The document discusses using VisibleThread for competitive intelligence and proposal development. It describes key roles in the Global Bid Desk that would use VisibleThread, such as the Director of Business Development, Capture Manager, and others. It also outlines VisibleThread workstreams like proposal development worksheets, dictionaries to create a centralized body of knowledge, and tools for question/answer analysis, compliance tracking, and developing win themes.

1. 1
Global Bid Desk
Using VisibleThread For Competitive
Intelligence

2. 2
Today’s Use Case
● Opportunity
● Introduction To Milestone Systems AS
● Competitive Marketplace
● Problem
● Adhoc Organization
● Investing in “Win Rate”
● Competitive Sales Playbooks
● VT Solutions & Workstreams
● VT’s Decision Gates - Pursuit Compatibility Grid
● VT’s Impact On Proposal Strategy Development
● Ghosting / Black Hat
Opportunity
Problem
Solution

3. 3
Video Management and Security
● Hyper Growth
Industry
growing +25
YoY
● Video
Management
Software is
enabling
cameras to be
managed
 Provides online
parcel tracking
facility
 Complex logistics
chains
 Goods can be
located at any
time
 Customers can
check the
dispatch status at
any time by
entering the
parcel number
 Runs on
Milestone VMS
Parcel tracking
 Simultaneous
analysis of
several video
channels from
different sources
 Possibility of
matching against
a “hot list” using
different filters
 Lots of different
applications
possible:
collection of road
taxes, access
control etc.
 Everything
managed from
one single point
 Enables to easy
investigate and
prove fraud
 Interaction with
sources and
surveillance
solutions
 Transaction data
is time-linked with
video images of
ATMs and
analysed
 Any transaction
that would need
to be time-linked
with digital video
monitoring can be
investigated
 Indicates when
more staff is
needed by
monitoring the
flow of customers
 Provides alerts
when shelves
need restocking
 Used to study and
improve store
design in order to
optimize traffic
flow
 Can help
developing
training tools to
spot shoplifting or
help customers
efficiently
License plate recognition
ATM transaction monitoring Consumer behavior

4. 4
Hyper Competitive Market
● 1% difference
between
Milestone and
our biggest
competitor
● Minor product
and Go To
Market
difference
● Significant
differences in
sales execution Milestone is the No.1 player globally for IP-based Video
Management Software
Global IP VMS market
shares 2012A
Milestone growth vs. Global VMS market
growth (rebased to 100)
Milestone
8%
Other
53%
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
2006A 2007A 2008A 2009A 2010A 2011A 2012A 2013A
Milestone Market
+441%
+324%
Consistent growth well above market growth
+593%
OEM
partner

5. 5
Milestone Systems Intro
● Software
Manufacturer
● #1 VMS
Global Market
share
● Don’t sell
direct to end
customers
● All proposals
are “Teaming”
Milestone presence
Milestone’s Open Platform VMS is at the core of video surveillance
installations
Video
Management
Software
(VMS)
Cameras
(Manufacturer Alliance
Partner Program)
Resellers
Distributors
/ OEMs
Continuous feedback
End-users
After-sales
support
VMS is at the core of video surveillance
installations
Pre-sales
support
Marketing
Certification
Simple installation characteristics
 Demand intuitive products that are easy to understand, purchase,
install and configure
 Less technical insight
 Decision makers are typically security resellers
Complex installation characteristics
 Significantly more educated end-users
 Often gather best-of-breed solutions themselves or via IT resellers
3rd party hardware/software
(Solutions Partner Program)Business Units
(PM / BD)
R&D
(Existing products)
Second-line
Investigation/Exp
ort
Investigation/Exp
ort
Client
Networ
k
Camera
Network
Recording
Server
and Storage
Court
Viewing

6. 6
Understanding The Playing Field
The Rules of
Opportunities
Winning
Solution
Milestone
Channel
Needs
Large End User Account drive 25% of
the revenue from 250 accounts:
1. The Rules of Large Project Opportunities:
2. Milestone Winning Solution Includes
3. Milestone Organizational / Channel Needs

