USER-DRIVEN COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE

BT RETAIL

BT Retail

T Group p.l.c. (BT), formerly British Telecommunications, is the United Kingdoms leading communications carrier. It provides local and long-distance phone service, Internet, broadband, and information technology solutions. In the United Kingdom, BT serves more than 21 million corporate and residential customers with 29.1 million exchange lines, as well as provides network services to other operators. The company, headquartered in London, generated $28.7 billion in revenue in 2002, with 108,600 employees. BT Group is a holding company consisting of four primary operating units: 1. BT Wholesaleprovides network services and solutions within the United Kingdom to communication companies, network operators, service providers, and other BT lines of business. 2. BT Ignitedelivers managed networks and communications solutions to multiplesite corporate customers that operate in one or more European countries. 3. BT Retailis the operating unit that serves business and residential end-user customers and represents the prime channel to market for other BT businesses. 4. BT Openworldprovides consumers and small and medium enterprises in the United Kingdom with a range of narrowband and broadband Internet access and related services. This case study focuses on BT Retail (Consumer and Business). BT Retail is the United Kingdoms largest communications service provider, in terms of market share, to residential and business markets, as well as the prime channel to market for other businesses within BT Group. BT Retail supplies business and residential customers with a wide range of communication products and services, including voice, data, Internet, and multimedia services. It also offers a comprehensive range of managed and packaged communications solutions.

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BT RETAIL Competitive Intelligence at BT 5

Phone and telegraph services in the United Kingdom were originally the monopoly of the General Post Ofce. This monopoly was maintained until the passage of a 1981 law that separated telecommunications from the General Post Office and placed it under the newly formed British Telecommunications. At that time, BT only had one primary competitor, Mercury Communications. Following the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1984, BT went public, and in 1990 the British government opened the market to additional phone competition. Competitive intelligence at BT evolved in the mid-1980s in response to increasing competition. Since that time, BT formed dedicated competitive intelligence groups for the consumer and business sides of BT Retail. Both teams interact with the BT Retail strategy group to help establish competitive and international strategy. In addition, over time the various BT Retail business units have developed tactical competitive intelligence units to support their day-to-day operations, which leaves the more indepth strategic roles to the two corporate competitive intelligence units. One influential factor for the competitive intelligence function within BT is regulation; BT operates within a largely regulated environment. Not only must BT comply with any rules or regulations promulgated by OFTEL, the British regulatory Ofce of Telecommunications established with the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1984, but it also is subject to British and European Competition (EC) law. Articles 81 and 82 of the EC law are concerned with ensuring fair competition in cases involving a European dimension. Both British and European competition laws prohibit agreements containing anti-competitive provisions and abuse of a dominant position in a relevant market. To ensure company compliance with such laws, BT has established its own set of competitive guidelines called BT APPLAUD, which provides guidance on: agreements, pricing, packaging, loyalty bonuses, abuse of customer information, undue preference, and denigration.
Consumer Competitive Intelligence

BT Consumer has had a competitive intelligence capability since the early 1990s in order to support competitive campaigns. The need for consumer competitive intelligence increased throughout the 1990s as cable companies in the United Kingdom began to build networks and attract customers from BT. Then, in 1995, OFTEL issued an order to ensure that BTs competitive information used with customers was

5 www.bt.com and www.hoovers.com, retrieved 10/01/2002.

