5 Success Tips for Competitive Intelligence Analysts – Interview With Matthew Sell, SAP: B2B Market Research Ep. 92

Speakers:

Sean Campbell – CEO of Cascade Insights

Matthew Sell,  Lead Analyst in the Competitive and Market Intelligence team, SAP

[Sean]:

Welcome to another episode of the B2B Market Research Podcast.  In this podcast episode, we’re going to be speaking with Matthew Sell of SAP.

This podcast is brought to you by Cascade Insights. Cascade Insights specializes in competitive intelligence and B2B market research services exclusively for technology companies. Our specialization helps us to deliver detailed insights that generalist firms simply can’t match. To learn more about us, visit us at cascadeinsights.com. And, don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter.

With that, I want to do a brief introduction of our guest here today. I’ll be speaking with Matthew Sell, Lead Analyst in the Competitive and Market Intelligence team at SAP — a company that I’m sure many of you are familiar with.

Matthew is an experienced competitive and market intelligence analyst focused on the B2B enterprise software, and he covers various focus areas such as analytics, big data and mobility. During his career, Matthew has worked in a variety of analyst roles ranging from competitive intelligence to market intelligence. With that Matthew, welcome to the podcast.

[Matthew]:

Thanks, Sean. Great to be here.

[Sean]:

Matthew, you recently gave a talk at a competitive intelligence conference. Without digging so much into the conference per se, I want to talk a little bit about what you covered during your talk. I think what you discussed is something that a lot of competitive intelligence teams deal with — and, I think, to some degree, any shared services team deals with some of the issues you talked about.

So, let’s dig into the first point you raised. You talked a little bit about ensuring that you have impact and influence, and I think this is something that a lot of competitive intelligence teams are concerned about. So in short, since competitive intelligence teams don’t own a product or service that the market buys, how do they effectively drive influence across the organization?

How competitive intelligence teams can gain influence and impact

[Matthew]:

I think when you think about any kind of competitive intelligence or market intelligence team, you often get asked a question such as “how do you measure that team? What kind of KPIs you should have?”

My answer is, that you should always measure yourself by impact and influence. Those are not necessarily tangible things that you can easily measure. It’s not like a number of downloads or number of requests that you fulfilled.

But when you think about it, what matters the most is how connected you are within your organization and that you can have influence and impact the senior leadership team within that organization. A lot of what I talked about was how to be connected at higher levels inside your organization than you are today and what you can do as an competitive intelligence or market intelligence team and as an analyst to help facilitate that.

• First you need to be visible. That’s half the battle, I think, is showing up and having a known “brand,” if you like, about what you stand for. When I say, “I’m Matthew Sell I’m from the Competitive Intelligence and Market Intelligence team”, they know what that is and they know what that stands for. That’s really about branding both yourself as an analyst and as the team you are part of — and doing so also helps set expectations of what folks want from you.
• The second part is that you need to be relevant, especially when you get to the highest levels in the organization, as it is absolutely key to be relevant and aligned with what is top of mind for them. This is what I call the Goldilocks problem, where you want to be focused on issues. Not issues they cared about yesterday or issues that they are going to care about tomorrow (no matter how important you might think they might be,) but to be focused on issues that are top of mind for them today. That is part of your role as the competitive intelligence team and as an individual analyst, to make sure you’re networking within your organization to understand what are the critical hot topics that are top of mind for executives when you want to approach them.

[Sean]:

Those are all really good points, but let’s go back to the branding one for a minute because I think one of the challenges competitive intelligence teams face, and I think any team that collects data and information as a part of it’s charter always faces, is how do you brand effectively? Because branding, well it’s almost a bit more of an entrepreneurial skill. Right? You wouldn’t even necessarily assume that creative branding, as a skill, is something you would find in large quantities if you were interviewing analysts?

Generally speaking these are slightly different types of people – those focused more on creative branding exercises versus an analyst. But I think the point you raised is very valid about having a brand. What are some tips you have for either effectively packaging your brand as a competitive intelligence team and/or communicating the brand that you’ve already developed?

How competitive intelligence teams and analysts can brand themselves effectively

[Matthew]:

An analyst is more than just an analyst. It’s really is a combination of a number of different roles.

I think you’re absolutely right. As an analyst, there are a number of different skills that you need to have.

It’s not just being an analyst. It’s having some marketing skills to be able to brand yourself and the products and deliverables you’re creating — and also you need to be a salesperson, in that you are out to sell and do discovery, to find additional issues.

An analyst is more than just an analyst. It’s really is a combination of a number of different roles.

When you think about branding for example, take an industry analyst firm like Gartner. Most folks would recognize what a Gartner Magic Quadrant is. That’s an example of something that’s well branded. It’s unique and differentiated. That’s what you want to try and achieve as a team inside your organization, is for folks to see your deliverables as unique, i.e. nobody else in the organization is capable of creating them, and differentiated in the fact that they’re providing value.

