CEOs 360 Degree Perspective Handbook

the complex business universe

We Accelerate Growth

CEOs 360 Degree Perspective

Welcome
Friends, Thank you for being a part of the CEO 2009: Frost & Sullivan Exclusive Think Tank. We have designed this handbook in order to provide a greater understanding of the CEOs 360 Degree Perspective and better equip you in your quest to accelerate the growth of your company. This model provides a visionary platform to build and pursue strong, sustainable growth strategies. This is collaborative piece of thought leadership from our key management personnel and Frost & Sullivans Growth Consultants. Our goal is simple, to stimulate thinking and contribute to your individual growth opportunities, strategies, and implementation plans that maps directly to your companys long-term goals. Having a comprehensive, up-to-date understanding of markets, technology, economic and financial conditions, customer buying patterns, competition, geopolitical and demographic conditions is the foundation for successful growth strategies. If this material inspires you, and you want to ensure that your organization effectively leverages these important perspectives to build a successful growth strategy, I would like to invite you to take advantage of Frost & Sullivans CEOs 360 Degree Growth Workshop. This proprietary session will focus your organization on: identifying promising growth opportunities, evaluating opportunities based on Frost & Sullivans comprehensive and proven growth perspective, and implementing only those opportunities with the highest probability of success. Please contact me directly so we can get a workshop scheduled with our team of growth consultants. We at Frost & Sullivan look forward to supporting your decision-making needs and accelerating your companys growth. Sincerely,

David Frigstad Chairman Frost & Sullivan

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The Complex Business Universe

Ta b l e of Contents

4 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 22
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The Complex Business Universe: Creating the Visionar y Platform for Innovative Growth
DAVID FRIGSTAD Chairman

The Global Perspective: Char ting a Course to Growth

ART ROBBINS North America President

The Impact of the Macroeconomy on Firms

VINNIE AGGARWAL Chief Economist

Integrated Industr y: How to Leverage Adjacent Industries to Ones Benefit

SHEKAR GOPALAN Partner & Vice President of Global Research

Technology Innovation is Key to Growth

RAJIV KUMAR Partner/Senior Vice President, Technical Insights

Competitive Intelligence: Mapping the Competitive Landscape

BILL ARCHER Chief Marketing Officer, Frost & Sullivan KEN GARRISON CEO, Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP)

Listening To the Voice of the CustomerThe Number One Imperative

PETER SHREEVE Customer Research Director

The Role of Best Practices within the 360 Perspective

KEITH OBRIEN and DAN GOLDENBERG Growth Team Membership

Appendix: Biographies

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CEOs 360 Degree Perspective

T h e Complex Business Universe

Creating the Visionary Platform for Innovative Growth
By David Frigstad, Chairman Frost & Sullivan

reat CEOs are both great leaders and great visionaries. They can see coming trends, convergence opportunities between industries, technologies, and what customers want in the future. They position their companies to exploit these visions and know how to drive innovative growth strategies. For all too few, this comes naturally. For the rest (99% of us), we struggle, putting in long hours, constantly under stress from information overload, and all too aware of the multiple market forces that could threaten our companys success. To achieve a high level of successCEOs can not allow opportunities to pass by or challenges arise out of nowhere, that threaten the company and its markets. As CEOs we must maintain a steady focus, continually monitoring seven key perspectives that provide opportunity for growth and issues that can hinder growth. These perspectives are constantly changing, intersecting, and forcing the CEO to prioritize further analysis and company resources to achieve success. The CEOs 360 Degree Perspective ensures that CEOs view all key perspectivesglobal, economic, customer, competitive, technology, integrated-industry, and best practices developing visionary skills to ensure the successful growth of their company. There are seven major forces which form the basis of the very Complex Business Universe in which CEOs exist. This complex universe is continually influencing and affecting the growth prospects of a company and CEOs need to develop visionary skills to deal with it. By maintaining a 360 Degree perspective, CEOs and their growth teams can analyze each of these influential perspectives and develop skills that: Ensure the company is continuously monitoring both opportunities that offer a high probability for growth Help the company avoid costly mis-steps because the CEO and growth team have a more comprehensive view of the market

Develops the CEO visionary skills to ensure innovative growth strategies that exploit future trends. The CEOs 360 Degree Perspective provides a visionary platform from which growth strategies can drive top-line sustainable growth. Frost & Sullivan has gathered some of the best thought leaders on growth strategies to create this handbook to provide greater insight into each of the perspectives, providing answers to some of the tough questions you will have and challenges your organization will face on:

Global
What global issues can affect our industry and what should be our strategy to address them? What are the geopolitical and regulatory issues that can affect our industry? What cultural issues need to be considered in our global marketing strategy? What regulatory issues do we need to monitor and consider?

Integrated Industry
How are convergence opportunities presenting new growth opportunities or competitive threats? What expansion opportunities exist within our industry as a result of convergence or technology changes? Do we have a strategy to expand our offerings into new industries and markets? What is the convergence potential within other industries?

Technology
What are disruptive technologies that we should keep an eye on and have a plan to address? How will technology change our competitive landscape? What technical licensing opportunities currently exist?

Economic
What political and regulatory changes could affect our industrys economic future?

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The Complex Business Universe

Composite view of seven market perspectives that are continually influencing and affecting the growth potential of an organization.

Are we aware of: commodity impacts, currency risks, and the changing landscape of international trade? How will changes in population affect our industry? How might investors affect growth potential in our industry?

Do we need a plan to identify new customer opportunities? Do we know the buying characteristics of our target audience?

