Intelligence systems implementation project deliverables
Which deliverables should you plan for when selecting and implementing a competitive intelligence, strategic insights system?
It might start as a simple wish
Like any other software implementation project, digitalizing market research and competitive intelligence is a huge investment. If the investment fails to pay off, the entire competitive intelligence function might be under scrutiny.
The decision to invest in a competitive intelligence software might derive from a thorough audit of and improvement plan for the competitive intelligence function or department.
Or it might express the eagerness by a manager to start gathering and disseminating market signals and competitive insights where there were only manual activities in place thus far.
In order to get a handle on the complexity of such a project, let’s focus on the deliverables and their purpose. This will present a scope and framework one has to entertain when a competitive intelligence software is being invested in.
It goes without saying that you can absolutely positively use this framework on your own.
Evaluating 20-30 vendors and their solutions to meet your company’s exact requirements however, might proof very complex, time consuming and you also might want to concentrate on your core responsibilities while the selection process and possibly even the entire implementation process is being managed by someone who has done this many times successfully.
We offer the entire range of support, project leadership and consulting for your competitive intelligence improvements and would be thrilled to discuss how we can be of service.
Broad brush planning
For a first timeline, general resource and budget planning several phases should be considered. Collaboration and engagement with internal and external stakeholders and experts will vary in those phases:
Strategy & Planning
Specifications & Design
Evaluation & Analysis
Project Setup & Alignments
Vendor Selection & Contracting
Deployment & Implementation
Operation & Improvements
1. Strategy & Planning
Owner or sponsor input should be first here and it should be the baseline for the value proposition that will evolve the more the system needs take shape.
As long as anyone has questions about the purpose and objectives of the competitive intelligence software and it’s value for the business, the strategy is either not defined or not communicated well enough.
Planning should also start early-on with a helicopter view and become more detailed over time. A basic folder structure on a SharePoint and month-by-month Gantt chart that shows the project phases that are outlined in this article will do initially.
Some principles can also be defined at this point: communication plan, user-on-boarding through train-the-trainer or super user structures for example. These might be driven by the company’s communication culture and experience with comparable projects and solutions. They will also greatly influence the training planning later in the project.
2. Specifications & Design
This is the key for future user’s satisfaction, overall buy-in and the success perspective of the system. Also, since solution providers are able today to satisfy a multitude of specific needs across the entire spectrum of content and industries, those needs have to be clear to the company.
Obviously, the more solutions are included in the evaluation the broader the options. So, specifications have to be rock solid and well defined. A small sample of solutions would limit complexity but also the wish-list and it would dictate specifications and design from those few examples.
3. Evaluation & Analysis
Digitalization solution providers and software developers take full advantage of the evolving possibilities today. There are scores of solutions out there and they evolve all the time. This is where the scope and specifications from before are crucial.
A set of easy to use and easy to compare visualizations like spider web graphics and rating schemes should be designed and agreed upon at this stage. They should compare satisfaction ratings for key specification and usability.
4. Project Setup & Alignments
From company to industry and depending on their setup and activities, setting up such a project according to resources and complexity differs greatly. And this can hardly be managed by the software solution provider as they don’t know the internals and specifics of the business well enough.
If there is no dedicated project leader assigned, perhaps a well versed Program Management Office or Operational Excellence manager could handle the project. Or, you hire an experienced expert that is unbiased and well connected within the solutions providers’ scene. Like us with our vastly experienced CI professionals network and our founder and managing director Jens Thieme.
5. Vendor Selection & Contracting
From a long list of several dozens of solutions to a final contractual agreement with one solution provider is a long way. But the time investment pays off through an optimal system to monitor the competitive arena and take much better informed decisions across the entire organization.
Also, don’t underestimate the learning effect throughout such a project. If the company is given the opportunity to not limit their choices by only looking at the 2-3 most obvious solutions, it will be rewarded with a much deeper understanding of the current opportunities and potential future evolution of the solutions landscape.
Speaking of which: sustainability and innovation potential should be on top of the selection list for a provider. History shows how fast and complete the systems landscape has changed and you don’t want to be stuck with a solutions from yesterday in a year.
An end-user driven innovation process, financial stability and vivid networking among actual and potential clients groups like associations and networking societies is a good indicator for the winners of tomorrow.
6. Deployment & Implementation
All the planning will pay off here. Very likely the solution provider is in the boat at that point. It is also an important time to revisit the strategic vision and objectives and to activate management to become vocal role model users.
The communication plan will unfold its magic and the familiarization and training regime should kick into full gear.
7. Operation & Improvements
The proof of the pudding… and a chance to excite users when their needs and feedbacks lead to real continuous improvements.
