When Worlds Collide Market Research Meets Competitive Intelligence

When Worlds Collide:
Market Research and competitive intelligence

Cascade Insights
“We provide technology companies the comprehensive analysis and strategies they need to beat the competition.”
Specialize in projects that require:
Software or Hardware—Product/Industry Knowledge
Understanding of Business to Business Sales and Marketing Dynamics
Solid secondary research from non-marketing sources (forums, blogs, technical webcasts, and presentations, etc.)
Interviews with the users or implementers of your product and competing products in your space
Recruiting of hard to reach individuals, ranging from developers, senior architects, implementers, and executive decision makers
Sign up for the Cascade Insights Newsletter
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Contact: sean@cascadeinsights.comscott@cascadeinsights.com
Twitter: @sean_campbellTwitter: @scottswigarttel: 503.898.0004
2/17/2010
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Comparing Competitive Intelligence and Market Research
Market Research and Competitive Intelligence are overlapping disciplines
Both Disciplines:
Determine questions that need answers
Identify sources of information
Perform research / intelligence gathering
Analyze outputs
Present findings

Comparing CI and MR
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Focus Area

You want to know what’s being said in the opposing team’s dugout…
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Key Intelligence Questions (for baseball)
Will the batter bunt, swing, or just watch the pitch go past?
Will the runner try to steal a base?
What will the pitcher throw?
Will the pitcher try to catch the runner off base?
Anticipate possible competitor moves come up with the best strategy for…
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The split second of execution
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Secondary Sources
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Secondary Sources Give Background on Competitor
Employee Movement, Salaries, Company Culture and Morale
Company, Product, Industry Initiative Tracking
How messaging, positioning, product feature and/or service offerings have changed over time
A subset of some of the free tools for obtaining this type of information include:
LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Job Postings and Resumes, Xing, Indeed, Twitter, Silobreaker, Slideshare.net, Archive.org, Wordle.net, Quarkbase
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Employee Movement can Reveal Strategy
LinkedIn
Company Profiles
New Hires
Recent Promotions and Changes
Popular Profiles
Jobs Posted on LinkedIn
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Citrix Systems4,600 Employees
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Job Postings and Resumes
HR can be a leaky bucket
All of the following came from one story on ArsTechnia about Windows “8”
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/10/microsoft-mulling-128-bit-versions-of-windows-8-windows-9.ars
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Glassdoor
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Glassdoor
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Glassdoor
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Glassdoor
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Twitter
Twitter
Search on name of company
Search on topics
Search on company products
Apps
Tweet Deck
Mac, Windows, iPhoneversions.
Tweetie, Twitteriffic
Good iPhone apps
LinkedIn integration
Push tweets to LinkedIn
Push LinkedIn status updates to Twitter
Search Twitter within LinkedIn
Company “Buzz” panel within LinkedIn
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Silobreaker
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SlideShare.net
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Wordle.net
What is their marketing really saying?
Point at:
Customer Success Story Feeds
Press Release Feeds
Product Site Feeds
Community Site Feeds
Support Forum Feeds
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Customer Success Stories Red Hat
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Community SiteChannel 9—Microsoft
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Changing Positioning Over Time
* From the WayBackMachine—Archive.org
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Quarkbase
Jive Software
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<the candidates graphic>
Primary
Intelligence
Sources
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Identification and Recruitment
Who knows the answers to your questions?
Where do they hang out (on the Web)?
How do you engage with the source?
Cold call?
Invitation through email or social network?
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Where to look online
LinkedIn
Profiles
Groups
Q/A
Facebook
Xing
Ning
Interviews with company representatives
SlideShare.net presentations
Book Authors
Article Authors
Twitter
Online Technology / Enthusiast Forums
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Where to look in-person
Trade Shows
The Booth
Chalk Talks
“Lunch in Bucket”
Post Presentation Q/A
Networking Events
Industry Events
Association Events
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The issue of…
Ethics

Disclaimer
We are not attorneys…
Therefore considering any of the following slides as legal advice would be a mistake on your part.
That said the slides that follow are based on a certain degree of wisdom gained from the practice of doing CI over an extended period of time.
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Competitive Intelligence
Is not…