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accurate. The order came in response to complaints about the unfair way BT allegedly portrayed its competitors. To promote compliance with this new law, BT formed a Customer Options Team to handle all competitor-related correspondence. Consumer Competitor Intelligence was then created and was charged with supplying the Customer Options Team sales advisers with regular, accurate, and compliant competitive information. Consumer Competitive Intelligence is part of a Campaigns and Competition organization and reports to BTs Competitive Programmes Team. The Competitive Programmes Team was formed in September 2000 as part of a wider organizational change that spawned a core team of competitor analysts and campaign managers. The aim of the organizational change was to produce more effective campaigns against key competitors, in part by more closely aligning competitor analysts and campaign managers. There are currently ve members of the Consumer Competitive Intelligence team. The primary users of Consumer Competitive Intelligence are campaign managers and call center representatives. Consumer Competitive Intelligence provides campaign managers with the analysis necessary to produce competitive campaign messages. There are three primary campaign managers that Consumer Competitive Intelligence serves: 1. reconnection campaign managermanages the campaign to reconnect customers who are currently with a cable company or have no phone at all; 2. reseller managermanages the campaign to migrate those customers who use a reseller for their calls, but still have a BT line; and 3. save managerresponsible for campaigns designed to retain customers who are about to leave BT for a competitor. Call centers, on the other hand, field calls from customers or prospective customers generated by a particular campaign. Consumer Competitive Intelligence provides call center representatives with two primary deliverables to enable them to effectively serve customers or prospects: an Electronic Price Guide (a spreadsheet comparison tool detailing BT Retail pricing compared to that of its competitors), and how to compete messages (textual messages that appear on the representatives screen on a per-competitor basis that he or she can use as talking points with customers and prospects, as appropriate). Secondarily, Consumer Competitive Intelligence supports Competitor Compliance (a group within Competitive Programmes that is charged with taking action against competitor malpractice and contributing BTs view in policy and regulatory decisions that affect advertising, promotion, and consumer protection), strategy, pricing design, and public relations. For example, Consumer Competitive Intelligence submits any instances of competitor malpractice that it discovers to the Competitor Compliance team for its use in complaints or cases reported to regulatory authorities.

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BT RETAIL Business Competitive Intelligence

The Business Competitive Intelligence team provides competitive intelligence for all BT Retail business segments. Key users of information provided by Business Competitive Intelligence are the sales and marketing groups within Business, deskbased and face-to-face account managers, and bid teams. Business Competitive Intelligence is part of the Customer Satisfaction and Competitor Intelligence team, which, in turn, is part of the Marketing Services team at BT Retail (Figure 39). The customer satisfaction team is responsible for event-driven customer satisfaction monitoring, which involves surveying customers about their experiences and interactions with BT, as well as their perception of similar experiences with competitors. BT conducts thousands of surveys per month to gather feedback from its customers. Competitive intelligence is an important part of the customer satisfaction initiative at BT because it helps establish benchmarks against which the customer satisfaction team can compare BT company information. As illustrated in Figure 39, there are four individuals on the customer satisfaction and competitor intelligence teams responsible for customer satisfaction efforts and three full-time employees dedicated to Business Competitive Intelligence. Business Competitive Intelligences primary media promoting and housing its deliverables is a dedicated intranet site called Combat, the brand for Business Competitive Intelligence at BT Retail (and the corollary to Consumer Competitive Intelligences dedicated intranet site, Relay). Although Combat is specically aimed at the business sales and marketing communities within BT Retail, it is accessed by employees across BT. Combat serves as an electronic repository for the following business competitive intelligence deliverables:

Organization of the Customer Satisfaction and Competitor Intelligence Team

Head of Customer Satisfaction and Competitor Intelligence Team Support

Customer Satisfaction Research Manager Customer Satisfaction Research Customer Satisfaction Research

Senior Customer Satisfaction Manager

Competitor Analyst Manager

Business Competitor and Market Intelligence

Competitor Analyst

Competitor Analyst

Figure 39

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Business Competitive Intelligence monthly bulletin (electronic competitive and information bulletin, with impact analysis); Combat briengs (fact and impact analysis about specic marketplace events); Newsash, a subscription-based service that alerts people via pager or voicemail to refer to Combat for more detail on an important news item; specically designed for account managers who may not have access to the Internet while traveling or meeting with customers/prospects; Sales Zone, a series of spotlights and management surveys highlighting competitive facts and gures; pricing tools and comparisons; competitor advertising (press advertising) and proles (basic competitor proles that are purchased from an outside provider); and Landscape (an analysis of emerging products and markets).