Best Practices
What are the most innovative companies in our field doing? How can we benchmark our performance against the leaders of the pack? What do best practices in our industry look like?

Competitive
What new competitors are emerging? Is there an opportunity to take market share from a competitor? Do we have a plan for monitoring and reacting to competitive forces in our industry?

Customer
How can we develop a meaningful message to capture market share?

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CEOs 360 Degree Perspective

Leveraging the 360 Degree Perspective

The challenge is to synthesize these seven perspectives into a visionary platform from which a powerful growth strategy can be generated. Frost & Sullivans wealth of global and industry research will help you interpret these perspectives and: Significantly reduce decision risk Create new opportunities from future scenarios Anticipate industry convergence and resulting opportunities Build a team of visionaries to support long-term growth Develop a think tank mentality that drives innovation Build a culture of growth, innovation, and leadership Be the first to identify industry trends and act on them To get started, there are six (6) development phases to follow in building an effective 360 Degree Perspective and conducting a successful CEOs 360 Degree Growth Workshop Identify, Analyze, Prioritize, Synthesize,Visualize and Strategize. The following table discusses each phase and their outputs. TABLE 1: Six development phases to follow in building an effective 360 Degree Perspective

Without bias, and with total commitment to accelerate growth, the research and insights into the CEOs 360 Degree Perspective will put you on the path to success.

Step Identify

Description In this step, you begin the process of identifying the drivers and restraints for each of the seven (7) perspectives.This step resembles a Brainstorming session where you come up with as many drivers and restraints as you can.At this stage, do not worry about prioritizing how relevant each may be. It is important to capture as many as you can to begin the process. In the Analyze step, the Growth Consultant, facilitator and the Client Team will analyze how each driver and restraint maps to a growth opportunity you have defined Prioritize each of the drivers and restraints in order of importance to the opportunity issue you defined. Start with most important, and continue until the least important. Now that you have defined the opportunities and their drivers and restraints, you need to get underneath them. The workshop team needs to ask,What does this mean beyond the obvious and how does this affect our business? This is where you take the opportunities you have defined, mapped to each perspective and develop future scenarios.What might the future look like in 3, 5 or 10 years? This development phase applies the visualization to the business and creates strategies to achieve results

Outcome Identified the opportunities, issues, trends, challenges, drivers and restraints that are, or will make an impact on the market Brainstorm the environment with analysts, Client Team participants to create 21, 35 or 70 issues Determine the measurements for each issue and how they can be trended or sized, etc Prioritized list of opportunities in order of importance

Analyze

Prioritize

Synthesize

Identified relationships between growth opportunities their drivers and constraints, potential domino effects and outputs An integrated market picture of the opportunity 23 developed scenarios of what might happen based on the teams synthesis of the opportunities and their drivers and restraints. Strategies that can be implemented to achieve growth

Visualize

Strategize

Without bias, and with total commitment to accelerate growth, the research and insights into the CEOs 360 Degree Perspective will put you on the path to success. With this information, you will become a true business visionary.
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The Complex Business Universe

T h e Global Perspective
Charting a Course to Growth
By Art Robbins, North America President
It has been said that arguing against globalization is like arguing against the laws of gravity. | Kofi Annan

n 1519, Magellan embarked on the first voyage to circumnavigate the globe, lasting almost three years. Today, in 2009, information circumnavigates the globe in a matter of milliseconds. Globalization has traveled a long way. Advances in information technology, transportation, and communications, in addition to changes in consumer behavior, have broken down the barriers of isolationism and have created a platform of interconnectivitythe foundation of our global economy. The promise of Globalization is to increase the worlds standard of living through better access to goods, services, and jobs caused by cross-border competition. There are now unprecedented growth opportunities available to companies who effectively develop a Global Perspective to their business. CEOs must be willing to think differently about how to approach the global market and thinking differently begins with developing a new perspectivea Global Perspective. Having a true Global Perspective requires more than a basic understanding of worldwide business. CEOs must address the issues and challenges associated with implementing an effective geographic expansion strategy. In todays economy, CEOs simply cant afford not to be Global. Frost & Sullivan research shows GDP growth in emerging markets, such as Brazil, Russia, India and China, has outpaced U.S. domestic growth by 4 times in recent years. Companies who dont address how they will keep pace with these markets will not be able to maintain a healthy competitive position and economic isolation will result. CEOs can realize further benefits by adopting a Global Perspective to the cost structure of the business. Implementable business models have emerged that reduce cost, improve productivity, and enhance service by creating a global value chain. Some common examples include: Developing an effective network of 24/7 customer support through strategically placed call centers around the globe Reducing production costs by outsourcing manufacturing to lower cost countries

Empowering global sales and distribution channels via a centralized internet knowledge base Streamlining R&D and engineering via collaborative systems connecting research teams across multiple locations globally Leveraging videoconferencing to connect global executive teams, facilitate decision making, and improve internal communications As these models become more commonplace, global customers have higher expectations of value. CEOs cannot ignore the impact of Globalization to create and maintain a strong value proposition to their customers. But CEOs cant jump into the global arena blindly. Successful geographic expansion strategies should be repeatable and built upon comprehensive due diligence of a countrys attributes, market size, competitors, and customer base. This knowledge dramatically raises success rates of market entry strategies by two to three times. As an example, CEOs who disregard culture put their businesses at a great disadvantage in the global marketplace. Each culture has its own norms, customs, and expectations for behavior. The success of an international organization depends on ones ability to understand each countrys cross-cultural issues especially those concerning the integration of a diverse workforce. Frost & Sullivan recommends a repeatable process for using the Global Perspective to put an entry plan in place at a country specific level. The first step is the CEO must conduct a Strategic Review of the business to leverage the benefits of operating in multiple countries, while considering the social, political, economic, regulatory, infrastructural, demographic, and cultural differences in each. The Strategic Review is a measurable and proven methodology that clearly identifies the goals of geographic expansion, which countries will be considered for geographic expansion, and new business models for supporting this strategy. In the Strategic Review, the CEO must evaluate growth opportunities to address where the market growth is. Key considerations include:

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CEOs 360 Degree Perspective

Which markets present the most attractive growth rates? Which markets have a window of opportunity to establish a market leadership position? Can your existing products be introduced into new geographies or do new products need to be developed for new geographies? Will existing products need to be modified or marketed differently to appeal to the local needs of the new market? How will you effectively position your products against the local competition? The CEOs Strategic Review must also look at the value chain of their businessi.e. the processes for producing and delivering their products to market. Key considerations include: Which processes must be close to your customers and suppliers/resources vs. which can be remote and linked via technology Evaluate where there are economic and regulatory incentives and/or barriers that would impact the attractiveness of operating in certain countries Evaluate the availability and cultural attributes of talent pools, such as field workers, technical workers, or knowledge workers Evaluate your core competencies and determine if the market entry strategy should result in M&A to acquire assets and resources, or extend internal capabilities to the new market, or partner with third parties via strategic alliances or joint ventures Evaluate business risks such as political, security, currency fluctuations and develop mitigation strategies and risk adjusted financial models Evaluate the timing, sequence and organizational readiness of market entry

CEOs need a 360 view of their businessand the cure for myopia is a Global Perspective.

While developing an effective Global Perspective, the CEO will actually look at all other 360 Perspectives (economic, customer, competitive, technology, integrated-industry, and best practices, etc.) through a global lens. The result is a powerful growth strategy designed to capitalize on current and future market opportunities. Developing the right global strategy is necessary but not sufficient. Without proper due diligence, planning and implementation, geographic expansion strategies will fail. Frost & Sullivan recommends following the Strategic Review with the following steps, using a set of analytic tools and disciplines: Country PrioritizationRanking of all countries under consideration for expansion Entr y AssessmentIn-depth research of the target country that directs market entry strategy decisions Implementation PlanAnalysis of all logistical issues pertaining to establishing an on-the ground presence in the selected country ImplementationExecution, measuring and monitoring the strategy and implementation plan In the 1500s triangular sails, compasses, astrolabes, and nautical charts were the tools that guided Magellans global journey. Today, CEOs can easily get lost in the circumnavigation vortex. They must have a 360 Degree Perspective to go global, with proper market intelligence and toolkits to serve as an accurate roadmap to success. As the global economy evolves, impacted by each of the Perspectives in the Complex Business Universe, companies (both established and entrepreneurial businesses) must respond by developing and implementing effective geographic expansion strategies. Globalization must be confrontedas deregulation, mega-competition, and information technology have led to an acceleration of rivalries. Myopia is no longer a viable business strategy. CEOs need a 360 view of their businessand the cure for myopia is a Global Perspective.

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The Complex Business Universe

T h e Impact of the M a c roeconomy on Firms

By Vinnie Aggarwal, Chief Economist Frost & Sullivan

n considering a 360 degree perspective on corporate strategy and positioning, consideration of the global macroeconomy is crucial. Of course, it is hardly surprising that overwhelmed executives spend much of their time on what they perceive to be immediate business issues: seeking customers, cutting costs, and keeping up with competitors. Yet businesses cannot simply ignore the larger macroeconomic environment in which their firms operate. In many cases, firms simply view the global macroeconomy as something beyond their control and thus an issue that merits less attention than immediate profitability and market share issues. As the current financial crisis shows, however, firms can easily be overwhelmed by negative developments and may be unprepared to take advantage of opportunities such as government stimulus packages. Macroeconomic factors are likely to affect firms in many ways. We can consider a number of important ones including inflation, monetary policy and interest rates, exchange rates, unemployment levels, and fiscal policy. Inflation affects firm strategies in many ways. As the prices of inputs rise, businesses must adapt both to managing these costs as well as attempting to price their products to compensate for losses of real revenue. The direct costs of coping with inflation also increased management costs as prices must be adjusted on a rapid and regular basis. Firms also often end up footing a larger tax bill as governments do not always adequately index taxes to inflation, thus potentially pushing firms into higher tax ratesa good

example of such inflation creep is the personal alternative minimum tax that more taxpayers have been subjected to because AMT was not adjusted for inflation. The presence of inflation, particularly in an uncertain macroeconomic environment, also increases the costs of contracts as firms need to hedge against inflation risks. Interest rates are perhaps the most important issue that firms face. Most firms operate with significant amounts of debt, affecting both their daily operations and merger and acquisition costs. In general, monetary policy directly influences interest rates, but lenders may still be unwilling to lend or may make it more difficult to secure loans by imposing onerous conditions on borrowers if they are concerned about default risk. In 2008, this phenomenon was common among banks as spreads on interbank lending actually increased despite central banks efforts to loosen monetary policy and drive greater lending. With banks unsure about the solvency of their peers, counterparty risk became a predominant concern. Currently, in the mortgage market, many potential borrowers are finding it extremely

With banks unsure about the solvency of their peers, counterparty risk became a predominant concern.