EthicsSCIP Code of Ethics
To continually strive to increase the recognition and respect of the profession.
To comply with all applicable laws, domestic, and international.
To accurately disclose all relevant information, including one’s identity and organization, prior to all interviews.
To fully respect all requests for confidentiality of information.
To avoid conflicts of interest in fulfilling one’s duties.
To provide honest and realistic recommendations and conclusions in the execution of one’s duties.
To promote the code of ethics within one’s company, with third-party contractors and within the entire profession.
To faithfully adhere to and abide by one’s company policies, objectives, and guidelines.
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EthicsQuestions to ask
Legal Guidelines
Do you understand the legal implications of the research you are about to undertake?
Do you have legal counsel to turn to in case a questions comes up?
Personal Ethics
What “code of ethics” are you following as you elicit information?
Company Guidelines
What guidelines does your company already have in place on the subject of qualitative research and/or elicitation?
Do these guidelines differ if you are researching information about a competitor or your own company?
2/17/2010
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Ethics and Elicitation
From: “Competitive Intelligence Ethics: Navigating the Gray Zone”
On the impact of the Economic Espionage Act (EEA) of 1996.
From the restatement of Torts,1939
“The privilege to compete with others includes a privilege to adopt their business methods, ideas, or processes of manufacture. Were it otherwise the first person in the field with a process or idea would have a monopoly which would tend to prevent competition.” (Section 757)
“It is the employment of improper means to procure the trade secret rather than the mere copying or use which is the basis of liability under the rule in Section 757.”
“The EEA does not fundamentally change what was and was not considered “improper means” under pre-EEA trade secret law.”
“The added risk the EEA poses is that the potential criminal is that now trade secret theft subjects the perpetrator to both federal criminal law and state civil law penalties. This added risk is of no consequence, though, to the professional who has been practicing CI in a legal manner all along.”
Source: “Competitive Intelligence – Navigating the Gray Zone, Richard Horowitz
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Interviewing theCompetition
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Competitor Related Interviewing
Important to have a conversation that provides equal value while obtaining the information you need.
What follows are techniques to have a productive interview
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=

Elicitation – In the FieldThe First 20 Seconds
Build Shared Understanding
Similar to good business development rapport building
Match Tone and Pacing
Don’t say “trite” things
Don’t say “cute” things
Don’t make a “joke” to start things moving
Show real interest in all the aspects of the person you are interviewing
Be appreciative of them giving you time to do the interview but remain an “equal” in the conversation
Do ask if this is a good time / Do reschedule if it’s not.
State briefly (1 sentence) what you are attempting to accomplish
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Elicitation – In the FieldThe first 2 minutes
Conversation:
Does not have to be followed by the name of the company you are doing research for.
Does have to be followed by a disclosure of the company you work for.
Does not have to disclose the purpose of the study.
Does not have to divulge the details from other similar calls
Although this many be helpful to do so in some limited ways.
You have to be interesting in order for the “shield to fall” in the next 10 to 20 minutes.
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Elicitation – In the Field2 Minutes to the 1 minute before the end
Shared expertise first and more rapport second.
Shared Expertise - Business, Industry, Organizational, Management, etc.
Interviewees need to clearly understand that they will gain some insight as part of the process
Interviewees need to understand that you alone can provide this insight
Not your company, not a “final report”, etc.
Driving past the important points from the interviewee’s perspectiveis death to the calland the goal of generating worthwhile information
You have to be an interesting person to talk to.
Open Discussion vs. Questions
Interviewee should not be aware you are working “off a list” of questions.
Balance Advocacy and Inquiry
Be willing to advocate a contrary point of view
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Elicitation – In the FieldBefore Goodbye
Sincerely thank them for their time
Ask them if you can follow up at a later date if you have a question.
Ask them (if the call went well) if they know others with similar expertise, feelings, or understanding about the marketplace you and they were talking about.
Get off crisply and cleanly.
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A few Elicitation Techniques
Ego Gratification
Silence
Opposing Views
Mutual Interests
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Ego GratificationWho doesn’t want to be seen as an expert?
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Silence“The power of the pause”
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Incorrect or Partially Incorrect Statements…I’ve just said something obviously wrong so…
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Mutual InterestI also…
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Industry Knowledge plus good CI leads to…
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Actionable Intelligence
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Industry Specific Examples
“Memory over-commit isn’t nearly as important as live migration.”
“They’re providing a spec for the API, but not an implementation of the API. That heavy lifting is left to the cloud provider.”
“We use a combination of Scrum and XP, so we needed SDLC tools that provided that, and are customizable to our way of doing things.”
“Managing heterogeneous environments is just as important as interoperability with other management tools.”
“They nail the IaaS part of it, but it’s not clear how they’ll have a compelling PaaS offering.”
“The biggest complaint is that they require components on-premises, and with our IT directions, SaaS is a lot more attractive.”
Industry knowledge is essential to move beyond collection, to analysis and insight.
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<warning symbol>
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Your company is leaking…
Others will elicit intelligence from your field, your channel, your partners
and corpemployees
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Cascade Insights
“We provide technology companies with information and comprehensive analysis to beat the competition.”
Specialize in projects that require:
Software or Hardware—Product/Industry Knowledge
Understanding of Business to Business Sales and Marketing Dynamics
Solid secondary research from non-marketing sources (forums, blogs, technical webcasts, and presentations, etc.)
Interviews with the users or implementers of your product and competing products in your space
Recruiting of hard to reach individuals, ranging from developers, senior architects, implementers, and executive decision makers
Contact: sean@cascadeinsights.comscott@cascadeinsights.comtel: 503.898.0004
2/17/2010
51

When Worlds Collide Market Research Meets Competitive Intelligence

by Cascade Insights on Feb 19, 2010

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When Worlds Collide Market Research Meets Competitive Intelligence — Presentation Transcript

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