This is the moment of highest engagement energy of the user base with the planning team and support structure. 24/7 engagement and transparency are paramount. Exchanging success stories and announcing immediate bug fixes build trust.
What gets measured gets managed
Budgeting
The ultimate measure and pre-requisite for any large scale project is the allocated budget. The budgeting process itself should include various well prepared planning indicators and milestones and take care if the most important visioning, mandating and buy-in efforts.
It is absolutely crucial to identify any decision maker for the budgeting process and obtain their unequivocal support, agreement and commitment to the anticipated budget. Especially because such projects might span over more than one budgeting cycle.
There is nothing more frustrating for all parties involved as to fight or even loose budgets in the midst of an implementation project or its preceding preparation activities.
Budget planning also enforces ownership, control and leadership for the project early-on. Equally important: it establishes and retains a much needed level of management attention that should convince the rest of the organization of the crucial nature of this project and its outcome.
Project deliverables under control
Deliverables need to establish clarity, align resources and push the project towards successful completion. When planning for the various deliverables it might make sense to think backwards for a moment:
When a decision maker is alerted early-on about an anticipated competitive move or even market disruption or finds a crucial piece of evidence for an argument in the board room (to name a few potential standard outputs of the competitive intelligence system), what does this person need to find on the screen or in their inbox?
How does it get there, where does it come from, who contributes, is it validated and fact-checked, commented on, how is it all intertwined with external and internal content and streams?
If you do this exercise as a free and open brainstorm session with the project team and future users, you might be surprised which ideas and needs you might have missed. This is a task for the Specifications & Design phase.
And in order for every deliverable to have a strong value proposition: they all need to be measured because what gets measured, gets managed:
“I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.”
William Thomson, Scottish physicist, Lord Kelvin
This article mentions various project controls that help to steer the project and measure its effectiveness.
This competitive intelligence implementation deliverables guide is based on profound project experience and can help you to set up and run such a project yourself.
If you decide to trust our experience and can't afford own resources, don’t hesitate to contact us. We can advise you or your team or even run the entire project as done successfully many times in several industries. Independent, unbiased and experienced.
Strategy & Planning Deliverables
Owner or sponsor input should be first here and it should be the baseline for the value proposition that will evolve the more the system needs take shape. Owner input defines the mission and the mandate whereas the vision is to be defined by the project leader and team.
As long as anyone has questions about the purpose and objectives of the competitive intelligence software and its value for the business, the strategy is either not defined or not communicated well enough.
Planning should also start early-on with a helicopter view and become more detailed over time. A basic folder structure on a SharePoint and month-by-month Gantt chart that shows the project phases as outlined in this article will do initially.
Some principles can also be defined at this point: communication plan, user-on-boarding through train-the-trainer or super user structures for example. These might be driven by the company’s communication culture and experience with comparable projects and solutions.
Mandate
Seems obvious but this deliverable needs a very strong foundation both in people expressing the mandate and in documenting inquiry and objectives.
For a long lasting and deeply impacting project like selecting and implementing a competitive intelligence system the mandate can also serve as a 30 seconds elevator pitch and value proposition for anyone who needs to be educated about the need and value of the project.
The mandate lends credibility and a sense of importance (in some cases urgency) to the project owner. It is the launch pad for the development of the project strategy.
Vision
Any large project requires buy-in and any investor wants pay-back. A CEO or board of directors who invest into a competitive intelligence software and modernized strategic insights processes (both should be systematically aligned) need to clearly communicate why they invest.
Maybe because they witnessed a competitor beat them to market or they took ill advised decisions because of competitive blindspots or because they are afraid to suffer disruption and want to be better prepared.
Be it what may: the project leader needs to formulate these wants into a vision that acts like a very motivating goal for everyone involved.
If a vision for such an impacting project (well, the project is a lot less impacting than the ever changing way how to perceive and how to play the market once it is up and running) is not understood and enthusiastically followed, then it either needs some more word smithing and/or is not well enough communicated or it is not a vision worth following in the eye of the recipients.
A co-creation session together with experienced strategists, communication staff and several stakeholder who should inherit that vision should result in a vision that is both engaging and goal oriented.
You can read about vision, mission and values in a marketing environment in this article.
Team assignment
Despite the obvious variables for size of project and resources available the team sheet should include at least:
Sponsor (preferably a managerial end user, CxO)
Owner, project leader
IT project partner
Communications
Legal advisor
Team members representing key stakeholder departments (one of which would be co-project lead during a potential pilot phase if it focuses on one department as an early adopter)
External partner, consultant if given substantial project responsibilities
Project Initiation Document (PID)
This is the framework that sketches the initial project setup and it provides a foundation for the project. It specifies why the project is important, what will be delivered, when it will be delivered and how.
