CI Spotlight on Nicolas Pechet

An Interview with Nicolas Pechet, Head of GIA China, based in Shanghai.

Q1. Briefly describe the services/products your company current provides in the competitive Intelligence (CI) marketplace? What are their unique attributes? 

Global Intelligence Alliance (GIA) was formed in 1995 when a group of Market Intelligence specialists, management consultants, industry analysts and technology experts came together to build a powerful suite of solutions; ranging from outsourced market monitoring services and systems, to competitive intelligence (CI), strategic analysis and business advisory.

This means that GIA’s industry analysts, with expertise in areas ranging from Pharmaceuticals and Manufacturing to Info-communications Technology and Financial Services, can address a wide range of specific client needs, from providing rapid response research and ongoing local language marketing monitoring to competitor deep-dives and strategic analysis.

The company’s 11 offices and network partners in over 100 countries also provide clients with local reach into traditional and even the more challenging of markets such as Africa, Brazil, India and China.

In China for instance, clients will typically be interested in benchmarking competitors on specific attributes and key success factors, which ultimately requires in-depth CI. As a rule of thumb, over 90% of the value created from CI is accomplished via interviews with industry executives at target companies or companies operating in their ecosystem. Knowing how to identify these executives, how to engage them, learn from them, calibrate and cross reference intelligence from them are key success factors in doing CI and core competencies GIA has developed. With China’s unique cultural and business norms and variations in how business is done, such as the importance of the government’s role in business, this is especially important.

Q2. How did you become involved in CI?


I first became involved in CI when I started my career nearly 15 years ago at Deloitte Consulting's strategy consulting practice in North America. CI was a component of what we did back then, but in today's market, CI has taken on substantially more importance in the market analysis and planning arena.

CI work has always been very interesting to me. Perhaps more so than any other type of market intelligence we do at GIA, it requires a lot of tenacity and creative problem solving to address obstacles that inevitably arise during a CI mandate. I generally enjoy the challenge of overcoming hurdles, managing the CI process and working with my team to successfully complete our CI objectives.

Q3. What have you found to be the most challenging aspect of developing your company's product/capabilities for the CI market?

CI has taken on substantially more importance in the market analysis and planning arena. It requires a lot of tenacity and creative problem solving to address obstacles that inevitably arise during a CI mandate. The process is never linear, and is very iterative.

All of these factors equate to an extremely challenging environment for Market Intelligence (MI) professionals in general. The GIA Global Market Intelligence Survey shows this is true. Conducted amongst 439 MI professionals across five continents in 2008, the survey found that:

• Most MI operations around the world are currently only at the 'Intermediate' level in the GIA “Roadmap to World-Class MI” framework. (Intermediate being a score of 3, as compared to score of 5, representing advanced “CI Futurists”)

• 45% of the respondents without MI operations doubted the quality of decision-making in their organizations, while 30% felt the same in companies with systematic MI activities

• The ultimate challenge for MI professionals is to fill in the information gaps in decision-making processes.

Q5. What efforts/results/outcomes/products are you most proud of?

The benefits of strong CI results can be tremendous for clients.

For example, we recently completed CI on the top 12 competitors in South Korea for a global high-end hardware / software provide. Though South Korea is generally a very hard market to do CI in (given cultural dynamics and privacy laws), we were able to provide in-depth competitor profiles, including competitors' distribution practices, highest opportunity untapped market segments (from competitors' perspective), key buyers of security solutions, market coverage weaknesses, margins and expansion plans.

Based on this and other market intelligence, we were able to help our client identify sub-segments with substantial room for growth. Moreover, based on this in-depth understanding of strengths and weaknesses of competitors, we helped our client amend their company strategy to capitalize on opportunities. Specifically, our client was able to reform sales channels, reduce distribution costs and increase profitability for their South Korean operation by as much as 20%.

This type of impact is typical for clients who are very committed to the CI process, and who are willing to take bold action on the basis of the insights delivered through the process. Sometimes the CI results provide client senior executives with the additional confidence they need to push through such bold reforms. As a CI practitioner, it is very rewarding to be a part of such success stories.

Q6. Where do you see the CI profession going over the next 5 years? How is your company positioning itself to be successful in this new environment?

The increased importance of CI over the past 10 years has been created by the confluence of several factors. Those factors will remain very strong drivers for the CI profession in the coming 5 years.

The first of which is the emergence of rapidly evolving mega markets (namely Brazil, China and India) where the playing field is evolving so quickly that players must constantly update their intelligence on what competitors are doing, what their weaknesses are, what they plan to do next, etc. in order to formulate effective competitive strategy.

The second key factor is the flattening of the competitive landscape. One of the implications of this mega trend (outlined in detail in Thomas Friedman’s iconic book “The World Is Flat”) is that competitors are emerging and getting to market faster than ever. Time required to complete most business processes, such as innovation, product development, production, distribution etc., has been significantly compressed. The result is a competitive landscape that is shifting faster than ever, creating the need for CI to be refreshed far more frequently, and the use of novel CI techniques in order to do so cost-effectively.

The third key factor is localization. While globalization has taken center stage over the past decade, markets continue to be very heterogeneous, and the need for localization of CI tactics and expertise has become vital.

At GIA, we are positioning ourselves for success in this changing environment by ensuring that we have local and industry expertise across the world that we can tap on for any client in any country. This is a critical success factor for clients who require fast and reliable turnaround on their CI needs.

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About Global Intelligence Alliance

Global Intelligence Alliance (GIA) is a strategic market intelligence and advisory group. GIA was formed in 1995 when a team of market intelligence specialists, management consultants, industry analysts and technology experts came together to build a powerful suite of customized solutions ranging from outsourced market monitoring services and software, to strategic analysis and advisory.

Today, we are the preferred partner for organizations seeking to understand, compete and grow in international markets. Our industry expertise and coverage of over 100 countries enables our customers to make better informed decisions worldwide.

www.globalintelligence.com