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Taking the Crystal Out of the Ball - CI2020 Future Scoping Workshop

At a recent SCIP meeting, a question was asked to a speaker about the future of competitive intelligence and what our roles could look like in ten years time?  To help address this question as well as to show case a useful tool in the CI professionals tool kit , the UKCIF hosted an afternoon workshop to explore what our individual and collective futures may look like. Borrowing from the Department of Transport’s introduction of an alternative futuring exercise a few years ago;

“We can either stumble into the future and hope it turns out all right or we can try and shape it. To shape it, the first step is to work out what it (the future) might look like“

A hands-on workshop took place to learn about and apply a mini alternative futuring exercise to gain a sense of what we might all be doing in a few years time.  As CI professionals we are often charged with alerting our stakeholders about likely or anticipated future market place evolution or competitor strategy. Alternative futuring helps us define what we should be doing today to make sure that whatever the future holds we put ourselves in the best position to thrive. The exercise asked teams to look at CI in 2020 from the perspective of 4 groups – the practitioner, the stakeholder, the vendor and the information aggregator.  This is a pioneering activity and the intent is to publish the results of the collective work for which the participants will be acknowledged. Participants came prepared to think and actively contribute. Most of the work was done by the participants!

This networking event looked at:

  • Hands-on learning of a futuring technique to take back to your business 
  • The potential business environments and job expectations
  • Publishing the results of the event as a pioneering insight into our chosen profession


As ever, there was the opportunity for light refreshment and to engage with peers and practitioners warmly.  Sincere thanks to Thomson Reuters for their generous hosting of this event.

Presenters

Anthony Nagle is Managing Director at Fuld & Company Ltd based out of London. Prior to this role Mr. Nagle’s career has included 17 years of international commercial & product development roles across the globe with multinational pharmaceutical, diagnostic and biotech organizations.  As the head of Fuld & Company in Europe, Mr. Nagle and his London based team has overseen the expansion of the business across a wide variety of industry sectors. 

Sheila Wright (Panel Chair) is a Reader of Competitive Intelligence and Marketing Strategy at De Montfort University, Leicester.  She is by far one of the most qualified authorities on the discipline’s application reinforced by her past elected role on SCIP’s Board, her numerous articles and workshops on CI as well as front-line practitioner experience.

Background reading ahead of the event can be downloaded below, upon registering your details or entering your registered username and password, as well as through on the links below:

Shell Scenarios
Intelligent Intelligence Career Planning, What the Practitioners Say

 

The Battle for China's Smart Grid Public War Game

‘The Battle for China’s Smart Grid’
was a public strategy game run on both sides of the Atlantic by Fuld & Company. It was fascinating to observe European and US perspectives on the Chinese market place significantly diverging from each other. Could it be both regions are right?  Please join us for the next UK CIF Networking Event to contribute to the debate.

Participants will benefit from: 

  • Learning about conducting a strategy game
  • Learning about the highly topical challenge that China faces in meeting its energy needs in a sustainable and Smart way
  • Learning to recognise and reconcile what appears to be divided views and beliefs of what will fail or what will succeed in a difficult and challenging market
  • Learn about the subtleties of interpreting the differing cultural signals expressed in a game commented on by an expert

Presenter

Anthony Nagle is Managing Director at Fuld & Company Ltd based out of London. Prior to this role Mr. Nagle’s career has included 17 years of international commercial & product development roles across the globe with multinational pharmaceutical, diagnostic and biotech organizations.  As the head of Fuld & Company in Europe, Mr. Nagle and his London based team has overseen the expansion of the business across a wide variety of industry sectors.  Fuld’s innovative Strategic and Competitor Gaming methodology has been a significant contributor to this expansion which has been “road tested” across multiple regions and cultures sometimes with a surprise or two as illustrated in the case study.

 

The Art of Smart in association with the Management Consultancies Association

The UK International Group of the Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (UKCIF) together with the Management Consultancies Association (MCA) are introducing the subject of competitive intelligence to the MCA membership with material drawn from SCIP's 'Introduction to Competitive Intelligence' course module. The foundation of the course is built on what the presenter, Mike Sandman, has learnt over the past two decades from helping companies with their own CI initiatives, including both research and managing the intelligence process. The tour of competitive intelligence starts with the world of secondary sources and moves onto techniques for talking to people to obtain human intelligence (primary research). Indeed, primary research is at the heart of good intelligence gathering.

