07_UserDriven_BTRetail

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B T R E T A I L

BT Group p.l.c. (BT), formerly British Telecommunications, is the United

Kingdoms leading communications carrier. It provides local and long-distancephone 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. BTWholesaleprovides network services and solutions within the United Kingdom

to communication companies, network operators, service providers, and other

BT lines of business.

2. BTIgnitedelivers managed networks and communications solutions to multiple-site 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 otherbusinesses 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.

User-Driven Competitive Intelligence: Crafting the Value Proposition 2003 APQC

U S E R - D R I V E N C O M P E T I T I V E I N T E L L I G E N C E

BT Retail


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Competitive Intelligence at BT5

Phone and telegraph services in the United Kingdom were originally the mono-

poly of the General Post Office. 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 ofthe 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 in-

depth strategic roles to the two corporate competitive intelligence units.

One influential factor for the competitive intelligence function within BT isregulation; BT operates within a largely regulated environment. Not only must BT

comply with any rules or regulations promulgated by OFTEL, the British regulatory

Office 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 Co mpetitive 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


5www.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 five members of the Consumer Competitive Intelligence team.

The primary users of Consumer Competitive Intelligence are campaign managers

and call center representatives. Consumer Competitive Intelligence providescampaign 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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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, desk-

based 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 satisfac-

tion monitoring, which involves surveying customers about their experiences and

interactions with BT, as well as their perception of similar experiences with competi-

tors. BT conducts thousands of surveys per month to gather feedback from its cus-

tomers. 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 employeesdedicated 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 specifically aimed at the business sales and marketing com-

munities 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 andCompetitor Intelligence Team

Figure 39

Competitor AnalystManager

Senior CustomerSatisfaction Manager

Team Support

Customer SatisfactionResearch Manager

Business Competitorand Market Intelligence

Head of Customer Satisfaction and Competitor Intelligence

CustomerSatisfaction

Research

CustomerSatisfaction

Research

CompetitorAnalyst

CompetitorAnalyst


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Business Competitive Intelligence monthly bulletin (electronic competitive and

information bulletin, with impact analysis);

Combat briefings (fact and impact analysis about specific marketplace events);

Newsflash, a subscription-based service that alerts people via pager or voice-

mail to refer to Combat for more detail on an important news item; specifically

designed for account managers who may not have access to the Internet whiletraveling or meeting with customers/prospects;

Sales Zone, a series of spotlights and management surveys highlighting

competitive facts and figures;

pricing tools and comparisons;

competitor advertising (press advertising) and profiles (basic competitor profiles

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

find highly focused information. The brand name intellactwas 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 communicationstechnology 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 financials, 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 profiles, financial results, stockbroker reports, analyst research reports, and

internal BT research.


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76User-Driven Competitive Intelligence: Crafting the Value Proposition 2003 APQC

B T R E T A I L

The intellact service is used by people across the BT Group from all functional areas

and at all levels. The top five 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 alsoworks 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 Co mpetitive 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 contributespecialist 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 finance

(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 someunique 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 five 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


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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 specific information needs or concerns. There

is a two-way information flow from the users in the field back to competitive intelli-

gence 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 feed-

back button within Combat that users can apply to submit feedback or competitiveinformation 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 Intelligenceintranet 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 ofinterest. 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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How Users Apply Co mpetitive 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 financial year. Competitive

Intelligence significantly contributes to the design and style of new pricinginitiatives and also helps determine whether or not the new prices will be com-

petitive 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 morale

Consumer Competitive Intelligence produces internalcommunications 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 specific 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, ConsumerCompetitive 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. Specifically, the team:

gathered competitive intelligence background and information on the competitorThe

Consumer Competitive Intelligence team analyzed the offer, including the fine

print, and also researched the success of similar offers the company had made

available in the past.

developed models and profilesThe team tapped into information from the mar-

ket research team that analyzed the reasons why consumers defect from one phone

service to another, developed profiles of such people, and created a profile of thetypical 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 briefing 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 flow of competitive intelligence information

to and from the program manager is illustrated in Figure 40. The program manager

filters 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 stand-

point, 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

Intelligence provides the information, analysis, and rel-

evant implications to sales and bid teams that enable

them to propose or defend services to customers or

prospects. On occasion, members of the Business

Competitive Intelligence group will serve as membersof such teams. Business Competitive Intelligence team

members also act in an advisory role with regard to spe-

cific campaigns and advertising.

Users apply the information they receive from

intellact in a wide variety of ways, from competitor

analysis to account development planning to bid

qualification to understanding the customers market-

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 potentialnetworking 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 dis-

cover, through their research on intellact, what the competitors strategy was in imple-

menting 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 pro-

posal 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 par-

ticular 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 wholebid 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.

High-level Process for Deliveryof Competitive Intelligence

Figure 40

CompetitorCompliance

ProgrammesManager

CompetitorIntelligence

DATA andSegmentation

MarketingServices

ChannelManagement

PlanningTeam

AdvertisingAgencies

Legal andRegulatory


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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 specific questions reflect the usage of competitive

intelligence-based analysis;

outcome of the project, which will indicate if the advice of the competitiveintelligence team was accepted;

content of the analysis (e.g., if competitive intelligence information is included as

part of a larger analysis); and

sales figures (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 incor-

porate the competitive intelligence information provided to them in their imple-

mentation 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, specifically regarding the Electronic Price Guide,

Consumer Competitive Intelligence administered a questionnaire to the call centerverification 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 confirm 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 intelli-

gence forum is composed of key contacts in each division such as buyers and managers


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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 withkey 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 figures 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

intellacts 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 specifically

regards how intellact has helped users to better understand the competitive environ-ment; 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-levelusers 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 intellactWeb 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-specific. For example, in the case of specific 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 field, 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, routinedeliverables, such as competitor profiles, 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 efficiently, 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 benefits 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 market-

ing 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 externalinformation 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.

07_UserDriven_BTRetail

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