The following main chapters are crucial for a typical competitive intelligence system implementation project:
Purpose of the Project Initiation Document
Strategy: Vision, Objectives
Critical Success Factors
Scope
Project Plan
Project Risks & Known Issues
Project Constraints, Assumptions and Interfaces with other Projects
Project Organization
The System
Implementation
Sustainability
Project Charter
The project charter or project plan is the central nervous system of the project. It manages and controls all project activities and resources along the major project phases as described above.
Oftentimes a Gantt chart style is used. Column headers indicate what gets controlled here:
Project Phases & Objectives
Activities & Tasks
Deliverables
Start Date
End Date
Work Days
Actors
Status (traffic light color coding with commentary can be powerful project controls, especially when risk is to be mitigated or delays to be addressed)
Calendar Grid
It is also crucial to show the actors’ availability and contact information in the same view for transparent resource allocation and timeline planning.
Requirements Catalogue
In order to establish a focused structure to develop the systems specifications, top level requirements should be defined in the following areas:
A) User Requirements
Statements of fact and assumptions that define the expectations of the system in terms of mission objectives, environment, constraints, and measures of effectiveness and suitability:
Operational distribution or deployment: Where will the system be used?
Mission profile or scenario: How will the system accomplish its mission objective?
Performance and related parameters: What are the critical system parameters to accomplish the mission?
Utilization environments: How are the various system components to be used?
Effectiveness requirements: How effective or efficient must the system be in performing its mission?
Operational life cycle: How long will the system be in use by the user?
Environment: What environments will the system be expected to operate in an effective manner?
B) Architectural Requirements
Architectural requirements explain what has to be done by identifying the necessary systems architecture of a system.
C) Structural Requirements
Structural requirements explain what has to be done by identifying the necessary structure of a system.
D) Behavioral Requirements
Behavioral requirements explain what has to be done by identifying the necessary behavior of a system.
E) Functional Requirements
Functional requirements explain what has to be done by identifying the necessary task, action or activity that must be accomplished. Functional requirements analysis will be used as the top level functions for functional analysis.
F) Non-functional Requirements
Non-functional requirements are requirements that specify criteria that can be used to judge the operation of a system, rather than specific behaviors.
G) Core Functionality and Ancillary Functionality Requirements
Murali Krishna Chemuturi, the popular Indian software development expert, defined requirements into Core Functionality and Ancillary Functionality requirements. Core Functionality requirements are those without fulfilling which the product cannot be useful at all.
Ancillary Functionality requirements are those that are supportive to Core Functionality. The product can continue to work even if some or all of the Ancillary Functionality requirements are fulfilled but with some side effects. Security, safety, user friendliness and so on are examples of Ancillary Functionality requirements.
H) Performance Requirements
The extent to which a mission or function must be executed; generally measured in terms of quantity, quality, coverage, timeliness or readiness. During requirements analysis, performance (how well does it have to be done) requirements will be interactively developed across all identified functions based on system life cycle factors; and characterized in terms of the degree of certainty in their estimate, the degree of criticality to system success, and their relationship to other requirements.
I) Design Requirements
The “build to,” “code to,” and “buy to” requirements for products and “how to execute” requirements for processes expressed in technical data packages and technical manuals.
Project KPI dashboard
This can be simple in design but really crucial for the much needed management support for the project.
The project KPI dashboard should be a one-pager, visualizing the entirety of the project plan, indicating key objectives and timelines and plotting the status quo into it. Flags should qualify and alert.
This is the project leader’s visual equivalent to the 30 second elevator speech. With an important difference: once shown or sent to anyone it moves out of control. So, keep it simple, easy to read and without follow-up questions being triggered.
Command Center
An easily accessible and universally usable structure should be established that works cross-platform, is safe and includes external partners.
It is recommended to use an environment that is most commonly used by the key players of the project and can be serviced 24/7 with internal IT resources to limit dependencies.
Regardless if SharePoint, Lotus Notes, a network drive or web based collaboration portal is used, the following containers and work areas might be a good starting point:
Administration
Agreements, access codes, service and support guidelines, policy documents, schedules.
Pre-Project
Collections of research material, related projects, historic experience and reports, initiation documentation, stakeholder related work areas where meeting documents and their collections can be gathered and archived.
Project Options
Everything that describes the various decisions and options, initiatives and sub projects. As a baseline the owner input can be stored here and everything that responds to it like kick-off sequence, vision, mission and strategy map.
Project Controls
All tools and documents that make the project run and measure its progress like project plans and worksheets for consultants. This is very likely the most active area and used by scores of contributors so it needs to be simple, robust and agreed upon by all users.
Analysis
Throughout the project there are several analysis that produce baseline documents, descriptions, evaluation tools, tables and lists.