Marketplace Insight

BTs online business research and information service launched in 1997, intellact is a key component of competitive intelligence at BT. This service brings together high-quality market news and research along with the tools needed to quickly nd highly focused information. The brand name intellact was derived from the words intelligence and action, which acknowledged that this tool gave all users of the BT intranet valuable market intelligence to use in their marketing and sales initiatives. The service has grown to encompass internally commissioned BT research, by integrating and aggregating both internal and external sources. Although originally set up to service one division of BT, intellact is now widely used across all areas of the BT Group both in the United Kingdom and worldwide. The service is tailored to BTs requirements and focuses primarily on the information and communications technology market but also on consumer and business markets. The site aggregates the following content sources: news from more than 250 sources; published market research from leading communications and information technology analysts; company nancials, stockbroker, industry sector, and country information; BT-commissioned market research; and BT competitor and market intelligence. The content is arranged into easily navigable portals that provide a hierarchy for customers to navigate. For example, portals on each of BTs competitors automatically pull together on one page current information on that competitor, including: news, company proles, nancial results, stockbroker reports, analyst research reports, and internal BT research.

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The intellact service is used by people across the BT Group from all functional areas and at all levels. The top ve functions using intellact are: sales, IT, marketing, customer service, and strategy. BT employees use intellact for: competitor analysis and monitoring, preparation of business cases for products and services, account development plans, market sizing and forecasts, understanding industry trends in the customers marketplace, and understanding the impact of new technologies. Usage of intellact continues to grow steadily, month by month, and the site is now one of the most popular on the BT intranet.
Relationships Among BT Retail Competitive Intelligence Units

Although the various BT lines of business utilize competitive intelligence in different ways, intelligence professionals across BT Retail are periodically integrated by: attending quarterly pan-BT Retail meetings to share knowledge and research, discuss synergy among the various competitive intelligence groups, and establish common themes in telecommunications companies and improvements in competitive intelligence techniques; using the underlying information provided by intellact; and working together to produce strategic assessment reports on common competitors for the BT Retail strategy team. Consumer Competitive Intelligence and Combat interact on issues concerning both business and residential customers. Consumer Competitive Intelligence also works with market research to provide feedback on specific competitive questions featured in the regular BT Consumer Opinion Survey. Consumer Competitive Intelligence makes decisions on whether to keep or discard particular questions, updates question wording or response lists, and decides if new questions should be introduced to this survey. The intellact team works across the organization and has customers in all BT competitive intelligence teams in BT.
Skills Required of Competitive Intelligence Professionals There are currently 11 employees in the intellact

team. BT Retail seeks the following skills and characteristics in its competitive intelligence professionals and their work: Aggressive naturethe ability to work ahead of the competition and not in its wake. The ideal competitive intelligence professional should be able to work with the relevant BT Retail employees to highlight competitive activity and ensure appropriate action is taken.

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Accuracy of analysisaccurate production of competitive intelligence materials to both senior managers and sales advisers. Insightful analysisthe ability to analyze issues based on fact. Spotting the triggersthe ability to recognize the implications of new data and news information. Team playercan successfully work as part of a team and be able to contribute specialist knowledge and drive the team in the right competitive direction. Strong communication skillsthe ability to communicate effectively to all levels both inside and outside of the organization and to use appropriate communication tools. Commercial awarenesspossesses a broad appreciation of both marketing (consumer behavior, public relations, advertising, and promotion) and nance (basic financial analysis concepts as well as the impact of mergers and acquisitions and company failures).

The intellact team, due to the specific requirements of its business, has some unique skills that it requires of team members: contract and negotiation skills facilitation skills, communications industry knowledge, technical/content management knowledge, account management skills, marketing knowledge, business intelligence industry knowledge, and Web publishing skills.
Developing a Close Working Relationship

CI isnt an add-on. Every individual within BT has to have responsibility for CI as well. head of customer satisfaction, BT Retail Users are an integral part of the competitive intelligence process at BT. They are encouraged to submit any relevant competitive information they discover through online feedback. In addition, certain key users are also part of the intelligence organization, as will be described under Competitor Watch online. One of the key ways in which Consumer Competitive Intelligence at BT Retail develops close working relationships with its users is through recruitment. For example, two of the ve employees on the Consumer Competitive Intelligence team are once intelligence recipients. These two individuals, because of their BT backgrounds, have an excellent understanding of the needs of their user constituencies and bring to the team established relationships with key users. The Business Competitive Intelligence team develops close working relationships with its users by providing a wealth of competitive intelligence deliverables on Combat 77