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CEOs 360 Degree Perspective

difficult to secure loans despite having good credit as banks overreact to previous years of sloppy lending policies that drove the current crisis. The balance of trade and its potential impact on exchange rates has increasingly become a central issue, particularly with countries such as China. Over the last few years, there has been a heated debate about the proper value of the yuan, which affects the competitiveness of Chinese exporters, both vis-a-viz other exporters as well as import competing firms such as those in the United States and Europe. Although major currencies have been floating against one another since 1973, in reality, countries often intervene in currency markets to bolster exports or fight inflation. Firms are often more affected by exchange rate swings and currency valuations than by tariffs or other direct trade barriers.

Firms are often more affected by exchange rate swings and currency valuations than by tariffs or other direct trade barriers.

Employment rates also directly affect business strategy. On the negative side, consumer discretionary spending is likely to fall with high unemployment and employee morale may be low. At the same time, firms may be well-positioned to attract strong talent that they would be unlikely to get in a stronger employment market, especially if they are not market leaders. Currently, there is little doubt that of all macroeconomic variables, fiscal policy is playing the largest role. Governments throughout the world are actively engaging in undertaking major fiscal stimulus, among the most prominent being the large packages developed by the Chinese and the Americans. Understanding potential market opportunities that may emerge from the packages is crucial for corporate strategy. Much of the new spending is often targeted to specific sectors or types of firms. For example, as part of Obamas fiscal policy, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, $168 million is directly targeted to help small business owners (http://www.wbsonline.com/resources/what-does-the-economic-stimulusplan-mean-for-small-businesses/). A 360 degree perspective includes crucial elements for consideration that companies need to succeed. This integrated approach links the context of firms in the macroeconomy and global developments to the industry in which they operate. As firms then consider technological and competitive trends, they can develop best practices and create a customerfocused company to deal with customers and successfully navigate their way in a complex global political economy.

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In t e g rated Industry: How to L e v e rage Adja cent Industries to O n e s Benefit

By Shekar Gopalan, Partner & Vice President of Global Research Frost & Sullivan

odays global market environment demands a CEOs 360 degree perspective that operating a business by solely focusing on regional markets without consideration of dynamics and opportunities in other geographies is commercial suicide. Countless are the companies that have been driven out of business due to the emergence of competition in low-cost nations. A CEO 360 perspective also dictates realization that the interdependence of industries can be just as dangerous and opportunistic. Understanding the dynamics of adjacent industries is critical to stay in business and, more importantly, to grow. It often means new alliances and customers to target that will be essential to guarantee the firms future growth. Such integrated industry segments are potential seeds for growth tomorrow. Additionally, technological developments from adjacent industries can be leveraged into new product introductions/enhancements and applications to foster growth. For Measurement & Instrumentation (M&I) vendors, the emergence of the Mobility concept does just that. Lately, Mobility has been topof-mind for consumers and enterprises as the population tends to do more on-the-go. Mobility is key to efficiency by helping to reduce response times and consequences of delayed attention and has become essential for both individuals and businesses. Numerous mobile devices such as PDAs, smartphones, and ever-expanding high-speed wireless networks and Wi-Fi networks enable workers to have access to the Internet, stay connected and access
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business and mission-critical applications while they are out in the field, away from the office or traveling. In particular, newer wireless communications devices such as Mobile Internet Devices (MID) offer revenue potential to instrumentation and semiconductor vendors. The future of mobile phones and home electronic devices spell out opportunity for test & measurement equipment vendors, as manufacturers of such devices need to perform extensive testing at the R&D and manufacturing stage while service providers will need to test these devices prior to their implementation and during their operation to ensure customer satisfaction. These newer devices are also loaded with various sensors offering opportunities for sensor and semiconductor manufacturers. MIDs, in particular, represent a huge opportunity for semiconductor manufacturers, as semiconductor components are required to enable rapid improvements in performance, connectivity, display technology, multimedia capability, and camera quality of these devices.

Understanding the dynamics of adjacent industries is critical to stay in business and, more importantly, to grow.

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CEOs 360 Degree Perspective

technological developments from adjacent industries can be leveraged into new product introductions/ enhancements and applications to foster growth.

Mobility is pervasive and its application in various industries translates into countless opportunities for test, instrumentation, and semiconductor vendors. The growing importance of wireless in the healthcare industry is a case in point. Over the past decade, the healthcare industry has been shifting to wireless technologies and applications. This revolution, while still at the early-adopter stage, is expected to continue and accelerate, as the industry strives to improve patient mobility and data access for healthcare professionals. The proliferation of wireless medical devices can pose problems. One major issue, for instance, is the susceptibility of these devices to RFI /EMI, which can lead to corrupted data with dire consequences, thus enhancing the need for testing. 3G and beyond wireless broadband communications are developing rather rapidly and offer tremendous opportunities to improve healthcare process and systems. Additionally, the integration of satellite communications, multi-application smartcards, sensors, and Internet access enables mobile phones to be an important component of illness diagnostics or management programs. The growing field of telemedicine, including the emerging applications like remote surgery, represents significant future growth opportunities for the test and instrumentation industry. The other benefit from staying aware of dynamics in adjacent industries is the ability to leverage technological advancements in product development. For instance, there is rapid influx of investment into the renewable and energy industry. While this may be seen as an opportunity for renewable energy generation products and systems manufacturers, it presents a huge opportunity for test equipment and sensor vendors too. Imagine a wind energy farm of hundreds of wind turbines or a Solar PV farm of thousands of panels. Breakdown of a few turbines or panels will drastically affect inflow to the grid or captive application. These farms are mostly in remote and inaccessible locations and spread over several hundreds of acres. Manual identification/repair of faulty generation components is time-consuming and expensive. The down-time can be even more expensive if it brings down the grid or application being powered. Mobility and mobile test devices offer great opportunities to embed sensors into various farm generation components to monitor health and identify faults before a catastrophic event. It also helps get repair crews directly to the affected spot eliminating time consuming on-site diagnostics. This is just one of the multitudes of opportunities that an integrated industry perspective presents; many more exist in other adjacent industries. In conclusion, a 360 degree perspective of the integrated industry is a critical tool for CEOs to plan their future business growth. It is, especially, important today as many conventional and traditionally low-tech industries are embracing modern technology. This presents test, instrumentation, sensor, and semiconductor vendors with tremendous growth opportunities.

