Analysis Methods - IAFIE 2013 - Pierre Memheld

Analysis MethodsOrganization, understanding, presentation, decision

Pierre Memheld - IAFIE 2013

The Plastic Cube Market

Rubikscube ™

Case

“Cube de Luxe” is willing to change its position on the

emerging markets for their turnover potential;

“Cube de Luxe” is heavily investing on R&D to keep his

innovation and quality leadership;

“Cube de Luxe” has also to adapt its offers in front of

the usage evolutions on the Cube market;

Objective: using various methods, analyze the

above issues in order to help “Cube de Luxe” to

anticipate and take decision in front of its

competitors.


Issues to analyze

“Pudong Cube” has announced the construction of a

new production chain;

“Indian Cube” creates a partnership with Cubes’n

Shops (UK) to distribute its cubes in Europe and USA;

“Klein Cube” and “Matrix Cube” creates a common

production platform and should lower their price by 40%;

“Cubos da Brazil” acquires the “Nihon Cube” (JP)

patents, technological leader but commercial outsider.

Identified threats: competition on prices with “Klein

Cube” / “Matric Cube” and Pudong Cube.


« La plus grande erreur de l’esprit est de croire en quelque chose car quelqu’un veut qu’il en soit ainsi » Louis Pasteur

Analysis Process


Cycle


Customer

Needs

Planning

Collection

Exploitation

Analysis

Production

Objective


Analysis

Needs

Sources

Collection

New

Information

Competitor

New

Needs

Customers

Issues

Actionable

Analysis

Phasis

Market

Objectives

Context Means

Competitors

Environment

Constraints

Analysis

PlansReturn

On Exp.

Analysis

Decision

Decision Concepts Scenarii Synthesis ExecutionPierre Memheld - IAFIE 2013

Method


Decision

Context

Environment

Competitors

Conception

Text Mining

Mapping

Social Networks

Distribution

Benchmarking

Tendancies Analysis

PEST-EL

Experts, Patents

Organizational

Behaviour

Value Chain

Financial Analysis

SWOT

Brainstorming

War Games

Risks Mitigation

Sectorial Models

Scenarii Analysis

Strategic Planning

ACH

Decision Profiles

« Savoir pour prévoir, prévoir pour pouvoir » Auguste Comte

Implementation


Context: Text Mining


Context: Text Mining

Who are the key competitors of “Cube de Luxe”

By analyzing press releases and articles we have

been able to see that “Matrix Cube” and “Klein

Cube” was investing on R&D while “Cubos da

Brazil” was financing its development by loans.


Context: Mapping


Context: Mapping

What are the key competitors’ market’s shares,

evolutions and strategic moves?

We identified two opposite strategic moves,

emerging markets’ players towards Europe and

South America, and European/USA’s players

towards emerging markets.


Context: Social Network


Context: Social Networks

Who are the key decision makers, and

researchers, of the competitors?

We have been able to identify three different

researchers groups for the cube technology,

linked between them by the R&D executives of

companies and public research centers.


Context: Geographical Analysis


Context: Geographical Analysis

How are organized manufacturing and

distribution of “Pudong Cube”

This approach has allowed us to understand that

Pudong was dependent of several

distribution/retail networks and was not

targeting primarily the European market.


Environment: Benchmarking


Environment: Benchmarking

How to compare different competitors with

common criteria/keys?

It’s possible to have a synthetic view of each

company and compare them from a commercial

or innovation focus: “Cubos da Brazil”.


Environment: Time Lines


Environment: Time Lines

Is it possible to visualize competitor’s moves on

a five years period?

It allowed us to visualize that competitors from

emerging countries were more agressive since

two years while american’s or german’s

maintened their position.


Environment: PEST-EL


Environment: PEST-EL

Is it possible to anticipate trends and

consumption potentials?

If “emerging” markets have a better growth

potential, their buying power is still lower than in

Europe, so as of today the europeans markets

remain interesting with high buying powers.


Environment: Experts, Patents, …


Environment: Experts, Patents, …

What are the research axis of the competitors?

Some competitors create partnerships to

produce parts in common or even develop a

specific price’s strategy as the “Cube de Luxe”’s

sales network reported in the USA.


Competitors: Organizational Behaviors


Competitors: Organizational Behaviors

What is the internal decision process of each

competitor?

