Software Review
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12 Mar 07 Arik Johnson |  |
Free Webinar with Craig Fleisher & Babette Bensoussan Wednesday 11 April on their New Book "Business and Competitive Analysis"
Aurora is kicking off a new media initiative on Wednesday 11 April with our upcoming series of Free Web Seminars on topics of interest to intelligence practitioners and, to commemorate the inaugural edition of this new medium, I've recruited my good friends, Babette Bensoussan and Craig Fleisher, to come online with me to talk to all of you in a live one-hour interview to discuss their new book, "Business and Competitive Analysis: Effective Application of New and Classic Methods". But first, buy the book!
Officially published just a couple of short weeks ago, their new volume is one of the most anticipated works in the field and picks up where they left off with their 2003 collaboration on "Strategic and Competitive Analysis: Methods and Techniques for Analyzing Business Competition", which went on to become a classic analyst's handbook for understanding and interpreting competitive forces.
But more importantly, it's helped teach new practitioners how to recognize when to use which techniques as more appropriate for different analytical situations.
Now, this isn't your typical webinar out to try and sell a book (though you really SHOULD read it); this is your first chance to hear from two of the greatest contributors to the field about what they suggest are among the most important skills for you to master, plus we'll open up the dialog for you to ask your own questions. Best of all, we're recording the whole show so you can share it with friends and colleagues (... and for those of you who procrastinate too long on your registration). Space is limited, so register early - without further delay, here's the link:
http://www.gotomeeting.com/register/197293358
I got to know Craig even before we served on the SCIP's board of directors together and we've collaborated on a number of leadership projects over the years.
But we really had the chance to form a bond of friendship a few years ago when we spent two weeks together in South Africa on a speaking tour.
Today I consider Craig among the brightest lights in the field and an earnest champion for corporate practitioners, academia and service providers alike. Here's the official-version of Craig's bio:
CRAIG S. FLEISHER is Windsor Research Leadership Chair and Professor of Management (Strategy and Entrepreneurship), Odette School of Business, University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. He was 2006 President of the Board of Directors of the international Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP), inaugural Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Competitive Intelligence Foundation (Washington, DC), founding editor of the Journal of Competitive Intelligence and Management, and author of eight books and scores of articles. A SCIP Fellow, he serves on several editorial boards of journals in the business intelligence field. He has been recognized as one of Canada's top MBA professors by Canadian Business magazine.
Babette was one of the first subscribers to this newsletter back in 1995 when I first got my start in the business and has been a great friend ever since.
I have benefitted from her astute professional advice as well as more subtle finery - most recently showing me where to buy my wife a suitable gift on my last visit to Sydney.
A longstanding leader in the field since co-founding SCIPAust in the mid-1990's, Babette received the highest honor in the field last year - SCIP's Meritorious Award - at the Orlando SCIP conference and has gone on to push the envelope in her teaching, consulting and writing. And, Babette's official bio:
BABETTE E. BENSOUSSAN is the Managing Director of The MindShifts Group Pty. Ltd., a Sydney, Australia-based consulting firm specializing in strategic planning, competitive intelligence, and strategic marketing projects in the Asia Pacific region. Over the past 15 years, she has carried out over 300 intelligence and strategic projects in a wide range of industries and markets. Bensoussan founded and served as Vice President for the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals in Australia (SCIPAust). She has been a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Competitive Intelligence and Management and Competitive Intelligence Review and was awarded the CI field's highest individual honor in 2006, SCIP's Meritorious Award.
So mark your calendars for Wednesday 11 April starting at 1:00 PM Eastern / 10:00 AM Pacific and closing one hour later. Though the webinar is free of charge, space is limited for this great opportunity to talk to true experts in the intelligence field. Advance registration is now available via the link below.
http://www.gotomeeting.com/register/197293358
Did I mention they're doing a full day workshop on Monday 30 April at SCIP's New York Conference? Consider this your sneak preview:
Business and Competitive Analysis - What? So What? Now What?
Competitive advantage is derived from clearly understanding market forces and acting on opportunities. Analysis is critical to deriving the insight necessary for developing a competitive advantage and is the highest value-add in the CI process. Analysis is however one of the more difficult roles a CI specialist is called upon to perform. Analysis is the step in the CI process where data and information is turned into intelligence, answering the critical so what? issue that brings insight to bear directly on the decision maker's needs. This workshop will review six different intelligence analysis techniques and introduce participants to the FAROUT matrix that will enable them to quickly sort through the numerous methods of analysis available and to select the appropriate analytical tool for particular projects and studies. Using case studies, participants will work in groups to practice analytical techniques covered in the workshop, such as: competitive analysis; enterprise analysis; financial analysis; environmental analysis; and evolutionary analysis.