Classic collections in this area are solution provider profiles, screen shots, recorded demo videos, testimonials, primer files and summaries, comparison and benchmark spreadsheets, price and cost comparisons, score sheets and presentations about all of the above.
Design
Specifications, content structures, taxonomy and user interface designs are developed, stored and shared here. Pretty much everything to fulfill the user needs and won’t need extra development.
Development
When there are functions and content that need to be developed, this special area should give space for system developers and work teams that develop use cases for extra needs not covered by the solution provider’s standard offer.
Q&A catalogues, glossaries and user guideline documentation can be developed here over time. Legal policies and a robust code of ethics are further examples and show how cross-departmental development needs its extra space and time.
Deployment
Rolling out a global system used by hundreds or thousands of employees can be incredibly complex and requires professional structure and management.
It is strongly advised to launch large go-live sequences with a pilot and health check first. This also provides the opportunity for improvements before the global roll-out. There might even be a separate pilot team with its own collaboration platform and reporting.
Long term preparation and complete, careful communication to reach every stakeholder and don’t leave anyone wondering or incapable to understand their role and options are key and should be reviewed and improved by all active project stakeholders.
Reporting
Throughout the project there are several reporting needs and formats. It is advisable to keep them all in one area as some are interdependent and project leaders want to trace all developments in an easy way.
KPI dashboards, data feeds and slide decks for decision making should be handled here.
Specifications & Design Deliverables
This is the key for future user’s satisfaction, overall buy-in and the success perspective of the system. Also, since solution providers are able today to satisfy a multitude of specific needs across the entire spectrum of content and industries, those needs have to be clear to the company.
Obviously, the more solutions are included in the evaluation the broader the options. So, specifications have to be rock solid and well defined. A small sample of solutions would limit the complexity but also the wish-list and it would dictate specifications and design from those few examples.
User Interface design
Based on solution providers’ input, internal requirements and preferences the User Interface (UI) design specifications can gravely influence the value in use of the competitive intelligence software.
It should be worked out with all key user groups and tested with future users that are completely unbiased and unconditioned. Mobil use and feeds into other media like printed documents, emails and electronic newsletters should be included in the user interface design.
It could make sense to combine this activity in a workshop to design user personae and use cases if not done so separately.
Sources/Deliverables catalogue
Digitalization of competitive intelligence is always a great opportunity to eliminate redundancies, duplicate spend and low value content. The more complex the organization, the more potential to harmonize and unify.
Identifying existing competitive intelligence content in this project step will support future phases such as process mapping and migration planning.
Also, this phase should be used to explore additional, unsatisfied data and insights needs. Competing data can be eradicated and by virtue of saving money: the case to support this digitalization project just got a whole lot stronger.
Plus the age old problem of not sharing seemingly ‘powerful’ content can become a thing of the past fairly consequently. Beware some initial resistance on that end, which should break when clearly spelling out the intent above.
Launch Communication Plan
Besides initial communication and keeping the organization updated on the progress of the project, preparation and go-live milestones and activities require a well orchestrated communication.
Past experience should come from IT and the communications group as well as Human Resources. For implementation and roll-out projects of complex and global nature it might make sense to assign a project communications manager.
Glossary of Terms
With digitalization, new sources and excellence in using them, there will be new terms and vocabulary in both the system and the content.
Just like the Q&A catalogue, the Glossary of Terms collection should be started early-on and enriched with any new term the project team members discover. It is also a good idea to keep feeding it from training courses and through the super-user collaboration, especially in the early familiarization phases.
Q&A collection
All stakeholders will have questions about the anticipated system from the outset and its optimal use after roll-out. It is good common practice to gather them along with the responses, and to serve them to the user community in order to avoid multiplication of effort and to keep the stakeholders interested and informed.
Some questions and answers could possibly also used in a newsletter issued by the competitive intelligence group.
Content trees
This can also be a very valuable workshop exercise for all the stakeholder teams. Agreeing on a structure and common viewpoints of the competitive landscape can harmonize a market focused language and bring order into the vast data and information landscape.
Content trees and their use in competitive intelligence systems can have a disciplining and efficiency impact on the entire organization and can also support new employee on-boarding. They also promote a mutual external alertness.
In order to keep the structure simple and to limit complexity in building the intelligence and system architecture it is advisable to limit the tree to three levels while the third level should remain an exception.
Examples of a top level are:
Competitors
Customers
Suppliers
Partners
Products
Technologies
Trade Agreements (or Geography)
Institutions
Regulation
Risks
Strategic Themes and Projects
Disruption and Mega Trends
Raw Materials
Events
Reports & Studies
Underneath this top level you might find some of the following sub categories:
Competitors
M&A
Financial Statements
Profiles
SEC Filings
Technology Mapping and Benchmarking
Conference Papers
etc.
