The document discusses competitive intelligence and business research services provided by A9 Network. A9 has resources in Scandinavia and provides services such as market intelligence, competitive analysis, due diligence for M&A, and litigation support. They give examples of cases involving a software company launching in multiple countries and a telecom company analyzing opportunities in Nordic markets. The document also covers best practices for global competitive intelligence projects.

2. About the A9
The A9 Network is a group of CI and business
research companies that co-operate across time
zones and geographical business areas in order
to increase customer value.
We have especially strong resources in
Scandinavia/Nordics
A9 Consulting

3. Defining
What do people mean when they say
• Business Intelligence?
• Competitive Intelligence?
• Market Intelligence?
• Data Warehousing, Data Mining?
• Customer Information?
• Primary Research?

4. Competitive
Intelligence
System
Prediction and CI – what does it cover?

5. A9 Case Example
• Corporate and financial investigation
• Due Diligence – M&A
Interviews and research focusing on key business people
– career and behaviour issues
• Civil Litigation
• Criminal Litigation
• Bankruptcy Filing
• Liens and Judgments
Case information is/is not publicly available in the different
countries

6. A9 Case
The Stein Bagger Case
• Stein Bagger is a Danish criminal, businessman, entrepreneur and
former CEO of the bankrupt company IT Factory. Before bankruptcy and
a subsequent fraud scandal, he was named "Danish Entrepreneur of the
Year" by Ernst & Young, and his company was named "Denmark's best
IT company" two years in a row by the magazine Computerworld. On the
11 June, 2009, Stein Bagger was sentenced to a seven-year prison
sentence.
Because Investigations revealed that Bagger employed a duping scheme
by forging large sales orders creating fictional revenue.
Stein Bagger claimed that he had several academic degrees, including an
MBA and a PhD in International Business from "San Francisco Technical
University". No such university exists. After reporters inquired about the
alleged degrees, Bagger hired an American actress to impersonate an
official of the fake university, to "verify" his degrees.

7. Predicting

8. Essentials of the prediction research
• Providing management with information they can act on
• Anticipating what will happen
• Strategic and tactical
• Align with corporate goals
• Becoming more knowledgeable
• Predictive, actionable information
• Analyzing and interpreting findings
• Pattern matching
• Communicating results

9. Predicting Issues
1. Customers – They have the power to bargain for lower
prices and force certain kinds of change within your
industry.
2. Suppliers – Suppliers may have certain power to
dictate prices and options upon a company.
3. Substitutions – Your market share is subject to change
from substitute products or a new use of an existing
product.
4. New Competition – New entrants into the marketplace
are not uncommon in this global world and they can be
difficult to identify.
5. Existing Competition – Your organization is currently
competing for market share, trying to position itself as a
leader.

10. Time is Critical
Slowness is the enemy of competitive intelligence.
Having knowledge about something three weeks after you
need to act is of little value.
Two critical questions you must address are:
Where do we go to get the information and how long will it
take?
This requires a very deliberate and strong competitive
intelligence effort. Without a serious commitment to
competitive intelligence, time will erase whatever hope you
have for effective decision-making.

11. Analysis
• The heart of Competitive Intelligence is Interpreting data
• It’s not enough to collect and assemble
• It’s not even sufficient to synthesize
• We should be answering the questions,
“Why does this matter?” and
“What should we do next?”

12. Analysis Tools
Tool Use
Porters Five Forces To map the competitive markets strength
and weaknesses
User Investigation To find out the goals and actions of specific
target groups
SWOT analysis To identify threats and opportunities and
how the organasation can deal with them
Benchmark To compare with and learn from other
organisations
Scenario Analysis To undertake long-term planning
War Gaming To prepare for strategic competitive action
plans
Early Warning
Systems
To monitor continuously to discover
opportunities and threats at an early
stage

13. Scenario Analysis
For environments that involve rapid change and high levels
of uncertainty, competitive intelligence may have to
construct different scenarios based on what might happen.
• Scenario analysis is usually taking place over several
months in distinct stages:

14. • Stage 1 – Identify key drivers within your organization.
This will require brainstorming with key management personnel.
• Stage 2 – Study the competitive universe to isolate possible
scenarios.
This may result in a real need to develop competitive intelligence
for filling in certain unknowns.
• Stage 3 – Create three to five different scenarios and try to assign
a probability on the likelihood that the scenario will happen.
• Stage 4 – Conduct a series of strategic meetings to build a set of
strategies for addressing different scenarios.
• Stage 5 – Establish and monitor a set of indicators for each
scenario. You will need to assign responsibilities to different
people for researching and analyzing these indicators.
• When a threat or opportunity becomes real, take appropriate
action.