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Te c h nology Innovation is K e y to Growth

By Rajiv Kumar, Partner/Senior Vice President, Technical Insights Frost & Sullivan

ne of the critical 360 degree perspectives impacting the CEOs team is the technology viewpoint. This perspective consists of a set of factors primarily focusing on innovation, emerging technologies, commercialization, new applications, IP evaluation, technology roadmaps, disruptive and sustaining technologies and such. For many businesses in diverse verticals, technology development and innovation are crucial to keep up with customer demands, competition and, more importantly, achieve overall growth objectives. As a stand-alone perspective, technology is important but in conjunction with six other perspectives, namely, customer, economic, global, integrated industry, competitive and best practices, it provides a critical focal point for technology driven or technology-based companies. In good economic times or bad, technology innovation fuels growth and sustainability of organizations. Companies that continue to invest in development of innovative products, services and solutions tend to do better than those who cut back on R&D programs. The key is to identify the most potent projects and take them through a systematic process of development and go/no-go decision milestones.

and continuous funding for R&D projects, while external challenges are related to factors impacting adoption and commercialization of new technologies and eventual ROI on product development efforts. Key internal challenges include: 1) Measuring the value of Innovation: Establishing and applying metrics that quantify the value of innovation projects. 2) Implementing customer driven innovation management: integrating customer feedback to guide the innovation process for product development. 3) Aligning ideation with the strategic vision (including inter-departmental communication): Ideation must include mechanisms to channel inputs from multiple functional groups within the organization to align innovation with the strategic vision. 4) Defining innovation time frames: The process of demarcating stages of innovation based on time-tomarket. 5) Allocating and prioritizing investments: Prioritizing investment over the short, medium and long term.

Challenges facing Technology Executives

The CEOs technology and R&D executive team is faced with numerous internal and external challenges. Internal organizational challenges include issues related to company vision, executive sponsorship, team-building

In good economic times or bad, technology innovation fuels growth and sustainability of organizations.

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CEOs 360 Degree Perspective

6) Build vs. buy for innovation: Balancing internal technology innovation with external sourcing. 7) Evaluating open innovation for co-development: Reviewing the available open innovation options to optimize innovation strategy in pursuit of efficient product development. 8) Developing and motivating the R&D team: Hire best in class talent, incentivize, and inspire the team to stay on the leading edge of innovation. 9) Developing and managing intellectual property: It is important to design an effective IP strategy to develop, protect, and monetize technology innovation. 10) Cultivating an innovation focused culture: Incorporating innovation in the organizational DNA involves a top-down approach to build a climate to drive multifunctional knowledge sharing and collaboration. Some of the key external challenges are: 1) Negotiating the IP Jungle: It is critical to map the intellectual property landscape to identify whitespace and IP dense areas to guide the innovation strategy and to ensure freedom to practice.

Visionary companies will always count on their ability to innovate before others and converting their innovations into commercializable solutions.

2) Matching innovations to applications (unmet needs): Focused and purposeful innovation based on a rigorous process of evaluating existing and future applications. 3) Innovation for product differentiation: Employ innovation to generate a compelling and sustainable value proposition in pursuit of product differentiation. 4) Mining the white space to inform innovation strategies: It is imperative to scan the technology/application whitespace to identify novel target opportunities. 5) Tracking the competitive technology landscape: Real-time monitoring of technologies and applications targeted by incumbent and potential competitors. 6) Monetizing innovation: The ultimate objective of innovation success is to productize innovation to maximize profitability and sustainability. These challenges define the complex job of technology executives. A major issue for any technologist is the speed and regularity with which innovations need to be developed, proved, and launched. Since the technology perspective provides critical support to a CEOs overall growth strategy, the need for accurate, timely and useful information is paramount. And this can be achieved by following best practices of successful companies as well as seeking professional help from technology and growth consulting firms. Moreover, the technology platform can be combined with any of the other six perspectives to gain unique advantages. For instance, when integrated with the global perspective, the technology perspective offers insights into activities in different regions that might allow collaboration with other technology-based companies, M&A, or introduction of new products or new applications. When you integrate the technology and customer perspectives, you have a framework for identifying unmet needs in terms of product capabilities, desired features, user interfaces and other inputs to guide product innovation. Visionary companies will always count on their ability to innovate before others and converting their innovations into commercializable solutions. The Technology perspective combined with the other six business perspectives gives CEOs and their growth teams the ability to identify, develop and market their innovations and grow their business.