Customers
Similar to competition category
Bid-Loss data
Syndicated CRM content
Suppliers
RFI’s
Supplier Benchmark
Technology Mapping
Financial Stability Profile
etc.
Products
Technical Properties
Competitors Value Propositions and Sales Arguments
R&D Cycles
etc.
Technologies
Patents
Scientific Library
Emerging
etc.
Online manual
Starting an online manual that early in the project has various advantages and effects: there is a user-focused activity and culture in the project team, it might even be a good startup activity for the future community leader or super users and it is written with the mindset of someone who is also quite new to the upcoming competitive intelligence system.
The structure and language of a user manual differs greatly whether it is created early-on or created later in a hurry or whether it is written with an evolving understanding or from the distance of a software developer who also never walked inside the company.
Evaluation & Analysis Deliverables
Digitalization solution providers and software developers take full advantage of the evolving possibilities today. There are scores of solutions out there and they evolve all the time. This is where the scope and specifications from before are crucial.
A set of easy to use and easy to compare visualizations like spider web graphics and rating schemes should be designed and agreed upon at this stage. They should visualize and compare key specification and usability features.
Solutions short list
Simply a condensed and focused list of software solutions that remain in the race. At this point it should include cost structure and benefits that match the specification.
Interdependency map
There might be legacy systems or predecessor tools, technological and redundancy policies and prerequisites that all lend some dependencies to the new competitive intelligence system’s step and function.
In order to fully understand the interrelationship of surviving and replaceable systems and how they ‘talk’ with each other, data flow, formats and file configurations, a visual mapping can create the much needed transparency.
The more complex and fragmented the internal systems landscape, the more important this activity becomes and it might warrant to utilize a skilled IT expert who knows the IT processes and policies of all related systems inside-out.
Process mapping
Understanding and supporting decision making processes should be a core preparation when digitalizing competitive intelligence. This can not only make all gathering, analysis and dissemination activities more efficient.
While evaluating and visualizing where signals, data and information flows through and how it should be used can significantly increase market and competitive awareness throughout the entire organization.
Start with a general agreement of key value actors along the intelligence process. This would establish a company-wide understanding and buy-in of the intelligence function’s responsibility and impact.
In a more detailed step and to make sure all decision makers are served well through the future competitive intelligence system, key business processes should be evaluated to identify their intelligence needs:
Marketing Process
Business Development Process
Sales Process
Innovation Process
Strategic Planning Process
Procurement Process (if the buy-side is part of the scope)
M&A Process
etc.
Needless to say, every one of those top level processes will have its own sub-processes that need to be understood and followed. Let’s look into the marketing process for instance and it’s tiered structure (see 2nd and 3rd level underneath 1.7. for instance):
Marketing Process
Marketing Strategy & Go-to-Market Planning
..
Marketing Communication & Campaigns
..
Brand Strategy, Protection & Management
..
Sales Support & Leads Management
..
Customer Focus & Customer Retention
..
Corporate Communications & Image
..
Marketing Function Performance & Impact
Structure, Workflow & Alignment
Function Development Roadmap
Sales & Marketing Integration
Stakeholder Collaboration
Work Flow Evolution
Organizational Structure
Mission, Vision & Values
Knowledge Management
Talent & Career Management
Tasks & Skill Profiling
Internal & External Training
Job Descriptions
Career Path Management
Employee Retention & Talent Support
Compensation
Function Value & Performance Measurement
Marketing Returns
Marketing Metrics & ROI
Communications Channel Performance
Marketing Performance Dashboards
You can find a complete marketing process overview here.
This shows, that a proper process planning can be incredibly cumbersome and it all depends on a robust and intense collaboration between stakeholders and the project team.
The task and simple question for all these process reviews is this:
“Does decision making of this process step depend on external market data, competitive analysis or strategic insights?”.
If the answer is yes, the decision makers should be identified and included in the sources and content project track so they can clearly define their needs.
Failure to this crucial project step will result in an incomplete intelligence process, competing or lacking data, inefficiencies, duplicate spend and workload or worse: blindspots and sub-optimal, wrong or no decisions.
In short: competitive risks.
Feasibility Study
A more technical deliverable is the feasibility study made by the IT department and based on technical circumstances and policies that are known internally and also from the short-listed vendors.
This is not a hands-on testing but a clarification of all technical aspects to explore suitability both technically and in terms of the companies preferences.
For example, if the targeted competitive intelligence system required Microsoft Silverlight in the past (Microsoft discontinued Silverlight developments in 2013) for the user interface but the company did not support this technology, there was no use to integrate such a tool without a smooth and transparent migration process to a newer technology platform.