7. 7
Milestone BD-CMM Baseline Target
Current Milestone Position
Proposed 2015
Objective

8. 8
Milestone Global Bid Desk Overview
Global Bid Desk ObjectivesStrategy and
Business Case:
1. Increase Win Rate
• Large end-user
project proposal
support
2. Increase
Profitability
• Partners win more
of the right
projects
3. Increase Retention
• Less effort and
improved results.
End User
RFPs’
Milestone Partner
Response
Very Detailed
Limited
Response Time
Highly Technical
Biggest Projects
Standardize
Response
Global Team Of
Specialists
Ensure Technical
Compliance
CreateWinning
Proposal
ValidatedQA
Pairs
Lower Time
Investment
Reduce Delivery
Risks
Highest Quality
Proposal
Results
Win
More
Projects

9. 9
Solution Business Development
Investing in Win Rate:
A. Governance is biggest ROI thru
pursuit decisions
B. Proposal Management and
development of the “win theme”
in support of a pursuit decision
C. Key Account Management
contributes and supports the
pursuit and capture activities
D. Program Management supports
the pursuit with a quality
assurance technical solution
#A
Weekly
meetingsto
reviewproject
pursuit
businesscases
Biddecision
gatediscipline
Winrate
improvement
of2x–3x
Governance
#B
Developthe
WinTheme
Createthe
Executive
Summary
Proposal
development
and
compliance
Winrate
improvement
ProposalManagement
#C
Capture
Management
Position
Milestonetobe
thepreferred
solution
Implement
PriceToWin
Strategy
Winrate
improvement
KeyAccountManagement
#D
Developthe
winning
solution
Lowerthe
deliveryrisks
Provide
Delivery
support
ProgramManagement
VisibieThread Provided Significant Capability

10. 10
Teaming On The Right Projects
Key
Account
Managers
Technical
Program
Managers
Proposal
Managers
“ Right
Projects”
● Customer focused
capture skills and
strategy
● Win Themes, and Price
To Win Strategies
● Pursuit planning,
scheduling and
managing
● Solution engineering,
costing and ownership
● Technical compliance
and referenceabilty
● Past performance
analysis
● Proposal planning,
development and
delivery
● Executive
summaries
● Customer
presentation
development
Disti, Partner + CBM
● Account ownership
● Project registration
● Source document
ownership
● Delivery ownership

11. 11
Global Bid Desk Critical Paths
Critical Paths To
Successful Launch:
1. Bid Desk Process &
Alignment
2. Opportunity Pursuit
Governance Process
3. Centralized Milestone
Body Of Knowledge
4. Proposal
Management and
Automation System
5. Key Account
”Capture” Team