It has been possible to identify the export

manager of “Indian Cube” as the key person of

the partnership with “Cubes’n Shops”, due to his

family ties in England within the indian diaspora.


Competitors: Value Chain


Competitors: Value Chain

How the competitors are organized to lower the

sale’s prices?

In this case, competitors from emerging

countries don’t support some social and fiscal

costs which is for them a clear competitive

advantage.

But in our case the best sale’s price was not

offered by such a competitor.


Competitors: Financial Analysis


Competitors: Financial Analysis

What are the investments capacities of each

competitor?

We have been able to identify the group of banks

which was funding the “Matrix Cube”’s

commercial network expansion.


Competitors: SWOT


Competitors: SWOT

What are the SWOT’s of competitors?

This global view has permitted to have a fast

comparison of each player strategy, including

“Cube de Luxe”, in order to position the

company.


Conception: « Brainstorming »


Conception: « Brainstorming »

How to position “Cube de Luxe” in front of his

competitors?

“Cube de Luxe” has been able to anticipate and

react to the main evolutions of its market, which

were not the ones the company was thinking

about.


Conception: Risks’ Mitigation


Conception: Risks’ Mitigation

Where to invest and with which economic and

security risks?

This approach has permitted to conduct due

diligence with future potential partners of “Cube

de Luxe” as some were connected with local

organized crime organizations for money

laundering.


Conception: Sectorial Models

Indicators

Means

Action Modes

Decision

Objectives

Markets

Sector Cubes

New

Partnerships

Distribution

Network Choice

Benchmark

Business Lawyers

Products

New

Factory

Investments

Banks Loans

Sales Network

Imports

Logistic

Contracts

Existing

Products Change

New

Innovation

Patents

External R&D

Existing

Services

Marketing

Research


Conception: Sectorial Models


What are the strategic options competitors can

adopt in order to develop their market shares?

It appeared that due to their commercial

organization, “Pudong Cube” and “Indian Cube”

were obliged to be distributed by networks

where their competitors are already present.

Conception: War Games


Conception: War Games

How my competitors are going to react to my

own decisions?

War Games have permitted to refine the future

“Cube de Luxe” strategies based on collected

information/intelligence in order to gain

advantage on competitors in selected markets.


Decision: « Analysis of Competing Hypotheses »


Decision: « Analysis of Competing Hypotheses »

How to asses options a competitor will choose?

ACH gave us the ability to see the more

“threatening” competitors where not the ones

from emerging countries but “Matrix Cube” and

“Klein Cube” due to their commercial offensives

on commercial services.


Decision: Decision Profiles


Decision: Decision Profiles

How the Indian minister of trade take his

decisions?

“Cube de Luxe”, in coordination with “Klein

Cube”, has conducted a negotiation with India to

lower the import taxes as “Indian Cube” has an

advantage when importing in Europe.


Decision: Scenarii Analysis


Decision: Scenarii Analysis

Which decision to take for an investment or a

market entry?

“Cube de Luxe” has taken the decision to

concentrate its efforts on mature markets then to

invest in manufacturing facilities based in

emerging countries.


Decision: Strategic Planning


Decision: Strategic Planning

How to visualize, in terms of “space” and “time”,

a strategy?

“Cube de Luxe has built its own “strategic

dashboard” to follow the implementation of its

strategy, including its competitors’ moves.


« La connaissance est un moyen de survivre en comprenant » Michel Foucault

Constraints & Limits


De l’information à la décision

Decisions Informations


From information to decision

“Cube de Luxe” must take strategic and

commercial decisions …

… while the time necessary to collect and

analyzed the information required to do so is

longer than the “market time” or financial and

commercial imperatives.


Known limits and solutions


Limits Solutions

Methods

Expertise

Analysis Means

Monitori,g

Process

Biases

Information Overload

Availability

Known limits and solutions

Analysis mistakes of this case despite mastered

methods:

- Needs expression

- Analysis biases

- Customer focus

- …


« La connaissance c’est l’expérience, tout le reste n’est que de l’information » A. Einstein

Conclusion


Which method to use and when?



Can we use all or one method for every

case/situation?

Can we adapt an analysis method to be used out

of its original context creation?

Shall we create “new” analysis methods for new

situations?

Methods are first of all a way of seeing … and a

reference to process an information and then

learn.