Project Setup & Alignments Deliverables
From company to industry and depending on their setup and activities, setting up such a project according to resources and complexity differs greatly. And this can hardly be managed by the software solution provider as they don’t know the internals and specifics of the business well enough.
If there is no dedicated project leader assigned, perhaps a well versed Program Management Office or Operational Excellence manager could handle the project. Or, you hire an experienced expert, like us, that is unbiased and well connected within the solutions providers’ scene.
Collaboration plan
As a result of the process review it becomes clear which departments and stakeholders need to further refine their collaboration. Because much of the data and information that is going to stream through the competitive intelligence system can be used for more than one purpose and addressee.
For example, a competitor technology mapping can be used for defensive market intelligence and for partnering opportunities. Chances are that the decision makers for those two areas are not the same person and do not work in the same department.
Another example is the classic personnel profiling. Anticipating management behavior can be of interest to pretty much all stakeholder groups and their decision makers if a key competitor just swapped their CEO or Chairman.
The collaboration plan should map out several potential major synergies like mentioned above and animate these stakeholders to exchange their viewpoints and competitive intelligence needs.
Communication plan
Since communication is everything in overarching, impactful project like the implementation of a global competitive intelligence system, the group’s communications team should be in the boat from the outset.
Their expertise is needed to set up communications plans that incorporate the company’s communication policies, habits, culture and channels.
The project team can start on the basis of three key communication events:
Pre-inform the organization about the mandated project
Prepare the organization for the roll-out
Throughout the go-live period including follow-up and health checks
Deployment plan
Depending weather you implement an on-premise or cloud software, the deployment might differ greatly technically. An actual physical software might require its own server (production and live environments), backup and security requirements, service staff and update guidelines.
All of which should be planned, prepared and executed by IT experts and the software provider.
A cloud version requires minor internal preparation and can be handled via the launch plan (further down in this article).
Proper deployment and launch planning can also be crucial to avoid subscription charges for new content before the users actually start using the system.
While limited content might be sufficient to deploy the system and run a pilot on a strategic project or theme or in one stakeholder department, the launch plan should ensure that all content is available at go-live.
Migration plan
In most cases vast amounts of content, that is to be handled and served by the new competitive intelligence system, already exists and most likely in a rather fragmented, uncoordinated fashion.
Migrating all that content to the new system provides an opportunity to significantly improve sustainability, increase spread and reduce resources. Here as well, recording the estimated savings can help to justify the investment into the competitive intelligence software solution.
The more vivid the migration is planned, the more trustworthy and robust will the new setup be. Evaluating existing competitive intelligence content should be done much earlier though throughout the sources and deliverables cataloguing.
Here is a chance to revisit the outcome and refine if needed, especially when additional stakeholder groups have joined up later in the project.
Phase-out plan
Directly connected with the migration of existing content is the consideration when and how to phase-out predecessor systems or obsolete solutions and processes to gather and share competitive intelligence content and deliverables.
Because of the partly unpredictable nature of any new systems implementation it is advisable to continue with the existing solutions until a defined point of stability and robustness of the new system.
This is an important communication content and should also be addressed in the Q&A catalogue because pretty much all users will ask about this.
Training plan
The strategy planning process should already include the decision about the type of training and which support structure is to be established.
Depending on size and complexity of the organization a simple train-the-trainer principle might work well or a system where Super-Super Users keep educating the Super-Users in the groups, who work at arms-length within their units and also feed improvement needs back up the support organization.
Top level supporters and the most active users should be included well before the regular user base so they have a knowledge advantage and might also be involved in the setup and configuration that respond to user needs as evaluated in the design phase of the project.
Vendor Selection & Contracting Deliverables
From a long list of several dozens of solutions to a final contractual agreement with one solution provider is a long way. But the time investment pays off through a maximized chance of the solution to perform as required.
Also, don’t underestimate the learning effect throughout such a project. If the company is given the opportunity to not limit their choices by only looking at the 2-3 most obvious solutions, it will be rewarded with a much deeper understanding of the current opportunities and potential future evolution of the solutions landscape.
Speaking of which: sustainability and innovation potential should be on top of the selection list for a provider. History shows how fast and complete the systems landscape has changed and you don’t want to be stuck with a solution from yesterday in a year.
An end-user driven innovation process, financial stability and vivid networking among actual and potential clients groups like associations and societies is a good indicator that the solution provider is a strong partner to their client base.
Final demo
A level playing field and a strong focus on requirements: finalists should be well prepared for their final pitch.
Scripting the final pitch from the customer perspective can be helpful for the vendors but also for the project team to re-focus on the essentials.