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C o m petitive Intelligence
Mapping the Competitive Landscape
By Bill Archer, Chief Marketing Officer, Frost & Sullivan and Ken Garrison, CEO, Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP)

odays competitive environment is increasingly becoming more complex and dynamic. The time horizon for making decisions continues to narrow strategic time horizons are being measured in weeks, not years. Increasingly sophisticated information technology creates a continuously expanding amount of competitive information that must be organized, analyzed, and applied to business decisions. As company leaders look ahead, they face an even more competitive landscape. Today, many industrial sectors are experiencing both consolidation and globalization. Price competition is being fueled by international competitionboth at home and abroadand for some businesses regulatory pressures are becoming worldwide. The pace of technological innovation and disruption continues to increase. Add to these business dynamics the growing uncertainty of unexpected market events and decision-makers require as much insight and foresight about future competitive situations as possible.

comprehensive understanding of your market landscape, competition, and competitive forces. This understanding directly impacts your ability to successfully drive your organization forward and achieve your growth objectives. Having your competitive intelligence function on the frontline to monitor this landscape will ensure that you have the best information to make critical business decisions. The insights generated by a focused, coordinated competitive intelligence effort can be a powerful and effective tool for enhancing decision-making that drives corporate growth. The fundamental intelligence question for any decision maker is straightforward: How can intelligence inform me about the current and future world so that I can enhance my job performance? More specifically, how can intelligence help me address the right decisions, make better decisions, make them fasterin short, leverage my time more effectively?

What is CI?
An effective, coordinated competitive intelligence effort can provide a holistic view of markets, competition, and customers in an environment of change. It supports the

Decision-makers are all looking for the specific indicators and signposts of what the future industry conditions are likely to be to allow them to develop contingency plans or optimally bend the outcomes to a more favorable position for their company. Competitive positioning factors include a wide perspective of the environment outside our company: political, social, economic, competitive, regulatory, technology, industry. But managers do not need more information, they require insights and analysis to make better decisions. They need help diagnosing the myriad challenges they face every day and deriving The insights generated by a focused, effective solutions for them. Competitive intelligence develop a reliable helps and

coordinated competitive intelligence effort can be a powerful and effective tool for enhancing decision-making that drives corporate growth.

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need to make the best fast moving decisions possible and minimizes business surprises. Through objective, timely, and continuous analysis, competitive intelligence delivers knowledge about the competitive environment and helps translate global shifts and transformations into strategic recommendations. An intelligence process, whether implemented by a competitive team or diffused throughout an organization, proves the means by which competitive information is systematically collected, focused, processed, and analyzed to increase company understanding of the competitors capabilities, plans, and intentions. It also tracks changes in the social, political, technological, and economic landscape that affect the companys ability to be successful in its chosen marketplace. Intelligence gathers information from multiple sources (people, print, internet, social networks, etc), analyzes it using appropriate techniques (trend analysis, impact modeling, game theory, scenario planning, technology scouting, etc), and creates insight into their potential impact on the company. Through this process, intelligence not only provides perspective on known business concerns, but also alerts decision-makers about threats and opportunities not previously identified. Key to the effectiveness of competitive intelligence analysts is their ability to objectively produce unbiased recommendations for decision options. Their deliverables must include insights, judgments, conclusions, forecasts, and implications linked to decisions, plans, or actions. Insight conveys new knowledge and understanding to help enhance decision-makers to create totally new insights about the subjects, thus producing uncommon actions and business initiatives. An intelligence-informed dialogue helps test and refine decision-makers own thinking and openly pursuing the business implications of the analysis outputs. Like many endeavors that carry significant potential benefits, there are no common approaches or standard answers to starting a competitive intelligence effort. No two companies are alike, and as a result, no two intelligence functions are alike. Intelligence can be implemented within companies of any size. While often formalized into a dedicated team in larger corporations, competitive intelligence can become a part of any corporate culture in fact your company already practices intelligence, albeit in an ad hoc form. Placing it within a defined framework encourages employees throughout the organization to be a part of the activity, and provides a process by which the ongoing intelligence effort has a stronger decision-orientation. Todays hyper-competitive environment requires your company to have the ability to better understand its competition and the competitive forces that affect its success. An intelligence function creates insights and analysis that helps your managers make more effective decisions and implement strategies to improve the companys competitiveness. Starting a new competitive intelligence function could very well be one of the most important activities your company engages in this year.

An intelligence function creates insights and analysis that helps your managers make more effective decisions and implement strategies to improve the companys competitiveness.

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L i s t e ning to the Voice o f t h e Customer

The Number One Imperative
By Peter Shreeve, Customer Research Director Frost & Sullivan

ustomers are the life blood of any business therefore a focus on the customer must be of paramount importance as part of the CEOs 360 visionary perspective. Companies that take the customer perspective seriously include customer insight programmes and metrics in corporate balance scorecards.. It is even more important to ensure these metrics do not remain static but reflect what is important to customers. Technology, the economy, demographics and mega trends all drive changes in customer behavior. Understanding the impact is critical to ensure your product and service propositions are in line with customer needs, whether your customer is another business, an intermediary or an end consumer. In this context it is surprising how many companies do not recognise the importance of becoming customer centric many who work in a business to business context still focus on product features rather than benefits and create products without involving the customer or end consumer in their development.