12. 12
High Value VT Users Roles
DirectorofBD
•The Director of Business
Development role is to
manage, support, and
supervise the business
development department.
Director of Business
Development
responsibilities include but
are not limited to:
initiating marketing
strategies, setting sales
targets, defining strategy
to achieve these targets
and following the set
strategy punctually,
developing draft
proposals, developing
concepts based on team
meetings, managing the
proposal development
process and maintaining
the time lines for the
Proposal teams,
supporting marketing
activities (including
trade/scientific shows,
mailings). A strong
Director of Business
Development must have
the ability to discuss
strategic and sensitive
issues with clients and
internal teams.
CaptureManager
•The Capture Manager is
responsible for developing
and managing win
strategies and short- and
long-term capture team
assignments. The Capture
Manager works in
partnership with the
Proposal Manager and
Program Manager to
implement the strategy. A
Capture Manager's
responsibilities include but
are not limited to:
developing a compelling
win strategy; achieving
corporate/team partner
buy-in; preparing,
maintaining, and
implementing the formal
Capture Plan, including
team assembly,
conducting customer, self,
and competition analyses,
and intelligence gathering;
establishing pricing
strategy; assisting with
the development of win
themes, discriminators,
and ghosts; identifying
potential significant risks
and determining how to
mitigate them. The
Capture Manager also
establishes resource
needs, including overhead
and B&P budgets.
CompetitiveIntelligence
•Competitive Intelligence
employees are responsible
for producing actionable
intelligence that improves
win rates on high-priority
opportunities within a
business unit. A
Competitive Intelligence
employee fosters
knowledge sharing within
the organization and trains
others in Competitive
Intelligence tradecraft
while producing in-depth,
tailored competitive
analyses for opportunities.
The Competitive
Intelligence employee is
also responsible for
analyzing new markets,
facilitating black hat
workshops and
collaborating closely with
price to win analysts.
PriceToWin
•Price to Win employees
operate as members of
the Business Development
team and are responsible
for conducting Price to Win
and competitive analysis
on a full range of capture
efforts. Price to Win
employees are responsible
for developing a bid
pricing strategy and price
recommendations, as well
as collecting and analyzing
public documentation and
proposal debriefs using
market-research tools to
generate meaningful
programmatic analyses to
promote effective and
strategic pricing solutions.
The Price to Win employee
also supports and
participates in black hat
strategy sessions to
develop customer and
competitor intelligence.
BlackHat
•The Black Hat will provide
a competitive assessment
to address the proposal's
competition in terms of
the responding team's
strengths and weaknesses
as compared to the
competition, using
standard evaluation
criteria. A successful Black
Hat will review and
disseminate competitive
intelligence about the
competition, as well as
review the capture and
proposal strategies to
improve the overall win
theme and plan.

13. 13
Competitive VT Work Streams
● Proposal Development Worksheet
● Dictionaries (MBOK)
● QA Database
● Discriminators
● Win Themes
● FABs – Feature, Advantage, Benefit
Statements
● Pursuit Decisions
● H.I.M Report (Hot Button’s, Issues
and Motivators
● Familiarity
● Compliance
● Table of Contents
Discovery
Analyze
Compare
Prioritize
Execute
Milestone’s
VisibleThread
Usage

14. 14
Proposal Development Worksheet

15. 15
Coordination With Bid Desk Process
● 0.1 – Receive Tender
● CBM’s forward the tenders to GBD on
average 1-2 days after they receive
them
● Day 3 Analyze the Source Documents
and Schedule CBM call Development
Worksheet
● Day 4 Engineering work including:
Compliance QA, Design, Visio, and
Other
● Day 5 GBD Proposal Plan Draft including
if needed: Response type, TOC, Pricing,
Partners
● Day 6 Proposal Development
● Day 7 Executive Summary
● Day 10 Handoff to partner
● Day 11 Submit
Pursue
Decision
GBD
Analysis
& PDW
Engineering
GBD
Analysis
& PDW
GBD
Proposal
Development
Submit
Start

16. 16
VT - Pursuit Compatibility Grid
● Governance Tool Purpose
● Quantify the opportunity
● Select the “Right” opportunities
to invest into winning together
● Pursuit Types
● Type 1: 80% Win rate
● Type 2: <50% Win Rate
● Type 3: <10% Win Rate
● Type 4: 0% Win Rate
Relative match with existing
products and services
Existing markets and customers
less More
Less
More
1. Similar Product /
Similar Market: - Bid
Desk Pursue
4. New Product / New
Market - Don’t support
pursuit as is.
2. Similar Product /
New Market: -Partner
Pursue with Bid Desk
Support
3. New Product / Similar
Market: Partner Pursue
without Bid Desk support
Strong Pursuit Indication:
Know product, market, and
customer: Focus on
competition
Caution Pursuit Indication:
Learn the market. Establish
your company in the market
before focusing on the
competition.
Weak/Success Unlikely
Pursuit Indication. Drop, if
you pursue, it will require a
detailed plan and far more
resources than leads in
sectors 1,2, and 3.
Caution Pursuit Indication.
Make sure you have a
product to meet the need of
your customer base, then
focus on the competition
X