My copy just arrived today (Monday 12 March 2007) and I've already learned something in the first five minutes or so! But if you need further convincing, see the description and table of contents below:
The Definitive How-To Guide for Business and Competitive Analysis
Business success begins with deep clarity about your competition and your business environment. But, even as data gathering has improved dramatically, few business professionals know the state-of-the-art techniques for analyzing their data. Now there's a comprehensive, immensely practical guide to today's best tools and techniques for answering tough questions and making actionable recommendations.
Business and Competitive Analysis begins with end-to-end guidance on the analysis process, including defining problems, avoiding analytical pitfalls, choosing tools, and communicating results. Next, the authors offer detailed guides on 24 of today's most valuable analysis models: techniques that have never been brought together in one book before.They offer in-depth, step-by-step guidance for using every technique-along with realistic assessments of strengths, weaknesses, feasibility, and business value.
You are flooded with data. This book will help you transform that data into actionable insights and recommendations that enterprise decision makers cannot and will not ignore. Craig S. Fleisher and Babette E. Bensoussan begin with a practical primer on the process and context of business and competitive analysis: how it works, how to avoid pitfalls, and how to communicate results. Next, they introduce their unique FAROUT method for choosing the right tools for each assignment. The authors then present 24 of today's most valuable analysis methods.They cover classic techniques, such as McKinsey 7S and industry analysis, as well as emerging techniques from multiple disciplines:economics, corporate finance, sociology, anthropology, and the intelligence and futurist communities. For each, they present clear descriptions, background context, strategic rationales, strengths, weaknesses, step-by-step instructions, and references. The result is a book you can rely on to meet any analysis challenge, no matter how complex or novel.
Goals, processes, pitfalls, deliverables, and benefits
Nine Forces, Competitive Positioning, Business Model, SERVO, and Supply Chain Analyses
Benchmarking, McKinsey 7S, Shadowing, Product Line, and Win/Loss Analyses
Strategic Relationships, Corporate Reputation, Critical Success Factors, Driving Forces, and Country Risk Analyses
Technology Forecasting,War Gaming, Event/Timeline, Indications and Warning Analyses, and more
Basic Statistics, Competitor Cash Flow, Analysis of Competing Hypothesis (ACH), and Linchpin AnalysesTable of Contents:
Preface
1. Business and Competitive Analysis: Definition, Context, and Benefits
2. Performing the Analysis Process
3. Avoiding Analysis Pitfalls
4. Communicating Analysis Results
5. Applying the FAROUT method
6. Industry Analysis (The Nine Forces)
7. Competitive Positioning Analysis
8. Business Model Analysis
9. SERVO Analysis
10. Supply Chain Management (SCM) Analysis
11. Benchmarking Analysis
12. McKinsey 7S Analysis
13. Shadowing
14. Product Line Analysis
15. Win/Loss Analysis
16. Strategic Relationship Analysis
17. Corporate Reputation Analysis
18. Critical Success Factors Analysis
19. Country Risk Analysis
20. Driving Forces Analysis
21. Event and Timeline Analysis
22. Technology Forecasting
23. War Gaming
24. Indications and Warning Analysis
25. Historiographical Analysis
26. Interpretation of Statistical Analysis
27. Competitor Cash Flow Analysis
28. Analysis of Competing Hypothesis
29. Linchpin Analysis
Last but not least, in poking around Babette's website, I found the list of reviews (including my own and many, many other good friends) that I hope you find useful as well:
Dr. Benjamin Gilad, president, The Fuld-Gilad-Herring Academy of Competitive
intelligence"There are very few books I recommend as a must read to the managers who come to us from all over the world for professional training in competitive intelligence. Porter, Fuld, Gilad (of course), and Fleisher and Bensoussan."
Louise McCann, Chief Executive Officer, Research International, Australia and New Zealand
"Governments and businesses, whether the emphasis is on product or service development, are all looking for the same thing, that next great new idea that help them position themselves effectively and successfully in the marketplace with consumers or with the voting public.
Through technology development in the last 15 years more data is available to and within organisation than ever before to help achieve this goal. The struggle, and indeed it is, is for organisations to mine this data in a meaningful way and find that "insight" that will give them the strategic advantage over a competitor.
In Business and Competitive Analysis, Fleisher and Bensoussan have provided the pathway for data to be taken and mined and to combined to find those insights.
