0 COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE A PROCESS THAT CREATES COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE NOT A REPORT THAT SITS ON A SHELF Plan Integrate Collect Analyze Communicate 4200 Montrose, Suite 590  Houston, TX / Phone  713/ Fax - assoc.com

1 Imagine a company that customers rave about. A company whose customers say “it’s so easy to do business with them”. A company where employees are excited about working and pitch in to help each other. R&D has a passion for product development and getting to revenue quickly, and the production department is obsessed with continually improving and reducing cost while increasing quality and reliability. Staff people understand that their job is to please the internal customer as well as the external customer, not to build empires. A company where information technology enables the company to achieve unparalleled speed of execution and the management team is constantly reinventing the company. Imagine this company is your competitor. Do you want to know how they got there? Do you want to know how your company compares? Imagine…

2 IF COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE IS NOT: ã Impacting your resource allocation decisions ã Creating competitive advantage ã Creating singularity of purpose ã Leading to Strategic Doing IT’S NOT COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE

3 COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE IS A PROCESS OF ã Planning: Deciding what the organization wants to accomplish and then organizing to collect, analyze, communicate and integrate the intelligence into strategic decisions and their execution. ã Collecting: Gathering the information about customers, markets and competitors that will impact resource allocation decisions and build competitive advantage. ã Analyzing: 1. Creating a succinct picture of the marketplace in 3 to 5 years: Who is in it? What are they trying to do? How are they trying to do it? What is the differentiating strategy? 2. Extracting tactical information to help win the daily battles. ã Communicating: Getting the tactical and strategic information to the managers who need it. ã Integrating: Using competitive intelligence to create and execute a differentiating strategy.

4 WJ Murray & Associates’ Competitive Intelligence Process Strategic Planning Process Defines: Trends Shaping the Future The Future Customer The Business The Vision Strategic Intent of Competitors The Value Proposition The Goals The Critical Success Factors The Strategic Initiatives The Metrics Plan Collect Scope of Competitive Intelligence Published Sources External Sources Customers Distributors Suppliers Industry Experts Internal Sources Sales Call Reports Trade Show Reports Press Releases Interviews Communicate Compile & Disseminate Analyze Financial Performance Business Processes Distribution Channels Products/Technology Cost Structure Personnel Business Relationships Key Customers Strategic Intent Integrate

5 THE WJ MURRAY & ASSOCIATES’ PROCESS DELIVERS:  The marketing, manufacturing and technology strategies of key competitors.  The relative cost position of your firm and key competitors.  A map of the key competitors channel to the marketplace, both sales and service/ repair.  The value adding business processes of key competitors as well as their information technology and knowledge management infrastructure.  Emerging customer needs and how competitors are positioning to satisfy those needs – how your firm should position itself - a winning business strategy that is different from that of key competitors.  Tactical information that produces winning proposals; i.e., price, delivery, terms, value proposition.

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7 Plan Actions 1. Interview senior managers 2. Identify The customers and the vision The value proposition Goals/critical success factors Cost structure/drivers Technology Historical profitability Strategic initiatives 3. Reach consensus with management Value added competitive intelligence Key competitors Key internal customers/location Competitive intelligence delivery vehicle 4. Interview key competitive intelligence user groups Information needs Processes used to accomplish work Results and Outputs 1. Consensus on goals, strategies and critical success factors 2. Consensus on value added competitive intelligence 3. Agreement on information architecture 4. Agreement on communication plan and vehicles, e.g., One-on-one briefings Group discussions Input/output vehicles Archival rules 5. Agreement on roles and responsibilities 6. Metrics for success and continuous improvement 7. Consensus on expected results 8. Agreement on budget, resource requirements 9. Agreement on system access and security procedures

8 Plan Collect Actions 1. Published sources Analysts reports Governmental sources Press releases News articles 2. Interview and collect information from third party sources Customers Distribution channel Suppliers Industry experts Benchmark best practice organizations 3. Internal sources Call reports Trade show reports Interviews Results and Outputs 1. Competitive, market and customer information collected 2. Value added sources of information identified 3. Map of data collection process completed 4. Templates for inputting data from internal sources are deployed 5. Competitive intelligence IT architecture defined 6. Process for continuously monitoring data sources identified and deployed

9 Plan Collect Analyze Actions 1. Determine the customers’ best and poorest suppliers - Why? 2. Determine the customers’ preference for market channels 3. Determine the customers’ preference for products/services 4. Identify the customer's value drivers Who is responding - how? 5. Identify outsourcing opportunities 6. Identify the customers strategic alliance process 7. Create market growth and profitability forecasts Market growth by geography Business profitability 8. Identify key competitors’ Manufacturing processes and cost structure Channels to the marketplace for sales and service Technology and capability IT systems R&D and capital spending Results and Outputs 1. Competitive position Cost structure/capital spending Technology Business processes IT infrastructure Products/services Changes in competitive position 2. Key competitive initiatives and components of strategy 3. Future market position 4. Outsourcing opportunities 5. Competitive manufacturing facilities and expansion plans 6. Competitive outsourcing activities 7. “Best practice” competitors 8. Strategic alternatives and recommendations 9. Differentiating strategy

10 Plan Collect Analyze Communicate Actions 1. Complete one-on-one briefings with key managers 2. Conduct group meetings and discussions 3. Post analyzed data on communications vehicle Internet/Intranet Group ware 4. Specific reports for functional managers Results and Outputs 1. Strategic and tactical competitive intelligence in the hands of decision makers and implementers 2. Communication process 3. Information input and output process 4. Strategic decisions are improved 5. Strategic decisions are implemented 6. Consensus on Competitive strategies Implications for the firm Relative position of the firm on key parameters 7. Commitment to action

11 Plan Integrate Collect Analyze Communicate Actions 1. Senior manager meetings to reach consensus on: Trends in the marketplace and who is responding Customers’ unmet needs The firm’s value proposition Competitive strategy and implementation methods Goals Commitment to achieve the critical success factors Results required Results and Outputs 1. Differentiated competitive strategy 2. Improved performance relative to competitors 3. Competitive intelligence process installed and operating 4. Agreement among customers that firm has improved relative to competitors 5. Agreement among channel partners that firm has improved its competitive position 6. Improvement in quality of decisions