For example, P&G created the Tremor panel long before other manufacturers to test and create product ideas. The potential downside is that customers can also use the internet to express their dissatisfaction, quickly building up powerful anti-corporate feeling through online blogs. Whether positive or negative it highlights the need to have a relationship with customers and to respect that we as businesses have to cede control. The internet has increased customer choice. It has allowed niche products to be sold directly or through intermediaries. With the right Search Engine Optimisation strategy producers can find and then communicate direct with their customers wherever they live. The internetgeneration is less patientthey have real time requirements and will switch brands if the user experience is not satisfactory. Spending money and time on the right digital experience for customers is imperative as so much customer choice is driven through initial internet searches. A business that relies on channel partners or a long

Technology
Whilst the internet is over 10 years old it continues to impact how customers buy products and services and interact with brands. The internet has allowed for and driven customer empowerment customers are able to become closer to products and brands. Customers welcome their involvement in co-creation activities, will sign up for communities to help advance improvements and can be accessed more easily through consumer and specialist panels.

Customers are the life blood of any business.

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CEOs 360 Degree Perspective

distribution chain should review how its products and brands are featured, referenced and catalogued to ensure they gain visibility with the customer. In healthcare, patients are now able to self-diagnose thus changing the relationship they have with their physician. Patient ratings of hospitals and doctors are becoming publically available via the internet highlighting the further empowerment of consumers. Drugs can be bought over the internet fuelling the rise in counterfeit drugs. It seems no profession or business will be immune from customer empowerment and from broader choice. Transparency will be paramount for businesses and professionals in the future. Now that customers have so much control it is important to understand and deliver the voice of the customer throughout your organisation.

The Economy
Reducing costs and making budgets go further has always been important in both the business and consumer context but even more so in a recession. The challenge for brands is to ensure that their brand equity remains intact. Put simply a strong brand can charge aboveaverage prices, a reduced price can become the norm and have a long-term negative impact on the brand impacting shareholder value. It is a strategy that needs to be handled with care. Reducing headcount can often have a negative impact on general service and account management delivery. Renegotiating terms and conditions with intermediaries may impact their demand for your products or service, and hence how it is promoted by your intermediary.

Demographics

The voice of the customer should always be heard.

Ageing and growing populations and increasing wealth in emerging markets present opportunities for new products and market expansion. The older generation continues to be a segment poorly marketed to and represented in growth strategies. Businesses need to research these segments and markets more thoroughly to understand the underlying attitudes and preferences to grow their brands. Brand positioning may be subtly different in each country.

Mega Trends
Concern over corporate and human impact on the environment is not new but continues to encroach in every part of business life. Outlining your Corporate Social Responsibility policy is a starting point but transparency and continued investment in reviewing green activities is now expected and required by customers. No industry is immune and hence understanding and tracking attitudes on green issues is important if your business is going to grow. For example, a greater demand for home-grown products to reduce carbon footprint has an impact on consumer demand for imported products leading to changes in import levels. The demand to reduce transport fuel emissions acts as a stimulus for the next generation of cars; Nissan recently announced it will start producing batteries for electric cars in the UK. Monitoring and understanding the green trend alongside other mega trends is key to ensuring your products and services can react to the opportunities and threats they pose.

In Summary
Customer intimacy will allow you to better understand and navigate the road ahead. How customers access information, find your products, review your products and make their choices is changing. Ensuring you have customer research programmes in place and the customer represented at the top table through key performance indicators will allow you to keep pace with and react to changing demands. The voice of the customer should always be heard.
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T h e Role of Best Practices Withi n th e 3 60 Perspective

By Keith OBrien and Dan Goldenberg, Growth Team Membership Frost & Sullivan

f there is one type of executive that can speak to the challenge of navigating todays complex business environment it is the CEO. Given todays economic downturn, credit crisis and market volatility, making the right decisions is even more imperative for each and every CEO. In such an environment it is critical to have a 360 perspective on the company and the marketplace to guide these decisions. A crucial part of this 360 perspective is Best Practices, which are defined as specific activities performed to solve a tough business challenge that nine out of 10 companies are not performing but should, with measurable results proving effectiveness. Best practices ensure that CEOs have a set of proven practices to supplement internal data and tools when dealing with key issues and challenges. Because they provide CEOs with more choices and solutions when making decisions, best practices should be a part of every CEOs decision-support resources. In specific terms, best practices enable CEOs to make betterinformed decisions by: Avoiding the mistakes and missteps that other companies have made in addressing pressing growth challengesdont reinvent the wheel Reducing the risk in developing and implementing strategies and tactics Saving money and time by directing proven solutions against identified problems Accelerating the learning curve effect and addressing the root causes not the symptoms of a challenge

In evaluating best practices CEOs need to consider the following factors: Data-based research agendathat the list of challenges addressed in the best practices is derived from surveys of the executives in the key functions that report into the CEOMarketing, Sales, Corporate Strategy, R&D and so forthand are responsible for executing the CEOs growth strategy Rigorous research methodologythat the research process used to identify and profile the best practices is transparent, comprehensive and objective. The latter point is key as best practices must be produced independent of financial considerations from companies, vendors or consultants Actionable contentthe best practices must enable the CEO and other executives to apply insights and takeaways to their own companies. Accordingly, the best practice profile should incorporate the pertinent tools, processes and strategies implemented by the featured company.

Best practices ensure that CEOs have a set of proven practices to suppliment internal data and tools when dealing with key issues and challenges.

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An example of a Best PracticeReinvigorating Mature Products to Stimulate New Growth

The following is an excerpt from a best practice developed by the Growth Team Membership research team at Frost & Sullivan. The growth challenge it addressed was overcoming stagnating demand for mature products in current markets. The challenge is common to many companies irrespective of their industry: the sales and share of core products starts stagnating, and even declining, as the market and category matures.

Best practices arm CEOs with demonstrated solutions from other companies that empower them to more effectively pursue their growth strategy and business imperatives.