They have also cleverly to aid the reader and the practices of competitive analysis given strong definitions for clarity around the data mining area. Any one who is charged with competitive strategic analysis and intelligence must read this book."
Cyndi Allgaier, Director - Strategic Analysis, AARP
"Bravo! Bensoussan and Fleisher have returned for an encore performance as your instructive desktop guides to thoughtfully assist analysts of all stripes in selecting and applying a wide-ranging array of frameworks, all designed to enhance analytical thinking, insight and decision-making. This second volume, following their wildly successful first book, delivers exactly what it promises - to assist analysts in developing high value insights, to aid them in making sense of the competitive environment confronting their organizations and to guide them in advising decision-makers - all contributing integrally to organizational performance. This book joins their first volume as "must have" addition to an analyst's toolkit. I highly recommend it."
Timothy J. Kindler, Director, Competitive Intelligence , Eastman Kodak Company and 2005 President, Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals
"Too much data and not enough insight? Fleisher and Bensoussan offer a fabulous solution to the problem. Business and Competitive Analysis provides a nice combination of theory and practice, including a comprehensive, wide-ranging description of analytical techniques. Providing a nice complement to their previous work, Strategic and Competitive Analysis, this latest work is a "must read" for anyone analyzing strategic and tactical issues across the competitive landscape."
Kirk W. M. Tyson, CEO, Perpetual Strategist Ltd., Chicago, USA
"At last a comprehensive manual of tools and techniques for the business and competitive analysis professional! Fleisher and Bensoussan's second collaborative work builds beautifully on their first. It provides the specific guidance desperately needed by company analysts to ensure that decision makers receive the right information at the right time to make the right decisions."
Bill Fiora, Partner and Founder, Outward Insights
"This book is an essential resource for competitive intelligence practitioners, business school students, and anyone looking to improve the strength and clarity of their competitive and market analyses. While no tool will perform analysis for you, the techniques explained here will provide inspiration, structure, and discipline for those who need to deliver compelling analysis to decision makers. I believe that this book will fill a great need for both full-time competitive intelligence practitioners, and those looking to add analytical skills to their managerial tool kit."
Clifford Kalb, Vice President - Life Sciences, Wood Mackenzie, Inc.
"The dynamic collaborative team of Bensoussan and Fleisher have done it again. Expanding on their earlier text, Strategic and Competitive Analysis, the refined perspectives offered in their latest work, Business and Competitive Analysis, have raised the bar for essential literature in the profession of decision support. By artfully interweaving both pragmatic and theoretic principles, this book couples frameworks for critical thinking with practical operational guidance for the successful analyst. They never lose sight of the ultimate end game --- sustainable competitive advantage through sound, evidence based decision making. Very few enterprises seem capable of achieving this elusive objective in the hypercompetitive business environment of the 21st century. These thought leaders have built another pillar in the foundation of the business intelligence literature base which should be required reading in both academic and corporate settings."
Milena Motta, Managing Director, Strategie & Innovazione, Italy
"Having been involved in information analysis and strategic information support to companies for many years, I found this book very helpful and full of insights addressed not only to the new comer, but also to an experienced person. The in-depth review of each analysis technique actually brings new ways of looking at problems: information analysis becomes an instrument in the hands of a thinking person, it's not an academic exercise or just a conceptual framework.
Furthermore, in my experience usually some of the analysis techniques are almost known and used only by people working in few functions inside a company. This book enters you in a fascinating multi-stage and multi-face analysis world: everyone needs a way of organizing thoughts and here you can find what you require to perform a good analysis and give insightful meanings to the information you manage, where ever you work in your company, whatever the problem you face is.
Every day everyone needs to analyse information to understand phenomena and then act to achieve the best performance: hence you need to keep this book on your desk."
Arik Johnson, Managing Director, Aurora WDC
"Baruch's Law reminds us that, 'when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail,' a condition describing the single most difficult challenge facing both business analysts and consultants, novice and veteran alike. In 2003, Fleisher and Bensoussan delivered what all leading intelligence thinkers agree was THE definitive guide to analytics and interpretation for the first half-decade of the new millennium.
With their latest collaboration, this expert duo has defined the second-half of this decade as one guided by knowing the tools appropriate for the cognitive task at hand while expanding the toolkit available to be even more complete, valuable and useful through the actionable detailing of 24 all new techniques. Plus, the unique FAROUT approach to tool selection equips analysts to quickly and easily apply the right techniques more reliably and scientifically to the range of outcomes anticipated in every business decision support situation."
