Tactical Competitive Intelligence for Bid teams

info@amplioservices.com
Tactical Competitive
Intelligence
for Sales & BidTeams
Alex King, Amplio
Strategic & Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP), London.
18th November, 2015
© 2017 Amplio Services 1

info@amplioservices.com © 2017 Amplio Services 2
This presentation will
show…
• There is a huge, unfulfilled demand for sales & bid team
tactical competitive intelligence
• Fulfilling it can lead to quick competitive advantage
because your competitors probably aren’t very good at
it
• The results are relatively easy to measure proving the
return on investment

• What do sales & bid teams want from the CI function?
• Gathering primary & secondary intelligence to meet this demand
• Breakout Discussion 1: Experiences of collecting CI
• How CI for Sales & Bid teams is different to strategy work
• Breakout Discussion 2: The importance of people-sources in CI
analysis
• Difficulties of managing internal CI and knowledge silos
• Breakout Discussion 3: Overcoming knowledge silos
Contents & Agenda
3© 2017 Amplio Services

The demand for tactical
competitive intelligence
What do sales & bid teams want from the CI function?

info@amplioservices.com 5
In a survey of 178 bid
professionals1 conducted
with the Association for
Proposal Management
Professionals (APMP) “better
competitive intelligence”
was ranked as the 3rd
quickest way to improve bid
performance
© 2017 Amplio Services
From a Bid Managers
perspective…
1 How technology is changing Bidding (2017). Amplio Services

In another survey of
Price to Win analysts2,
60% said that “better
Competitive
Intelligence” would
have the quickest
improvement on their
results
From a Price to Win
perspective…
2 Price to Win Survey (2017). Amplio Services

Customers are also
complaining that
bidders fail to
distinguish
themselves and
create a unique value
proposition3
From a Customers
perspective…
3 Bids & Proposals Customer Survey (2017). Amplio Services

What to do about this?
Gathering primary & secondary intelligence to meet demand

Stakeholder Deliverables4
4 Competitive Intelligence for Bid Teams (2017). Amplio Services

There were relatively
low value scores for
people-centred
deliverables:
• Profiles of potential
employees
• Profiles of Competitor
Key Decision Makers
• Profiles of Customer
Key Decision Makers
Less appreciation of
people intelligence

There were relatively
high value scores for:
• Cost Benchmarking
Data
• Market Forecasts
• Specific information
on a Sales or Bid
Opportunity
More appreciation of
hard numbers

Participants were asked to
tick all sources that
produce useful data, this is
effectively a popularity
measure5.
Again, we see a preference
for hard figures found in
annual reports and
industry statistics. Senior
managers and former
employees were relatively
unpopular sources of
intelligence.
Sourcing CI

info@amplioservices.com 13© 2017 Amplio Services
Finding Competitive
Intelligence

info@amplioservices.com 14
Finding Competitive
Intelligence

Pick a discuss topic
(in small groups)
1. To what extent are customers a good source of
CI?
2. What are the best sources of ‘hard-to-find’
competitive intelligence and how could we
integrate its collection into business as usual?
Discuss:
• How does your experience match the research presented
• Does anyone in your group have any best practice examples of
handling these issues
• What did you learn about difficulties you have in common with the
people in your group?

Serving BidTeams vrs
serving Strategy
The difference in requirements and approach

78% of SCIP
respondents said that
“developing strategy”
was a key driver for CI
in their company,
compared to 33% for
“driving sales” 6
This mirrored an earlier
finding that 60% of
members were funded
by strategy or
marketing, compared
to just 13% by sales or
business development.
Strategy:
the safe place for CI?
6 Career Planning Survey (2012). UKCIF

The core outputs to
support Sales & Bid
teams are not
foreign to CI
practitioners,
however they are
not the most
common and will
probably be done
with different
emphasis7
Core outputs supporting
Bids
7 Career Planning Survey (2012). UKCIF

Sales & Bid Teams
• Short-term, narrow focus
• War Gaming
• Pricing
• Scenarios
Strategy & Senior
Management
• Long-term, broad focus
• Board Decision Making
• Market landscaping
• Forecasting
Differences in Emphasis
• Winner takes all! There are no
prizes for coming 2nd in a bid!
• Constantly changing market
shares and trends
• Working within your restrictions
(e.g. brand, technology, people)
to make the most of what you
have
• Manoeuvring the company to
the optimal profit making
opportunities

In more than half of cases, feedback from buyers said that the
eventual winner was more “influential and engaged” in the pre-bid
phase8.
This continues the theme of a greater emphasis on ‘softer’ factors
in bidding.
Why you win or lose

Customers are
overwhelmingly pre-
occupied with
transparency and
fairness in the bid
process9 this means
they become a less
reliable source of
competitive
intelligence as the bid
continues
How customer success
looks

• Research shows that
some organisations
have processes that
make it very difficult
not to accept the
lowest price10
• There were an equally
large group of buyers
who trade technical
capability with price
• This highlights the
importance of win /
loss analysis
22
Customer buying trends

Bid professionals are far more likely to base decisions on
intangibles like “credibility” and “risk appetite” 11 than the
more tangible factors like fluctuating material prices and
labour productivity
Bid decision makers
11 Price to Win Survey (2017). Amplio Services

• There are three generic ways companies compete. These are called
‘Value Disciplines’: 12 13
How companies compete
Being the cheapest
Having the best quality
Using customer intimacy
Aldi
Waitrose
7-Eleven
12 Competitive Strategy (1980). Michael Porter.
13 Customer Intimacy and other Value Disciplines (1992). Michael Treacy & Fred Wiersema.
14 Hyperperformance (2010). T.J. Waters
• Decision-makers develop predictability because “people repeat their
successes and avoid their failures” 14

(in small groups)
1. Do ‘organisational cultures’ prevail or are they
just reflections of key decision makers at a
point in time?
2. What are the best examples of measuring,
qualifying and storing people-sourced
intelligence you have seen?
Discuss:

Knowledge Silos
Difficulties of managing internal CI and knowledge silos

Most respondents
said that “better flow
of internal
information” was the
quickest way to
improve CI in their
organisation. This is
clear evidence of
knowledge silos15
Improving your CI function

Companies that have international offices struggle to leverage the
extra CI. Only 24% of participants said international offices
provide valuable CI. Only 32% felt their company structure
promoted cross-division or country information sharing16
Cross-Company
KnowledgeTransfer

59% were not
satisfied with the
information Senior
Managers collect for
them
The most common
reasons indicate a lack
of engagement, rather
than lack of ability to
collect the CI17
Engaging Senior
Management

(in small groups)
1. Can international and divisional silos be
overcome?
2. How can practitioners successfully utilise their
senior management to gather CI for them?
Discuss:

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