Again, this comes back to a couple of things. There’s the actual content itself, and I’ve already talked a little bit about being relevant, so obviously you need relevant content. But also there is the issue of how you package. You’ve got to make sure you understand the context of how a particular deliverable is going to be used.

Let me take an extreme example that’s going to be a big difference between how you package, say, something that is more of a snapshot of an something vs. something that’s going to be used in a board meeting.

For a snapshot, you need key bullet that need to be short and concise and in a somewhat of email format that they can pick up easily. You can compare this to something that is going to be used in a board meeting, where the attendees are going to want a deep dive on a particular topic so they can understand all the nuances of the different issues and all the different aspects of that particular issue so they can discuss it in a board meeting. That might be a 20-page document, so understanding the context of how your deliverable is going to be used and some specifics on the audience itself is key. You have lots of other stakeholders as well. Having an understanding of who the audience is and how they consume it is key.

Sales folks don’t want to sit and read a 20-page document no matter how good the content is. It’s not what they’re looking for, so having a good understanding of how your content is going to be consumed again is key.

Another good example is content for sales folks. Sales folks don’t want to sit and read a 20-page document no matter how good the content is. It’s not what they’re looking for, so having a good understanding of how your content is going to be consumed again is key.

The way to do that, the easiest way, is go ask those stakeholders on the sales team. Find friends throughout the organization that you’re well networked with and try to spend an hour in the life of that person to understand how they use your material. That’s a good way to get the context of, “Are we packaging the content in the right way to make it easy to consume for the folks that need it?”

[Sean]:

Those are all really good points. I think many times companies have settled on a format for the intelligence and they haven’t asked why are we using this format?  And when they do ask that question it may be unfortunately nothing more complicated than, “My previous manager’s manager elected to use that format.”

That’s obviously not what you’re doing at SAP, but what you see many times is that there’s this template for x type of deliverable and it’s used regardless of the circumstances. Then, worse yet, it becomes what we call the template filling exercise. You’re just filling the template, and you’re never really asking yourself what are the various audiences that I deal with, what do they need, etc.

All of which leads us to another question — you talked in your presentation about achieving a degree of access and dialogue. I think one of the things that challenges all shared services teams, and I think this is true of market research teams, competitive intelligence teams, you could even say partner-facing teams have this problem, is that they’re challenged with the fact that when they engage with senior leadership, they can’t be title blind, as I call it.

I think teams get really challenged by, “How do I engage in dialogue with someone who is maybe three levels above me and not even in my chain of command per se?”

As a consultant, you can be title blind. You can walk into any meeting and as long as you’re respectful and you have the right information and the right insight, you can kind of semi-ignore the titles in the room. You’re respectful, again, you recognize the power chain, but I don’t report through that power chain necessarily the same way an employee does. I think teams get really challenged by, “How do I engage in dialogue with someone who is maybe three levels above me and not even in my chain of command per se?”

Talk a little bit about how you engender dialogue given that type of dynamic.

Effective ways CI analysts can engage senior leadership more effectively

[Matthew]:

I think there are several things you can do.

One of the first things I would say is that you focus on the reason that you as an analyst and your intelligence team exist is to provide an opinion and provide a perspective. That should be part of your charter, to have that independent outside in view, and work to own that type of opinion. That’s the value add you provide. You should use that as your starting point. That’s the value add you provide when you are sitting in the room and you are talking to whatever title or senior-level person that you’re talking with. You should be confident that you have a good, strong, solid opinion or perspective on a particular topic and that you’re providing value. If you come from that angle, I think that’s going to give you the confidence to provide a solid analyst opinion.

The other thing you can do as part of the content you’re creating is to help facilitate debate. One of the good tools I use in this context are different analysis frameworks. The reason I like frameworks is they help level set everybody in the audience, not just necessarily the presenter to the audience, but it helps level set one audience member with another audience member.

Frameworks also help in terms of facilitating debate with those same executives. Use analysis frameworks, and by that I mean things like SWOT analysis, business model canvas, scenario planning, and 5 forces – the same frameworks you’ve done podcasts on before. Using those, I found, is a good way to level set everybody and it allows you to move from just presenting your content toward facilitating a debate around the content — which is the level that you want to be at as an analyst when you are engaging with senior leadership. Using those analysis frameworks helps you facilitate debate.

You need to remember that your role in the meeting is to provide an opinion, to provide a perspective, and that you then want those executives to discuss and come to a decision on the points you are raising.

You need to remember that your role in the meeting is to provide an opinion, to provide a perspective, and that you then want those executives to discuss and come to a decision on the points you are raising.