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and then working one-on-one with individual account management or bid teams on a consultancy-type basis to address any specic information needs or concerns. There is a two-way information ow from the users in the eld back to competitive intelligence team members, who then analyze this information and, if appropriate, make it available to the rest of the organization through Combat. For example, there is a feedback button within Combat that users can apply to submit feedback or competitive information to the Business Competitive Intelligence team. The Business Competitive Intelligence team endeavors to make the information that it provides easy to access. For example, Combat is designed so that users can get the information they are seeking with one click of the mouse. In addition, the Business Competitive Intelligence team often takes the opportunity to educate its users about Combat (the information it provides and the best way to access that information) at key user meetings. When users suggest changes, Business Competitive Intelligence team members often incorporate those changes into Combat to better meet user needs. For example, business account managers expressed interest in having news feed directly in Combat, rather than having to switch between Combat (the Business Intelligence intranet site) and intellact (the pan-Retail electronic library) for information. In response, the Business Competitive Intelligence team worked with intellact to make that happen; an Applications Program Interface enables relevant news feeds to be posted directly on the Combat site from intellact for easy access by the salespeople. Close working relationships with users are fostered by intellact because it makes desired information easy to access through content personalization. Customers are able to subscribe to e-mail alerts to keep updated on new content being added to the site that is pertinent to their own interests. Additionally, the myintellact services, launched in July 2001, introduced the ability for users to set up their own personalized newspaper, with newspaper sections to reflect individual areas of interest. Many intellact services are available via e-mail. Run similar to a business within a business, intellacts standards of customer service and delivery for its customers aim to match those of an external service provider. It is a subscription service, charged out on an annual basis to each BT division. Each year, service-level agreements are negotiated with each BT division that specify the services to be delivered by intellact and the fee for the coming year. Each BT division is managed as a customer account with a nominated account manager within the intellact team who is responsible for creating and implementing an account development plan. BT Retail competitive intelligence professionals have found that developing a good relationship with intelligence users involves whether or not the users ask questions about the intelligence, their desire for the competitive intelligence function to be involved in their processes, their use of the intelligence to shape campaigns and communications, and the existence of a feedback loop.

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BT RETAIL How Users Apply Competitive Intelligence During Implementation

Consumer Competitive Intelligence impacts four key activities within BT Retail: 1. Pricing strategy and designBoth Consumer and Business Competitive Intelligence provide feedback for an annual BT Retail pricing strategy paper. This paper sets the tone for any pricing changes to occur in the next nancial year. Competitive Intelligence significantly contributes to the design and style of new pricing initiatives and also helps determine whether or not the new prices will be competitive in the marketplace. Both competitive intelligence groups have, over time, built up a relationship of trust and credibility with members of the strategy team, so that feedback from competitive intelligence in pricing design is readily accepted. 2. Tactical, ad hoc campaignsIn instances that require immediate response because of a competitive action, Competitive Intelligence provides the analysis for BT Retail to respond quickly and protect company market share. For example, when a local communications company launched cable service in the fourth quarter of 2001, Consumer Competitive Intelligence responded with an ad hoc project to defend against market share loss. 3. Complaints, both by BT and against BTCompetitive Intelligence receives daily examples of competitive activity from BT employees throughout the company through a Competitor Watch feedback button on both the Relay and Combat Web sites. The teams assess this information and determine whether or not it is worth a formal complaint. If so, Competitive Intelligence provides this information to the Competitor Compliance group, along with the analysis to substantiate the complaint. Consumer Competitive Intelligence also provides information in defense of BT against complaints that the company is in violation of industry regulation. 4. Employee moraleConsumer Competitive Intelligence produces internal communications within BT Retail promoting BTs efforts and sharing positive stories of business protected or won. For example, Consumer Competitive Intelligence periodically publishes competitive intelligence success stories on its Relay intranet site. In addition, for specic campaigns, Consumer Competitive Intelligence produces and internally distributes credit card-sized cards carrying either campaign messages or promoting the Relay Web site. Morale-building efforts are particularly important because BT operates in such a highly competitive marketplace and had been losing market share (until October 2001). Positive competitive intelligence news helps emphasize to BT employees that the competitive intelligence function is protecting and seeking to enhance the companys market position. Many such initiatives are defensive, to protect BTs core revenue in the call market, per the companys strategic objectives. The use of competitive intelligence in implementations initiatives is enabled by the structure of the Consumer Competitive Intelligence organization itself; competitive intelligence analysts and their key users,