'An Introduction to Competitive Intelligence', known as 'CI 101' in the United States is probably the most widely attended course in SCIP's portfolio of educational programmes. Mike Sandman, a principle of Fuld & Company, a leading competitive intelligence consulting firm, has presented this course on behalf of SCIP since 1996, will explain what intelligence is including:

  • How to create it from the bits and pieces of raw data
  • How to organise the collection effort so that you have the time to add value through analysis
  • How to stay within legal and ethical boundaries

About the Presenter

Mike Sandman is senior vice president of Fuld & Company Inc. a competitive intelligence consulting firm in Cambridge, MA. Prior to joining Fuld & Company, he was an operations manager in the composites industry. Mike has an extensive background in international business. He lives in Brookline, MA and is co-chair of the town's Transportation Board. Mike often cycles to work through the Boston traffic, which he claims is no more foolish than his persistent rooting for the Boston Red Sox.

 

What's Round the Corner?

Anticipating the future starts with understanding the past. This interactive session will deliver insights into changing consumer behaviour and crucially 'why' consumer behaviour is changing through an understanding of socio-economic and cultural drivers of lifestyle, attitudinal and behavioural shifts. In a year when the only constant is change, scenario planning has never been more important. Attendees will be guided through a simulated Futureproofing workshop to demonstrate how this technique can be adapted to fit your company's specific strategic needs.

Addressing the track of analysis techniques in action as well as for those new to the discipline, Sarah Robinson of the Future Foundation, will ensure attendees have a facilitated and collaborative session leaving with an understanding of

  • Why we are where we are in the context of social change and consumerism
  • How we can anticipate what will happen next
  • How the process can be matched to your business

About the Presenter

Sarah Robinson represents Future Foundation's digital media, telecoms and technology sectors, working with a range of clients including Orange, the BBC, Sony and Yahoo! She has been with the Future Foundation, a leading strategic consumer think tank, for 5 years and her current role involves Futureproofing clients' brand or strategy and turning insight into innovation. Previous communications projects have included 'Britain in the Empowerment Age' for Microsoft and 'The Future of Party Goers' for Yell.com. Sarah also oversees her clients' access to nVision, the Future Foundation's online consumer trends service, which offers unlimited access to continuously updated data, analysis, forecasts and insight. Prior to her role at the Future Foundation, Sarah worked in conference production, media and business development.

There is no presentation available for distribution from this event.

 

From Process to Measurable Deliverable - Actionable Sell Against Guides

Struggling to understand where to have the biggest impact with a start up programme or wanting a robust vehicle to create a 2-way relationship with sales? Michael and Steve from the Strategy Works will be taking us on an interactive journey with Sell against Guides. Key themes from their case study focus on a structured methodology, CI's processes married with other established benchmarking tools and the use of secondary and primary collection resulting in bespoke 'Sell against Guides', 'Silver Bullets' and 'Battle Cards'.

This interactive Networking Series Event addresses two of the three event streams, namely 'Analysis in Action' and 'The Discipline's Process' with attendees able to benefit from:

  • How to develop a set of tools and processes for the production and maintenance of 'Sell against Guides'
  • How to produce actionable CI of immediate benefit to the sales force in winning future tenders
  • How to ensure that investment in CI is measurable across the business

About the Presenters

Michael Herson and Steve Forey
The Strategy Works

Founder and partner at the Strategy Works, Michael and Steve have both come from strong end user company experiences. Michael has a classical marketing background with more than 20-years corporate experience in senior roles with FMCG companies, Unilever, United Biscuits, Del Monte and Rank Hovis McDougall. Steve has held board level positions with a number of media and publishing companies and founded a successful magazine distribution and database management company which was sold to RR Donnelley. Both gentlemen are experienced in analysing emerging and niche market sectors, where little information exists in the public domain. Most opportune given the sell against guides' use of primary collection.
 
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