A demo script should at least include the following elements:
General rules of the demo (timing, format)
Functionalities
Usability
Data, content
Technical, security, legal
Recommendation brief
Evaluation & analysis looked into use cases, user interface design and satisfying user personae and content needs. The final pitch provided the insights to select the final two candidates now.
Just in case negotiations unravel or a hidden hurdle pops up, it is wise to keep two contenders in the race until the very end after a very intense and expensive project thus far.
You might look into a 3-4 months time span from project initiation until this point and it won’t hurt to keep two solutions active for a little while longer.
The recommendations brief or profile will prepare management to take a well educated final purchase decision.
Negotiation strategy
There is a tension between a long term partnership with the solution provider and the economic interest of the company. In many cases none of the project team members is a trained negotiator but there must be plenty in the purchasing group.
This tension can be well managed if ballpark figures were already explored throughout the evaluation phase. The vendor’s price elasticity and willingness to meet their customer’s special needs and contracting preferences would also be better known then at that point.
The aim for the negotiation is to not damage the relationship to the vendor or weaken their economic health but also to achieve a favorable cost/value ratio. Price breaks, rebates for features that are under-utilized throughout the pilot and implementation phase or milestone payments can be part of the construct.
It could be beneficial to evaluate a neutralized contract from the vendor to detect contract clauses that need special attention during the negotiation or find elements that create additional opportunities to bring flexibility and robustness into the contract.
Vendor proposal
This deliverable is entirely the vendor’s but it is a stage gate moment and should be well timed for budget and approval sequences.
Contract
From first draft to the final signature might be a bulky and time consuming exercise. Ask your legal department and the vendor for their timing expectations based on their experience and use this input for timeline planning.
It can be frustrating for any project to delay implementation and roll-out steps just because legal papers keep flying back and forth. It is better for all parties involved to manage expectations and allow for this sequence to take place in the background while other activities can progress in the meantime.
Deployment & Implementation Deliverables
All the planning will pay off here. Very likely the solution provider is in the boat at that point. It is also an important time to revisit the strategic vision and objectives and to activate management to become vocal role model users.
The communication plan will unfold its magic and the familiarization and training regime should kick into full gear.
User personae profiles
Modeling user types helps to anticipate specific needs by varying user groups and types of users.
Either in combination with the user interface discussions or as a separate activity, a workshop to define 3-4 typical users should be conducted as these different types of users will have different needs regarding sources, content and functionality in the system itself.
To understand these even better, some thought should be given to the function, area of responsibility, goals and the behavior of the sketched personae.
Use cases
Based on the user personae above there should be 2-3 strong use cases that will define sources, content, process connectors, collaboration and deliverables. Which features are required for this particular use case and which benefits are provided?
Super users can take the role as 'personae ambassador' and 'use case champion' for focus, drive and an extra portion of internal competition in the project.
Support center
Based on the solution provider’s capabilities and recommendations but also on the company’s experience with comparable systems, a support center needs to be set up.
This can either be done within the system itself or on an existing platform that is well accepted among all future users.
Terms of use documents, user guides, glossary of terms, Q&A catalogue and code of ethics can all the housed there.
It is of material importance to focus on simple, fast access to support and contact information. That should include the direct line responsibilities for the system, like the super users per department and geography for instance.
Security policy, secure access
The security configuration is a mix of internal policy, setup and the vendor software solution’s security configuration.
Cloud solutions are much more reliant on the vendor’s decisions and security concept. Whereas physical, on-premise installations would be bound to internal IT standards.
This is also true for user management and secure access. While Microsoft Active Directory would offer a single-sign-up and one-off security configuration for all apps and solutions, less centrally managed systems would have to be carefully configured with the entire company’s security concept as a guide.
Terms of use guidelines
New users to the system need instructions on the anticipated use of the system. This will support the on-boarding and also spell out do’s and don’ts and explains the obligations and advantages for the users.
The ToU document should also recommend additional support features and documentation (like the Code of Ethics and the system’s help center) and it should cover the following areas in general:
Purpose of the ToU document
Major purpose of the competitive intelligence system
Registration to the system
Support system
User account and security
Use of the system
Use of content
Provision of own content
Termination of use and access
How to deal with external service and content providers
Content activation
Most content should already be active as long as the competitive intelligence system is modernized and improved from a more manual, fragmented approach to a more automated, digitalized system.
As far as new content is concerned, the launch planning would also help to avoid paying subscriptions fees before users would actually use the system.
Launch plan
A pilot phase can be very beneficial to simplify initial use testing and improvements of the system. It is also a very forgiving period and group of actively involved people both on the user side and in the project team.
But as soon as an entire company and all users go live, everything needs to be rolled out as planned and the baton needs to move smoothly in all areas and activities.
Here as well, as with the overall project, it makes sense to imagine 3-4 key users being happy after the first key tasks and then move backwards in time to reverse-engineer the setup and process.