Michael Belkine, Managing Director, Splendour Ltd, Israel
"The recently published Fleisher and Bensoussan Business and Competitive Analysis follows in the steps of their highly acclaimed Strategic and Competitive Analysis of a few years ago.
The realm of Competitive Intelligence has, in recent years, benefited from a profusion of books, handbooks and essays, most of which deal with issues in intelligence collection; emerging techniques and technologies and general overviews of the business intelligence discipline. It were Fleisher and Bensoussan who rose to the challenge of addressing the hitherto rarely attended sphere of intelligence analysis. Whilst most of the intelligence process, be it business, political or military, lies in the realm of craftsmanship; some of it, primarily the analysis phase, borders on the artistic. Fleisher and Bensoussan offer a choice of analytical models destined to narrow corporate course charting uncertainties and present a convincing case for matching science and art in the analysis process. Their current volume adds and updates some vitally important techniques for achieving these goals. This new book is an important addition to the definitive professional library on the art and science of business intelligence."
Sheila Wright, Director of the Competitive Intelligence-Marketing Interface Teaching and Research Initiative (CIMITRI) at Leicester Business School, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK, Co-Editor of the Journal of Competitive Intelligence and Management and Fellow, and Chartered Institute of Marketing
"The first Fleisher & Bensoussan book was the only one which addressed competitive analysis techniques in depth and as such, was far superior to any other offering on the market. I have used it on all post-graduate programmes I have taught ever since and my students tell me that they still use it in their careers. The first book Strategic and Competitive Analysis presented 24 methods to conjure with, and they have amazed us yet again with their expose and dissection of a further two dozen analytical techniques in their new title, Business and Competitive Analysis.
Too frequently "strategy" type texts include just the bare minimum and even then the familiar old models would appear, with little explanation, hardly any critique, and even less insight. Unlike these, Fleisher & Bensoussan offer a full and unique demonstration of how to successfully cross the divide between theory and practice. Their understanding of the needs of managers, business analysts, professors and students of analysis is evident throughout. Combined, these texts produce an "Analyst's Manual" which no self-respecting business executive should begin to try and work without. They should be a compulsory text on all MBA programmes.
The techniques discussed cover the entire functional range and can be put to good use to inform each and every organizational activity. The features of each technique are identified, as are their distinct strengths and weaknesses. Some will be familiar, others most certainly will not. Even those which are perhaps termed as "common knowledge" should be re-visited by the reader. My own and others' experiences with executives reveals that far too frequently they really do know why they are using a particular technique or fully understand its purpose. Put this text in front of them and they will know. Let's hope that it will put an end to presentational devices being used, mistakenly or naively, as diagnostic instruments.
Anything which improves business and competitive analysis practice has to be applauded. All practicing managers and business decision makers should be grateful to Fleisher and Bensoussan for showing them how their analysis work can become more rigorous and their approach less casual. Accept no imitations. This is the genuine article."
Andrew Beurschgens, Competitive Analysis Manager, Orange, UK
"Business and Competitive Analysis: Effective Application of New and Classic Methods from Fleisher and Bensoussan is 'the definitive must have' for anyone undertaking competitive analysis irrespective of experience, practitioner or 3rd party vendor. This practical and actionable set of techniques grows and develops the agenda of the first edition by extending the range of techniques, focusing on their actionability rather than a statement of their intent and allows the practitioner to hit the nail on the head with at times complex problems and their recommendations. Through the consistent approach adopted with the techniques it provides the guide to what can be achieved and how and helps structure the problem from the very outset. The FAROUT methodology again helps the practitioner work out which ones to apply first given their own unique position and provides a development framework to seek out opportunities to apply the rest. Like the first edition, it becomes the most sought after next installment in defining competitive analysis' role in business for practitioner and user alike."
Dr. Brad Ashton, Concurrent Technologies Corporation
"Business and Competitive Analysis by Fleischer and Bensoussan is an excellent complement to their earlier volume, Strategic and Competitive Analysis. Both books provide a comprehensive resource on analytical methods for the business and competitive analyst. I have found this book to be an excellent summary of many analytical tools commonly used by competitive intelligence, strategic planning and marketing professionals, including some techniques that have not been well documented in the past. The standardized approach to describing methods is a welcome approach to showing how the methods work, as well as their history, applications and strengths and limitations. Excellent references are also included. The detailed step-by-step descriptions of how to use the methodswith realistic examples is especially valuable. I highly recommend this book for business analysis professionals seeking a basic reference on important tools or a readable source for learning about new methods."
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