Can You Trust Them? Using Competitive Intelligence in Supplier Appraisals
Different businesses will consider competitive intelligence a risk, irrespective as to whether it is applied to the decisions that take place around supplier appraisals or not. A risk that it is going on within your organisation and the business is still not moving on the insight and recommendations it provides. A risk that it is not even being applied to supplier appraisals. A risk that you have become the target yourself to someone else's intelligence operation.
CIPS Harrow Branch arranges, together with the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP), an evening event which deals with using competitive intelligence in supplier appraisals. Mr. Chris West, the Managing Director of Competitive Intelligence Services (CIS), has a career in market research that goes back more than two decades. Mr. Robert Pepper, the Head of Global Risks at Merchant International Group (MIG), has a consulting background in corporate risk management, prior to which he served in both infantry and intelligence services within the British Army.
Audience take aways will include:
- why intelligence on suppliers should be gathered
- what intelligence you can expect to get
- what methods are used to acquire intelligence
- how the value of acquired intelligence can be assessed
- how to do all of this in a legal and ethical manner
About the Presenters
Chris West Robert Pepper
Managing Director Head of Global Risk
CIS Ltd MIG
Chris West is a graduate of the London School of Economics. After leaving the LSE, he worked for Shell International in the Supply and Planning department and then moved to Paris were he worked for Eurofinance, a financial and economic consultancy. He returned to the UK to join Industrial Market Research Ltd., a consultancy which specialised in the analysis of industrial, commercial and professional markets world-wide. He was appointed Managing Director of IMR in 1978, after the company's acquisition by the AGB Research Group. He left IMR in 1984 to join a team which formed Business Marketing Services, a new market research company. In 1991 he formed Marketing Intelligence Services and this became part of Business Research Group in 1992.
During his research career he has worked on a wide diversity of business research problems for clients in Europe and North America. He has also written and lectured extensively on marketing subjects. He has written and edited four books. 'Marketing Research' was published by Macmillan in February 1999. 'Global Jumpstart - The Complete Resource to Expanding Small and Midsize Businesses' was co-authored with Ruth Stanat and published in the US by Perseus Books in December 1998. 'Marketing on a Small Budget' and 'Inflation - A Guide to Management Survival' were edited books published the 1980s . In addition to the books he contributed the market research chapter to 'The Encyclopedia of Marketing' and has had articles published in the Harvard Business Review (The Marketing of Unmentionables) and the Business Strategy Review (Permissive Marketing). Chris West is a Full Member of the Market Research Society and a member of the Society of Competitive Professionals.
Robert Pepper is a business consultant who worked firstly as a regional security manager and then as the Chief Security Officer of Bechtel, the major US Corporation, with worldwide operations. He is currently working as the head of global risks for MIG in Knightsbridge. Prior to these appointments, Robert served in both infantry and intelligence services within the British Army. He is fluent in German.
Robert has provided comprehensive strategic guidance, support, and advice, as well as physical, analytical, and technical security services to worldwide worksites and offices.
His expertise embraces crisis management planning and co-ordination, and the management of country profiles to help protect those having to work in high risk environments. He also specialises in advising on compliance with international security treaties. He is an associate of the Burril Green Security Consultants.