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such as campaign managers, work closely together because they are part of the same teams and campaigns. The following example illustrates how competitive intelligence was used in a major implementation initiative and demonstrates the handoff between Consumer Competitive Intelligence and the user. It occurred when a popular national newspaper decided to offer free UK calls to its readers. In response, Consumer Competitive Intelligence scrutinized the offer and took a number of action steps to provide the Programmes Manager with the information he needed to quickly and effectively respond. Specically, the team: gathered competitive intelligence background and information on the competitorThe Consumer Competitive Intelligence team analyzed the offer, including the ne print, and also researched the success of similar offers the company had made available in the past. developed models and prolesThe team tapped into information from the market research team that analyzed the reasons why consumers defect from one phone service to another, developed proles of such people, and created a prole of the typical reader of the competitors periodical. created a competitor price comparisonConsumer Competitive Intelligence also developed an analysis that mapped the terms and conditions of the competitors offer with those of BTs service in order to determine if and where BT had a competitive advantage. This analysis was incorporated on a fast-track basis as part of its electronic price guide and forwarded to the call center so that representatives could effectively handle incoming calls based on the competitors advertisement. In addition, Consumer Competitive Intelligence put together a brieng about the situation in the internal company newsletter, which referred the reader to Consumer Competitive Intelligences intranet site for more detailed information. This information and analysis was then provided to the key user of the intelligence, the program manager. The ow of competitive intelligence information to and from the program manager is illustrated in Figure 40. The program manager lters the information that he receives from Consumer Competitive Intelligence to a number of other areas for feedback and reaction, such as legal and regulatory for advertising copy clearance and approval. Consumer Competitive Intelligence had anticipated the type of substantiation that would be required by its user constituency and attempted to provide that level of analysis in advance. The analysis provided by Consumer Competitive Intelligence in this instance allowed the program manager to get immediate buy-in and support from the larger group and ultimately enabled him to react quickly with a competing offer that halted the competitor in its tracks. Information from the Business Competitive Intelligence team also is used in strategic and tactical implementation initiatives. For example, from a strategic standpoint, input from Business Competitive Intelligence is used in addition to input from Consumer Competitive Intelligence in establishing company pricing strategy and

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design. On the tactical front, Business Competitive High-level Process for Delivery Intelligence provides the information, analysis, and relof Competitive Intelligence evant implications to sales and bid teams that enable them to propose or defend services to customers or Programmes Competitor Competitor Manager Intelligence Compliance prospects. On occasion, members of the Business Competitive Intelligence group will serve as members of such teams. Business Competitive Intelligence team DATA and Channel Marketing Segmentation Management Services members also act in an advisory role with regard to specic campaigns and advertising. Users apply the information they receive from Advertising Planning Legal and intellact in a wide variety of ways, from competitor Agencies Team Regulatory analysis to account development planning to bid qualication to understanding the customers marketFigure 40 place. One recent example of how intellact impacted a user decision occurred in a global bid situation. BT was in competition with a global competitor in a potential networking contract. To prepare a winning bid, the intellact team was asked for input on the competitors global networking strategy. Team members also were able to discover, through their research on intellact, what the competitors strategy was in implementing global networks and, in addition, information on the bid assessors view of the future of networking. The bid team then used this information in developing its proposal and was successful in winning the contract. In another example, the intellact team created a personalized online news channel for a bid team that tracked a particular competitor consortium, the members of the consortium, and the latest trends in the technology being implemented. This news channel kept the team up-to-date with the latest developments concerning competitors, was rolled out to the whole bid team, and helped to prepare the team to win the bid. Competitive intelligence professionals at BT Retail have identified three key characteristics of competitive intelligence deliverables that lead users to action: 1. relevancythe data and analysis must be relevant to users jobs; 2. factualthe information provided must be substantiated, not based on hearsay; and 3. comprehensiveinformation provided by competitive intelligence should contain enough substance to enable the users to take action. Over time, competitive intelligence professionals and users have developed standards for typical competitive intelligence deliverables. For example, the initial design of the Electronic Price Guide used by call center representatives was developed through user feedback, and any proposed changes to the spreadsheet are accomplished with the input of users.