That takes us to another point I make, is when you’re framing things, and I think you’ve used this framing before on the podcast, is the, “What,” the, “So what,” and the, “Now what.” So the, “What,” is what happened. The, “So What,” is the impact to the market and impact to you as a company; and the, “Now What,” is the recommendations that you want to give.

When you’re talking to senior-level executives, the, “Now What,” is the absolute key to that. You’re there to put options on the table for them for them to discuss. If you are doing a presentation and you’re just describing a problem, you haven’t gone far enough. You need to have a perspective on that problem and a perspective on what the organization needs to take action on. The more concrete you can make those actions, and you can give a series of different options or different scenarios for them to take, that’s what executives are looking to do. They’re looking to take action on whatever issue or whatever topic that you are there to discuss.

[Sean]:

Those are excellent points.. That, I think naturally, moves us toward something else you mentioned in your talk, which is this idea about being provocative — which is, I think, a bit of a hand grenade.

Some people can be provocative in a very effective manner. On another hand, there are people who can be provocative in a fairly destructive manner. There are also people who simply aren’t provocative enough. What’s your advice to people when you hear, “Be provocative?” What are the guardrails around that, and what are the things you try to incent them to do?

Why a research agenda stimulates thought and discussion

[Matthew]:

That’s a good point. I think the word provocative can sometimes have negative connotations around it. Sometimes, I think a better word than being provocative is to stimulate. You’re there to stimulate thought and discussion and to come up with new ideas that the folks in the room or whoever you’re presenting to haven’t necessarily thought off before. That’s what you’re there to do.

I think the word provocative can sometimes have negative connotations around it. Sometimes, I think a better word than being provocative is to stimulate.

To be provocative, per se, carries with it some negative connotations. Think of it instead as that I’m there to stimulate discussion, and I need to provide input to help stimulate discussion. That kind of mentality, I think, is what you need.

There are other things that you can do as well as a team to help stimulate discussion. One thing any competitive intelligence team should have, is that they should develop a research agenda for the year. For example, what are the hot topics or important areas that you see that are going to impact the company or the area that you’re covering for the course of the year? These items should make up your research agenda. You should be leveraging that research agenda. You should be socializing that research agenda with your various stakeholders, not only to get feedback but also to stimulate their thinking as well. To get them thinking about maybe issues that they hadn’t necessarily seen, whether it’s a new trend that’s appearing in the market or something else.

So in sum, leverage a research agenda to socialize your thoughts with your stakeholders and then think more about stimulating your stakeholders into discussion rather than merely provoking them because the word provoke has those negative connotations.

[Sean]:

During your talk, you also covered this idea about listening in real time. I think that’s a worthwhile goal, so what tips do you suggest competitive intelligence teams follow for listening in real time?

How competitive intelligence analysts can listen in real time

[Matthew]:

There are a couple of aspects to it. There’s is listening in real time when you’re presenting to executives or to a bunch of stakeholders, and there’s the kind of listening in real time when you’re not presenting per se. In the first case, when you’re presenting live, your goal is to move from just merely presenting to facilitating debate. And a way to do that is to listen to the feedback that you’re getting. Once you start the debate going, you need to understand the ebb and flow around that.

One trick I found is if you are in that position, where you are presenting live, sometimes it’s good to have two people there instead, one person who’s the content expert, who’s effectively, presenting the content; and the other person in the room who’s helping facilitate the debate and listening. Then you are not trying to do two things at once. You’re dividing and conquering. You have somebody there in the room that helps drive the discussion forward and drive the debate forward. I found that approach to be very effective. That’s for live scenarios.

For the other kind of real-time listening I think one thing to do is to leverage technology. Use whatever social platform that your company is using internally. Think of things like Facebook for the enterprise, those kind of platforms, and there’s are also a variety of different vendor promoted solutions out there. SAP has its own solution that we use internally obviously, and we use that pretty heavily, but importantly we use this as a way to reach out to a large group of stakeholders and not just use it as a tool for one way communication.

You need to provide content and good tidbits of information, but overall you are looking to move that channel from a one-way communication to a real form of two-way social engagement.

The goal is to move it to two-way communication, and that is a good way to help keep a pulse on what’s going on inside the organization. To do that, obviously you need to provide value through that channel. You need to provide content and good tidbits of information, but overall you are looking to move that channel from a one-way communication to a real form of two-way social engagement. That’s a good way to listen to the pulse of what’s going on inside of the organization  — to get feedback on what a sales rep is seeing in a field, or someone who went to a particular conference and what they experienced, even across research and development and what they’re doing there. It’s a good way to keep a good pulse on what’s going on.

Your goal is to leverage that kind of social engagement platform to get to a level of two-way engagement, and that’s how you can get this kind of listening in real time across the whole organization.

[Sean]:

Those are excellent points, Matthew. With that, I want to wrap up this episode. Thank you for being on the podcast. Thanks to our listeners for joining us for this episode.