Keep it positive
Using competitive intelligence to enhance
business development
Eric Garland
Competitive Futures, Inc
@ericgarland
#scip09

Why we’re here
I DON’T WANT YOU TO BE FIRED
I WANT YOU TO HAVE MORE BUDGET
I WANT YOU TO SEE THE UPSIDE
OF CHANGE FOR FUN AND PROFIT

What we will talk about
• State of competitive
intelligence, scenario planning,
futures
• Executive psychology of
positive & negative information
• Frameworks to combine CI &
business development
• Exercises you can take home

WHY IS IT SO EASY TO FIRE/IGNORE INTELLIGENCE?
Perfect, now we can
get back to improving
“shareholder value”

The Future Intelligence Method
5 – 15 years
1 – 5 yrs.
Today
Major
demographic
Competitive shifts
product
Stock
launches
performance
Technology
revolutions
Industry
dynamics
Sales data
Political
movements
Regulatory
response
Personnel
retention Infrastructure
investment/
Consumer
collapse
preferences

What to do with future intelligence
5 – 15 years
1 – 5 yrs.
Today
Hire new people
Plan for loss of talented Aging populations
workforce?
Global climate
Upcoming restrictive change
Launch new environmental Disruptive
business legislation? technologies
Emergence of “world- Globalization
class” Asian industries?
Form partnership

EXECUTIVES:
There is only one fundamental question today:
Is this incremental or is this transformative
adjustment... change?

Transformation sounds nice, but...
Welcome to the future!
Your old business model is
trashed!

Transformative change and business models
1 - 5 years Wildcards
Business Model Business Model
Trends
A B
Today: Making Future: Maybe
money making money

Transformative change and business models
1 - 5 years Wildcards
Trends
Today: Making Future: Maybe
money making money

MY LAST COUPLE OF YEARS: 2007 - 2008
Anyhow, all I was saying
was doubling the that Case-Shiller
Index is bad for banking, why is
everyone freaking out?

TIME TO GET HAPPY
For CI to survive and
thrive it must blend with
psychological reality and focus on
business development, not just
Cold War “enemy tracking”

PSYCHOLOGY OF BAD NEWS/GOOD NEWS

Two fundamental insights:
The brain is designed for fear.
Companies profit from opportunities.
Gain maximization is more attractive than
risk management.
NOTICE: these are at odds.

THE WETWARE
Modern
Stone age
world
design

How does the brain handle
long-term threats?
“Our updated simulations continue to illustrate that the long-
term fiscal outlook is unsustainable.
Despite a 3-year decline in the unified budget deficit, the
federal government still faces large and growing structural
deficits driven primarily by rising health care costs and known
demographic trends.
Last month, a baby boomer claimed Social Security retirement
benefits for the first time, and this cohort will be eligible for
Medicare benefits in less than 3 years. According to the Social
Security Administration nearly 80 million Americans will
become eligible for Social Security retirement benefits over the
next two decades--an average of more than 10,000 per day.
Although Social Security is important because of its size, the
real driver of the long-term fiscal outlook is health care
spending. Medicare and Medicaid are both large and projected
to continue growing rapidly in the future.”
Former
Comptroller General
David Walker

HUMANS PREFER POTENTIAL
GAIN TO RISK REDUCTION
Cost: $5 Cost: $9
Potential gain: $1,000,000 Potential gain: $100
Likely outcome: -$5 Likely outcome: $50 - 100

THREE CULTURES OF NEWS INTERPRETATION
Good News Bad News Academic

GOOD NEWS CULTURE
• American, Western Europe
• Best news gets to the boss,
more money invested in
upside
• Negative implications = “not
“Leverage the bank to 40
a team player” times over fractional
reserve? Sounds like a plan
• Best case: Put man on for financial success to me,
moon, entrepreneurial spirit boss!”
• Worst case: Run into brick
walls at 300 mph

BAD NEWS CULTURE
• Finland, Korea, anyplace
regularly invaded
• Worst news gets to boss first,
alternate plans made
• Negative implications =
looking out for tribe
• Best case: React quickly to
threats
• Worst case: Alcoholism,
“Hi, do you have any unguarded
pickled herring consumption monasteries around?”