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BT RETAIL Feedback from Users and Indicators of Use

Competitive intelligence professionals at BT believe the following indicators are present when competitive intelligence affects the decision-making process: ad hoc market research where specic questions reect the usage of competitive intelligence-based analysis; outcome of the project, which will indicate if the advice of the competitive intelligence team was accepted; content of the analysis (e.g., if competitive intelligence information is included as part of a larger analysis); and sales gures (competitive intelligence professionals believe they can claim a share of revenues earned or saved as a result of information they provided). On the other hand, situations occasionally arise when users choose not to incorporate the competitive intelligence information provided to them in their implementation efforts. For example, periodically a senior manager in advertising may decide to change the message that the competitive intelligence team had advocated. This may be because the senior manager is thinking from a larger perspective, which the competitive intelligence team may not be party to.
Measuring Value From a Users Perspective

Competitive intelligence is funded out of the overall organizational marketing operations and sales budget at BT Retail. Consumer Competitive Intelligence employs a number of mechanisms to measure the effectiveness of the information that it has provided to its users. One means is through questionnaires. For example, specically regarding the Electronic Price Guide, Consumer Competitive Intelligence administered a questionnaire to the call center verification team about call center representatives use of the price guide and its perceived effectiveness. This data was then correlated with revenue estimates regarding customer saves/defectors, and a model was developed demonstrating the total amount of revenue that the Electronic Price Guide was used for (and also was not used for). For those instances where the Electronic Price Guide was not used, the Consumer Competitive Intelligence team followed up with the call center to explore why it is not used. In addition, Consumer Competitive Intelligence administers an online questionnaire about the effectiveness of its electronic newsletter. Business Competitive Intelligence also administers user questionnaires to gauge its effectiveness. The team commissions an annual survey of users to conrm that the information they are delivering is meeting the needs of users. The team also recently engaged an external firm to conduct a series of cold-calls of users to gather their feedback on the effectiveness of Business Competitive Intelligence. The intellact team is funded by the operating divisions of BT. Ultimately the value of intellact is judged by the willingness of customers to fund the service. A key mechanism for the intellact team is a market intelligence forum. The market intelligence forum is composed of key contacts in each division such as buyers and managers 82