17. 17
Dictionaries – Body Of Knowledge
Proposals
Corporate
Marketing Product
Sales
Benefits From The Centralized Milestone
Body Of Knowledge Database:
• Writing styles, document types,
document templates
• Productivity Gains because of
eliminating accessibility, versioning,
approved content challenges
• Data reuse and content management
create compliance, risk mitigation and
accelerates new resource onboarding.
• Centralized Database improves
compliance, product risk mitigation, and
Product Management and Development
insights

18. 18
Question / Answer Analysis
● What are the differences?
1. Document Purpose
2. Question Type
3. Answer Length
4. Expected Output
5. Reviewer Process
6. Customer Decision Support
● Question classification
● Metadata tagging
● Answer Length
●A1 / A10 / A30 / A60 / A120 / A240
Response Types Customer Example
Statement of Compliance Hyderabad Metro Rail - Thales
Request for Quotes
Technical Purchased
Specifications
Metro Rail System –
Alcatel/Lucent
Non-Priced Responses Auckland Transport
A&E Specifications Cassidian
Technical Specifications Sydney Trains
Technical Proposals Oman Airport
Tenders Staten Vegvesen Region Ost
Request for Proposals DAA
Request for Information ING
Questionnaires AGT
Market Survey Shell Oil
Supplier Qualification Process ABB
18

19. 19
QA Automation / Management Tools
Visible Thread
● For Docs
● Provides automated discovery, baseline
compliance and document parsing
● Clarity Grader
● HTML content discovery engine
Qorus Docs
● Breeze
● Proposal automation with a initial focus on
question/answer proposal types
● Docgeneration
● Proposal template creation
Qvidian – Process Management

20. 20
Compliance To Requirements
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
VT improves compliance tracking with standardized dictonaries

21. 21
Win Themes Best Practices
Concept Description
Compliance
and
Responsivenes
s
Are often confused. Both must be
addressed.
Discriminators
Are features of your offer or solution
that (1) differ from a competitor's
offer and (2) are acknowledged by
the customer as important. Both
conditions must be met.
Features,
Advantages,
and Benefits
Are needed to sell effectively in
person and in a proposal. Sales and
proposal professionals with
extensive training about features,
advantages, and benefits, often omit
benefits, fail to link features to
benefits, or mention benefits only at
the end of a presentation or proposal
section.
● We prioritize these three
areas to support the Price
To Win
● VT is used to enable the
prioritization

22. 22
Feature, Advantage, Benefit Process
Step 1: Review the customer case and
select a customer issue to address
Step 3: Select a
partner feature
which can be used
to address the
customers issue
Step 5: Newly
combined feature
statement is created.
Step 4: Write a new
combined feature
statement.
Step 12: Theoretical customer brainstorm
on how the advantages are linked to the
customer’s issues with the objective to
get the customer to state the value of
addressing these issues.
Step 11: Review case study
which is a brief summary of
the previous customer
meetings.
Step 14: Newly created
combined benefit statement.
Step 7: Analyze and
select the possible
advantages that the
combined feature
statement can
deliver.
Step 9. Newly
created combined
advantage statement.
Combined Feature
Statement
Step 2: Select a
Milestone feature
which can be used
to address the
customers issue
Customer
Issue
Milestone
Feature
Partner
Feature
Step 6: Convert the
combined feature
statement into an
advantage
statement.
Step 8: Write a
combined advantage
statement.
Combined Feature Statement
Creation Work Flow
Combined Advantage Statement
Creation Work Flow
Combined Feature
Statement Analysis
Advantage
Statement
Step 10. Convert the combined advantage statement
into a combined benefits statement.
Combined Benefits Statement
Creation Work Flow
Step 13: Write a new
combined benefit
statement.
Issue
Customer
Issue
Combined Feature
Statement
Advantage
Statement
Combined
benefit
statement
1 2 3
Combined Feature Statement Formula Combined Advantage Statement Formula Combined Benefit Statement Formula
Steps to create the combined features, advantages and benefits
Step 15: Repeat (3)
additional times
● VT Usages
● Accelerates
Teaming Proposal
Development
● Tracks word usage
for each FAB

23. 23
VT - Win Themes and PTW Process

24. 24
Any
Questions