15. Early Warning – Future Scenarios
• Situation in 2015
• International clients demand:
– Business research/analysis with global coverage
• Local presence needed
– Aggregation of information
• One project may cover 5 countries rather than 5 projects each
focusing on a separate market.
– Cost reductions based on larger projects & shared project
methodology
– Rapid project execution
• The question: How to handle these demands?

16. Early warning – future scenarios
Background/trends
• Extreme market growth in new markets
• More global business operations, joint-ventures, M&As
• More international projects
• Increasing international competition
• Greater need for understanding the global business
• The Competitive Intelligence activity - focusing on
future uncertainties that may lead to profound changes
in the business environment
• Improved understanding of possible competitor (and
other stakeholder) moves.
• A number of threats and opportunities will be identified
throughout the process.

17. INDUSTRY
SPECIFIC
INFORMATION
MULTI-
COUNTRY
PERSPECTIVE
Country
Intelligence
Northern
Europe
benchmark
Aggregation
and
distribution
Publishing
Analysis & Decision Making
Company analysts
Company Decision Makers
Local business
press
Industry
journals
Authorities
Research firms
Market
Intelligence
Local
language
Business
information
databases
publishers and
database
distributors
(”aggregators”)
.
- Gale
- Dialog
- Factiva
- LexisNexis
Investment
analysts
Stock exchanges
Institutions
Companies
Organizations
Non-published
information
A9 Early Warning Analysis: Northern Europe
Macro
indicators
GDP Growth
Investments
ITC-Level
Regulation
etc
A9 Northern
Europe Market
Watch
-
Interviews
Exhibitions
Observation
Country
indicators
Macro +
Industry
structure
Industry
growth
Entry modes
etc
Market
analysis
Competitors
Suppliers
Customers
Segments
Products
Persons
etc
A9 Early Opportunity Analysis
-

18. Issues for Global CI in general
1. Global scope / project capabilities
2. Strategic mindset
3. Cultural sensitivity
4. Local presence
a) Language
b) Connections and local understanding
5. Curiousity
6. Reliability

19. A9 Case Examples

20. A9 Case 1:
Global Research Support
• Intelligence Need:
A company had developed a
software product with global
application for a specific segment of
pre-university students, which it
intended to commercialize in a
select group of countries worldwide.
• The issue of product pricing and
local market potential was
important to understand prior to
launch. Developing a proper launch
strategy was important.
• A price list needed to be developed
that would support a competitive
posture, while optimizing potential
revenues.
• A9 Solution:
Expert interviewers were used in
gathering detailed information on
the leading software products in
each 14 countries with required
linguistic abilities and local
business understanding. The vast
amount of data was compiled and
analysed, revealing not only
differential patterns in local market
pricing, but also which products
were the market leaders.
• Based on the information,
competitive positioning analysis
was carried out as well as basic
scenario analysis
• Product development plans as well
as market entry and marketing
plans were created based on the
intelligence at hand.

21. A9 Case 2:
Telecom in the Nordics
• Intelligence Need:
A company needed to
understand the Nordic telecom
markets regarding certain
segments and certain countries.
• The need was, among other
things, to create country based
industry profiles to determine
which countries were most
interesting to enter.
• It was also a need to establish
some kind of monitoring system
/ Early Warning System to
decide what markets that were
developing most favourable in
comparison to the others.
• A9 Solution:
• An A9 expertise overview of the
Nordic countries related telecoms
experience was created.
• Country profiles and industry analysis
projects were conducted.
• A model for the development of an
early warning/early opportunity
system was created.
• Review of the Telecommunication
market on a quarterly basis and
preparation a competition mapping
in electronic format for the purposes
of strategic investment of a foreign
Telco in the Nordic
Telecommunication Market.

22. Patents
• Patent information/intelligence can and should be
used strategically to provide an optimum competitive
position
• Patent strategy must include (but is not limited to)
monitoring and mapping of the patent activities of
competitors, especially when these are encroaching
on one’s own area of expertise
• Patent strategy must always be seen in connection
with the R&D strategy and the overall business
strategy

23. Investigate competitive activity
Patents— interconnected with business and R&D trategies
• Constant awareness of new R&D developments,
• Purpose: Obtain best possible protection of own R&D inventions,
BUT
• Monitoring potential new competing companies and products
Business strategy
R&D strategyPatent strategy

24. Global Projects – Lessons Learned
1. Local resources often needed
1. Language skills
2. Understanding the business climate
3. Relationships matter
4. Personal meetings often needed
2. Know who - intelligence:
1. Quality, research approach and ethical
standards varies tremendously
3. International project management
1. Clear project purposes and information collection methods approach
2. Costs might vary ( 3000 USD vs 20000 USD)for the same research
3. Negotiation skills needed & cultural sensitivity
4. Established network needed
1. Saves money for your company/ the clients and saves time, efforts and
resources for yourself.

25. Final Thought
“You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t
know where you’re going, because you
might not get there.”
Attributed to Yogi Berra