producers directly to Group Leaders and Group Decision makers and engage them at a level denied to us over and over again.

At that level, Primary Intelligence uncovered the truth, the real drivers of decisions on healthcare, and gave us the opportunity to address those directly the following year.

We won back 7 of the 30 losses the previous year and those wins were driven by knowing the truth.” - Senior Healthcare Intelligence Analyst

If you are considering a win loss program, you might consider the following:

How much more successful would your company be at selling new deals if you really knew why you win and lose?

How much revenue would you gain if your company could win back 23% of lost sales within 12-24 months?

What would the ROI be if you were able to create a more solid “win” and increase the likelihood that your current client base would stay with you longer?

These are the results that Primary Intelligence delivers daily. If you are missing out, let’s chat.

Download our recent webinar on the topic (click here) or we can talk. (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)

The Purpose of Business – Competitive Intelligence May Be the Key

Lately, I have been reading about business, business development, and the relationship of marketing in the entire mix. So many different thoughts… So many different ideas.

I found one idea while researching the topic, “The Purpose of Business.” Below, I’ll share a little bit with you:

Dr. Peter Drucker: A business enterprise has two basic functions: marketing and innovation

If we want to know what a business is, we have to start with its purpose. And the purpose must lie outside the business itself. In fact, it must lie in society, since a business enterprise is an organ of society. There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer. The customer is a foundation of a business and keeps it in existence. The customer alone gives employment. And it is to supply the customer that society entrusts wealth-producing resources to the business enterprise.

Because it is the purpose to create a customer, any business enterprise has two – and only two – basic functions: marketing and innovation. These are the entrepreneurial functions. Marketing is the distinguishing, the unique function of the business.

ACTION POINT: Find out what needs your customers want fulfilled today. Determine how well your products are meeting the needs of your customers.

If the idea is to create a customer, I don’t want to just stop there. In marketing, I want to create a customer better than anyone else in my space. If there are a certain number of potential customers out there, I want to grab as many as possible. It’s not that I’m greedy. It’s just the nature of business.

And, if (as the article says), there are two basic functions (marketing and innovation). The most important tasks will be focused on marketing and innovating better than anyone else in your industry.

Where does CI fit into understanding the marketing and innovation of your competitors? I’ll give you an example that has provided Primary Intelligence and dozens of our clients with powerful insight into these two areas: Win Loss, Post-implementation and Account Loyalty & Retention.

Win loss
The ultimate study of creating a customer. Win loss is a competitive intelligence effort that focuses specifically on the process of building the customer relationship, conveying value, presenting a solution to a need and comparing your performance in those areas to that of the competition. “Why isn’t the business growing?” “What aren’t we creating customers like we thought we would?” If those answers are important to you, win loss is generally the most effective answer.

Primary Intelligence has a very sophisticated win loss system the rivals the results of just about any in-house program we’ve seen. Yes, I’m bragging. Talk to me and find out why.

Post-implementation
Just after the customer has been created, you should be very close to them to determine: a) how life has changed for them now that they have your product/service/solution in place and b) What are the additional bits of service they wish you provided now that the initial needs have been met.

Don’t think that these conversations should happen only with your own clients. If you know the customers that signed with the competitor, make sure you’re talking to them 60-90 days into their experience. You still own a relationship built during the sales process and that relationship can be leveraged to understand whether the grass really is as green as originally thought. What would your sales guys give to be able to say, “You can choose [competitor x] and they have a good product, but the people we talk to say that [competitor x] consistently falls short in these three areas…

Account Loyalty and Retention
There is no argument that keeping a customer is often more important that creating one. Account loyalty and retention show you how to be more effective at keeping a much higher percentage of clients when it is time to renew. I’ll explain the difference between the two:

Account loyalty studies are conducted during the client life-cycle. This research helps you see where the customer experience has helped your chances of renewing a client and where the gaps may be. These efforts should be taken throughout the client lifecycle, but are traditionally administered a few months before accounts begin their renewal considerations.

Account retention programs are conducted just like win loss studies. However, in this case, the study attempts to answer “Why do our clients renew/defect” rather than “Why do our prospects choose us or the competition?” Primary Intelligence has a powerful set of predictive analytics that can be applied to this type of study; just like our win loss.

Be the Best
In the final tally, you’ll have to ask yourself: “Are you in it to do just well enough or to generate customers better than the other guys?” Be in it to win. It’s much more fun that way.

Then, look for the tools that will give you the biggest chance of creating a new customer at the expense of the competition.

Thoughts? Let me know. (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)