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of research who are empowered to represent the requirements of their respective divisions. The intellact team hosts a monthly forum, which has an agenda typically including: supplier presentations and evaluation, customer requirements, planning budgets and contingency spending, marketing and account development, product development, and knowledge sharing. It is a key mechanism for staying close to customer requirements. In addition, the intellact team holds a monthly meeting with key contacts in some customer divisions to discuss issues and developments relevant to that division in more detail. Users of intellact are surveyed to gauge user satisfaction and to determine time and cost savings facilitated by the service so that return on investment gures can be generated. An online customer survey conducted in 2001 prompted 900 responses from users across BT. The survey indicated that cumulatively, intellact users saved 3 million in time savings and approximately the same in dollar savings from using intellact s services. Revenue gains also are tracked; more than 50 customers indicated revenue gains of 10,000 or more. One of the questions on the survey specically regards how intellact has helped users to better understand the competitive environment; 89 percent of respondents in the 2001 survey indicated that intellact has helped them in this respect. This information is analyzed per division and is, along with verbatim comments and usage statistics, used for service-level agreement negotiations with each division the following year. The effectiveness of the intellact service is measured through a number of user-feedback exercises. For example, the intellact team conducted a series of focus groups whereby users were observed using the service to help the team better understand how user-friendly the service was. The intellact team has also hosted requirements workshops with customers. It also incorporates feedback from a senior customer review, whereby the responsible director solicits feedback from executive-level users of the service. The service also incorporates an online feedback form. Consumer and Business Competitive Intelligence both monitor the number of hits on their respective intranet sites, Relay and Combat, as another measure of the informations effectiveness. The intellact team also closely monitors usage and has a commercial package installed on the intellact Web server to facilitate usage tracking. Both intranet sites incorporate feedback buttons, where users can submit competitive information or feedback to the Consumer and Business teams. Other metrics to gauge the effectiveness of competitive intelligence are project- or campaign-specic. For example, in the case of specic projects, Consumer Competitive Intelligence may measure advertising effectiveness and customers recruited or lost. Consumer Competitive Intelligence professionals strive to keep in touch with various campaign measures, such as direct mail response, to better understand which messages are the most effective in the marketplace. Finally, both Consumer and Business Competitive Intelligence attempt to estimate the value of the information that they provided to their users. The Business Competitive Intelligence team, for example, uses the value of the successful bids that

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it supported as a proxy for the value of the competitive intelligence information, because the information provided was a key factor in winning the bid.
Lessons Learned Deliver competitive intelligence the way the company culture dictates. BT is a paperless

company; most employees, including those in the eld, have laptops. Therefore, competitive intelligence delivery at BT Retail is also predominantly electronic. Both Consumer and Business have established their own dedicated intranet sites, where many of the intelligence deliverables can be downloaded by users on the move. Teamwork is critical to effective delivery. Consumer and Business Competitive Intelligence work very closely with their users on a daily basis in order to respond to competitive threats. The organization structure itself (where competitive intelligence providers and users are part of the same team) enables this teamwork environment and streamlines competitive intelligence processes. Competitive intelligence should be focused on implementation. Standard, routine deliverables, such as competitor proles, are outsourced to maximize the time of the team. In addition, templates are developed so that new intelligence deliverables can be quickly and easily published to the intranet site for access by users. Make receiving intelligence deliverables and interacting with intelligence easy. This will encourage users to continue to use competitive intelligence and view the competitive intelligence provider as a valued source.
Leverage the companys existing technology to deliver competitive intelligence to users quickly and easily. BT is a high-technology company with an established network.

It has leveraged its knowledge of technology and its network to deliver competitive intelligence information effectively and efciently, through the Relay, Combat, and intellact sites. Lessons from the intellact team on how to become more user-driven in competitive intelligence includes: Encourage senior management support by getting them to use the competitive intelligence services. If possible, make the benets of using the service tangible for the users (such as dollar amount of sales the service helped to win and costs the service helped to save). Steady, continual improvement in services offered is critical to keep users happy with the service. The intellact service is upgrading in 2003 to keep pace with users expectations and demands.

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Focus on marketing efforts to increase awareness of the service. The intellact team markets its service actively to raise awareness and drive use. The team has developed a marketing communications plan that is reviewed weekly. Examples of marketing activity include: banner advertising on intellact and other BT and divisional intranet sites, a weekly newsletter showcasing new content and services, case studies describing users successful experiences with the service, and external information suppliers that market the service. Finally, branding of the service is vital to increase internal name recognition. Relay, intellact, and Combat have branded its service to enforce top-of-mind recognition in the eyes of its users. The intellact logo is posted on every page of the service.

The three pieces of advice shared by BT Retail representatives at the site visit to shorten the process of developing a more user-driven organization are as follows. 1. Concentrate on providing actionable competitive intelligence that will help the user achieve better results. 2. Focus on key competitors. 3. Get employees involved in collecting competitive intelligence and in customer service in order to understand how competitive the company really is.

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