This best practice demonstrates how a company developed and implemented a process to identify new markets and applications for mature products. The company profiled is Appleton Inc., a US manufacturer with revenues of $1BN. The first page of the two-page excerpt (from a 14 page original) summarizes the best practice: an overview of Appleton, the challenge it faced, the core elements of the solution, the business results, resources required to implement the solution, and the executive functions to whom the best practice is most applicable. (See Figure 1.) The second page provides an overview of the five-step process Appleton created to assess their mature product portfolio and find new, viable markets(see Figure 2): 1. Assess existing company products (capabilities) to identify what they do well, namely what is their competitive advantage in their current market 2. Determine which mature product has the best competitive advantage to exploit in new markets 3. Identify the right new market in which to launch this product 4. Decide how to enter this new market based on the firms capabilities 5. Lastly, if the company cannot go it alone, how do they identify the right strategic partner to work with? In summary, best practices arm CEOs with demonstrated solutions from other companies that empower them to more effectively pursue their growth strategy and business imperatives.

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FIGURE 1: Appleton Inc.s best practice overview.

FIGURE 2: Appleton Inc.s five-step process.

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A p p e ndix: Bio graphies

Vinnie Aggarwal
Vinod (Vinnie) is Frost & Sullivans Chief Economist. He is also a professor in the Department of Political Science, the Business and Public Policy group in the Haas School of Business, and Director of the Berkeley Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Study Center (BASC) at the University of California at Berkeley.Vinnie also serves as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Business and Politics, and Co-Chair of the U.S.Consortium of APEC Study Centers.

David Frigstad
David serves as Chairman of the Board. In college, David along with his business partner envisioned a plan for global consulting and in 1993, they acquired Frost & Sullivan. Over the past 25 years, they have successfully implemented this Vision by having research and growth consulting support in all global economic centers with 25 country offices. David holds a master degree from the Japan American Institute of Management Science in association with Sophia University and a Masters in Business Administration with a double concentration in International Finance and International Marketing from Indiana University.

Bill Archer
Bill is Chief Marketing Officer, managing Frost & Sullivans Global Marketing and Corporate Communications programs, along with global responsibility for the firms Marketing Excellence program leveraging the firms market intelligence to create powerful demand generation programs for clients. Prior to joining Frost & Sullivan, Bill has spent many years as a marketing professional in the roles of Vice President and a senior marketing consultant with firms such as Lockheed Martin, CBIS, and several emerging companies.

Ken Garrison
Ken is the Chief Executive Officer of the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals. He works closely with the Board of Directors to establish society goals and objectives and he manages the daily operations of SCIP. Ken served as President of Finance Credit and International Business (FCIB), owned and operated a commercial printing business, and worked on the treasurers staff at Reynolds Metals Company. He earned an MBA degree from the University of Dallas.

Dan Goldenberg
Dan is Vice President of Growth Partnership Strategy and runs the Growth Team Membership program including global responsibility for the firms strategic client partnership and product development efforts. Since joining Frost & Sullivan, Dan has launched the Growth Team Membership, established the Best Practice Research Group, and formalized the Growth Strategy Dialogue Program. Previously he founded and managed the Sales Operations Excellence Center, a division of the Corporate Executive Board.
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Shekar Gopalan
Shekar has nearly 30 years of experience in design, sales, support, marketing, and market research of various types of test equipment and instrumentation products and markets. He has marketing experience with products such as Mobile Wireless Network test equipment, RF/ Microwave equipment, Analog and Digital Analyzers, Calibration Systems, BoardTest Systems, Sensor instrumentation, Data acquisition systems, and other test equipment with leading Fortune 100 companies

Keith OBrien
Keith is Global Senior Director of Research. He has global responsibility for identifying and profiling best practices for the Growth Team Membership program. Best practices research entails documenting 90th percentile practices within companies that address the key challenges faced by the leadership of the key functions supporting the CEO. Prior to joining Frost & Sullivan, Keith worked at the Corporate Executive Board where he managed best practices programs in the Sales & Marketing and Financial Services divisions. Keith has an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, and an M.Sc. and BBS from Trinity College Dublin.

Rajiv Kumar
Rajiv is Partner and Senior Vice President and has over 18 years of diverse experience directing successful strategy consulting and technology research businesses, primarily in the emerging technology fields. Mr. Kumar has broad experience in multiple industries with a talent for thinking outside the box. His international business experience in Asia, Europe and North America positions him as a proactive leader with a keen ability to analyze and prioritize problems with senior decision makers and clients at any level.

Peter Shreeve
Peter is Director of Customer Research and has over 20 years experience gained with leading market research agencies and client side at Reuters as head of Global Customer Satisfaction Programmes. He has created and delivered research programmes within both business to business and consumer markets covering advertising effectiveness, customer satisfaction, brand equity, usage and attitudes. Peter holds a BA in Business Studies and is responsible for Frost & Sullivans customer research business across Europe, Israel and Africa.

Art Robbins
Art is North America President, where he oversees and manages the North American Client Business Units. Focusing on strategic consulting, client development and leadership development to accelerate client growth objectives, his experience spans over 25 years with multiple consulting companies, starting with American Management Systems, an IT consulting firm and Ernst & Young, where as Partner and Vice President, he provided a full range of strategy, transformation and IT consulting services.
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Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best-in-class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The companys Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEOs Growth Team with disciplined research and best practice models to drive the generation, evaluation and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses, and the investment community from 34 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visit http://www.frost.com.