Or in other words: what needs to happen before:
a regular user finds a deliverable on her dashboard
a complaint is resolved or a user question responded to
a user finds out who is an expert on a strategic topic and engages immediately
a strategy planning meeting is started with a review of a collection that feeds right into the PESTEL analysis of a new product range launch preparation
Oftentimes launch plans are created from A to Z but this approach might miss some of the specialities of the particular setup that ultimately responds to the user needs.
Putting the act of satisfying that USE and the user in the middle of the planning is not only very responsible but will enforce the user-focus of the entire project.
The launch plan can therefore serve as a health check and safety net for all the planning processes prior to go-live.
Software activation
The final deliverable of the deployment phase is the go-live of the actual software of course.
It might be a small step and only a few actors are involved in the actually switching on of the software in the cloud or on the server on site. But it is a major milestone and should be seen as such.
Because scores of people have worked hard to make sure the software is being activated it could very well be a celebratory moment and thanks-giving to all involved.
Think: starting a NYSE session with the team on that trading floor balcony at the day of the IPO or the cameras rolling from the spectator stands at Cape Canaveral during the launch of a space shuttle. So, also the CEO belongs in this room of course.
We often focus on stuff, technical things, objects or processes too much and forget that none of that mattered if it wasn't for all the people around us to work as teams and individuals.
Celebrate this moment big but combine it with a big promise to keep working and perfecting it because the first glitch or disappointment is around the corner, no doubt. It’s the nature of the beat, so: don’t worry and share a pint.
Operation & Improvements Deliverables
The proof of the pudding… and a chance to excite users when their needs and feedbacks lead to real continuous improvements.
This is the moment of highest engagement energy of the user base with the support structure. 24/7 engagement and transparency are paramount. Exchanging success stories and announcing immediate bug fixes build trust.
Code of ethics guidelines
Giving guidance to the competitive intelligence system’s administrators and future users in use, support, contribution and collaboration of the system and process.
Beyond the legal policies (regulated by law) an ethical code provides guidance for the behavior of the employees. There might not be a law that prohibits a certain behavior but the company wants to make sure that all employees adhere to a certain quality of engagement and common handling of sensitive data.
Furthermore, since laws and regulation might differ geographically a code of ethics has a unifying function to a globally acting organization as well.
The following elements should be included in the Code of Ethics:
Purpose
Definition
Support
Use
Collaboration
Contribution
Legal vs ethical
Scope
In-Scope
Out-of-Scope
Guidelines
Principles
Guidelines for systems support
Guidelines for users
Guidelines for collaboration inside and outside of the system
Legal policy
Ethical code
Notes and recommendations
Service Contract
An absolute key deliverable is the service contract of course. It can be a simple Terms of Service agreement between a software vendor and the user or something more complex if multiple parties, services and rights are covered.
When third party content needs to be part of the agreement you are looking into quite a number of amendments and annexes. Also, several roll-out stages that are handled under separate contracts might add complexity.
As stated before, planning for negotiation and contracting should consider the potential complexity and align resources along with the planning. Especially service agreements require a complete understanding of obligations and benefits for all parties involved and might therefore require significant time and resources to prepare and finalize.
Complaint process
Users of an internal software solution and process are no different than customers purchasing the company’s products and services.
The perfect shortcut to create the perfect complaint process is your own complaint process for your external customers and a little mock exercise, anticipating potential issues with the system.
It can also be a fun experience and additional team building and buy-in event between some critical stakeholders. And the customer service guys will certainly love to be called out of the hotline loop to share their expertise.
Long term improvement plan
User training, super-user structure, Q&A document, help center and complaint process all have one feature in common: they gather feedback and experience that can be used to improve the system and process.
This together with the evolution on the vendor side (good vendors continuously innovate based on their client’s evolving needs) there will be plenty of opportunities to continuously improve the system.
It is recommended to assign a deliberate mandate to someone to institutionalize health checks and improvements. Measuring and reporting should create the necessary visibility to support this function.
Ready - set - implement
Conclusions
In this blog post series (back to start) you have learned how to prepare and plan a project that aims for selection and implementation of the optimal competitive intelligence or strategic insights system.
Because of the many variables for industries, viewpoints, needs and solutions this article could be a planning foundation but the project still requires true management and an experienced project leader.
At the end of the day your project will differ from this writing and we would also be very grateful for your comments below.
Don’t hesitate to get in touch if we can support your project in any way: Advising, planning, coaching project teams, pitching to your management, selecting vendors and their solutions, even running the entire project for you.
Jens Thieme is a global B2B marketing professional, sharing his practical marketing experience, this marketing glossary and b2b marketing best practice examples.