ACADEMIC
• Government agencies, France
• News arrives once a year
• Negative implications = To be
discussed to full depth of
Cartesian logic
• Best case: Well considered “We are not amused”
ideas, less susceptible to fad.
Also, liberal vacation time.
• Worst case: Minitel vs. Internet

TECHNIQUES TO CONNECT CI TO $$$

IF YOU CAN’T HEAR THE CASH REGISTER
RING NEAR YOUR DESK, THERE IS NO ROI
GET NEAR THE MONEY:
Support SALES
Give insights to BIZ DEVELOPMENT or
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Uh, this isn’t futures studies,
it’s BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
5 – 15 years
1 – 5 yrs.
Today
Major
demographic
shifts
Technology
revolutions
one billion 10,000
10 100 good
dollar business
launches ideas Political
business ideas movements
Infrastructure
investment/
collapse

CONNECTING MARKET ANALYSIS TO $$$
CI Advanced CI
Capital
assets
IP
Current Competitive
Implications Scenarios
Forecasts Trends
Brand
Cash Flow
Connect insight back to business
Current
3 - 10 year
1 - 3 year
business
forecast Delta
model

TURN HORRIBLE SCENARIOS INTO
BUSINESS IDEAS
“When life hands
you lemons, make
lemonade. Next, find someone
to whom life handed vodka.
Now, you have a party.”
-Ron White

The Lemonade Questionnaire
1. Pick a transformative trend
2. Talk about all the people who will be affected,
for good, bad or indifferent
3. Think about what they will need, want,
dislike, etc.
4. Do your current assets match this reality?
5. Which companies are best poised to create
new businesses - if none, will there be start-
ups?
6.Where are your competitors? Do they even
matter?

GET READY FOR
HORRIBLE NEWS AND
THINK ABOUT HOW TO
MAKE $$$.

What’s a bubble and what’s a strategic trend
THE BUBBLE: THE REAL TRENDS:
Water
Education
shortage Infotech
increases in
Housing
power
Talent crisis
Retail
Credit
Aging

Why we’re taking a trip to the YEAR 1998
Derived from
debt alone
FLAT from
here on

MASSIVELY EXTENDED CREDIT.
Just in the United States.
Housing, leveraged
business deals, Iraq
spending, credit
cards, student loans
Great depression,
New Deal

Debt vs. GDP

The housing sector will collapse,
or inflation will rise to meet it

U.S. retail glut likely to collapse
30
22.5
20.2
15
7.5
3.3
2.5 2.3
1.1
0
U.S. Sweden U.K. France Italy
Source:
Square footage retail per person Shopping Centers Today

Commercial real estate to collapse
(actually, just its value)
Funny growth, given our GDP remaing
flat, wages staying flat, moving
manufacturing base to Asia

Education prices, fueled by debt,
will drop or lose enrollment

Aging populations

Healthcare budgets will explode:
U.S. expenditures from $2 trillion to $4 trillion
That stings a
little...
Well, I’m
sucking
$400,000
out of your
blood.

Talent crunch - YES, STILL

Cities to create even more GDP;
Rural areas left behind
Cities will have 52% of the population,
90% of the GDP by 2015

Immigration of billions of young people

Infotech: More powerful, radically cheaper (still!)

Energy still scarce, even with recession
Barely over capacity:
Over capacity =
speculation, price fluctuation
stable

Water scarce around the world
Andalucia
Ogalalla Near East:
Acquifer Jordan, Syria,
Israel – drinking
from the same
aquifer!
China - $11
billion in lost
manufacturing
due to
polluted water!
Egypt
Mexico city
Subsaharan
Africa
N.S.W.
Australia

U.S. retail glut likely to collapse
30
22.5
20.2
15
7.5
3.3
2.5 2.3
1.1
0
U.S. Sweden U.K. France Italy
Source:
Square footage retail per person Shopping Centers Today

The Lemonade Questionnaire:
RETAIL
1. Assume a scenario in which retail space shrinks by 40%
2. Talk about all the people who will be affected, for good, bad or
indifferent
3. Think about what they will need, want, dislike, etc.
4. Which companies are best poised to create new businesses - if none,
will there be start-ups?
5. Where are your competitors? Do they even matter?

NS
STIO
QUE
UR
YO

Let’s stay in touch and really discuss this
• Forum: competitivefutures.ning.com
Thanks for • Twitter: @ericgarland
coming!
• Blog: www.competitivefutures.com/
blog
• Phone: 202.508.1496
• In person: 1317 F St. NW, Washington
DC, about a block from the guys giving
away nine trillion dollars