5 Can’t Miss Breakout Sessions at SCIP’s IntelliCon 2020

Whether you’re in the planning stage or are full throttle into your competitive intelligence strategy, SCIP’s IntelliCon Virtual Conference is the premier place to learn how to take your intelligence to the next level.

First, why competitive intelligence?

Let’s be clear; competition is a good thing. It validates ideas and is a sign of increased market demand and growth potential. Most importantly, it boosts innovation and challenges the status quo. If you’re going to be in business, you have to love the game. But you also have to know how to play the game. This is where Competitive Intelligence (CI) comes into play.

Competitive intelligence is your secret-weapon when finding new market trends, anticipating competitors’ moves, and understanding how you are viewed compared to your competition. 

Well-executed competitive intelligence removes potential bias and guesswork when deliberating on a strategic move for your product, services, merger and acquisition, risk reduction, and go-to-market plans. 

The Top 5 SCIP Intellicon Breakout Sessions I’m Excited About: 

#1: Competitive Intelligence as an Enabler to Formulate & Execute Company Strategy – Best Practices from Cross-Industry Case Studies

  • Piyush Arora, Strategy & Planning Lead, TD Wealth
  • Arora has a wealth of experience in executing a competitive intelligence strategy across different industries. Given his diverse perspective, I’m looking forward to listening about his key learnings and takeaways from building this practice across various organizations.

#2: Establishing a Market Intelligence Portal to Become an Invaluable Resource

  • Steve Douvas, AVP/Sr Market Research Consultant, FM Global 
  • The competitive intelligence lead in a company is one that genuinely sits cross-function. When deployed effectively, competitive intelligence impacts the product, market, sales, risk, and strategy teams. Douvas’s session will tackle how change management in an organization ensures the program succeeds and the company is able to benefit from it.

#3: A Competitive Spirit – Driving Excellence, Innovation and Competitive Mindset Across an Organization

  • Lisa Goldberg, Senior Director of Market Strategy and CI, Ellucian
  • The dominant discussion around competitive intelligence tends to focus externally on your organization.  Goldberg’s session highlights how adding a little spice (aka competitive spirit) into the internal organization can boost innovation and progress within your team. 

#4: Friend or Foe? Using Competitive Intelligence to Assess Non-Traditional Players as Potential Strategic Partners and Disruptive Threats

  • Aiyshen Padilla, Vice President, Enterprise Strategic Relationships, AARP & Merrell H. Moorhead, Head of Intelligence Products & Services, LAC Group
  • In a case study format (which I prefer to a lecture-style), Padilla and Moorhead will explore how to differentiate when an adjacent company is ideal for an alliance or should be marked as an upcoming threat or competition. The fine-line that separates these two is so common, especially in booming markets where everyone is competing for market share, that I’m really interested in seeing how AARP approached this.

#5: Analytical Thinking and Reporting for Competitive Intelligence/Market Intelligence Producers

  • Stephen Hernan, Senior Manager of Research & Market Intelligence, GE Healthcare
  • This session is all about taking the most impactful insights you have and delivering it to your target audience – executives, product, marketing, sales, risk and compliance, etc. I am hoping Stephen will have tactical examples on how to filter for noise and bias and deliver a “quick-take” analysis for your stakeholder.

Whether you want to focus on formulating competitive intelligence strategies or want to explore how competitive intelligence can assess strategic partners, there is something for everyone during these sessions. Follow the link here to sign-up for some (or all) of the sessions.

Erin Pearson
Vice President, Marketing Posts

Erin Pearson is the Director of GTM for Insightsfirst at Evalueserve. She has previously worked on the commercial side of both large and small organizations and loves learning the perspectives of new people. Outside of work, she is an animal-lover with 2 pets and typically at least one foster animal. She also enjoys traveling and has been to all 7 continents.

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