Table of contents
Appendix 1: Abbreviation list...2
Appendix 2: List of interviewees and workshop attendants ...3
Appendix 3: Historical Overview of LeasePlan Corporation...4
Appendix 4: Organisational Structure ...5
Appendix 5: Presence LeasePlan Group...6
Appendix 6: Business Development - Organisational Chart...7
Appendix 7: The competitive environment ...8
Appendix 8: Contents of a competitor profile...9
Appendix 9: Steps of a successful benchmarking process... 10
Appendix 10: The intelligence hierarchy ... 11
Appendix 11: Supplements to Marketing Information Systems... 13
Appendix 12: Interview questions... 16
Appendix 13: Overview of tools currently used within LeasePlan ... 17
Appendix 14: Required data ... 18
Appendix 15: Sources... 19
Appendix 16: Templates for analysis ... 20
Appendix 17: Screen dumps CI tool suitable for small countries ... 21
Appendix 1: Abbreviation list
Australia AU Austria AT Belgium BE Brazil BR
Czech Republic CZ
Denmark DK Finland FI France FR Germany DE Greece GR Hungary HU India IN Ireland IE Italy IT Luxembourg LU
The Netherlands NL
New Zealand NZ
Norway NO Poland PL Portugal PT Slovakia SK Spain ES Sweden SE Switzerland CH
United Kingdom UK
USA US
South Africa (alliance) SA
LeasePlan LP
LeasePlan Corporation LPCorp
LeasePlan International LPI
Group Services – Business Development GS-BD
Operating country OpCo
Competitor Intelligence CI
3 Appendix 2: List of interviewees and workshop attendants
Interviewees
LeasePlan Corp: International Communications Manager
LeasePlan Corp: Manager from Corporate Strategy and Development LeasePlan CZ: Commercial Manager
LeasePlan DE: Product Development Director
LeasePlan FR: Marketing Director, Communication & Quality LeasePlan I: Marketing Manager
LeasePlan NL: Business Intelligence Advisor LeasePlan PT: Commercial Director
LeasePlan SA: Marketing Director LeasePlan UK: Marketing Director
LeasePlan US: Senior Vice President Marketing
Marketing Strategic Team Meeting (14-04-2004)
Senior Vice President Business Development International communications manager Director Market Development
Marketing Manager LPNL
Marketing Director, Communication & Quality Commercial manager
Communications manager Marketing manager
Trainee Business Development
Workshop attendants (08-06-04)
LeasePlan BE: Marketing Manager
LeasePlan Corp: International Market Development Manager LeasePlan Corp: Intranet Manager
LeasePlan Corp: Product Development Manager LeasePlan CZ: Senior Sales Manager
LeasePlan DE: Director Sales LeasePlan FR: Product Manager LeasePlan I: Marketing Executive
Marketing Manager
LeasePlan NL: Business Intelligence Advisor
(The names are taken out due to confidentiality reasons)
Appendix 3: Historical Overview of LeasePlan Corporation
Year Event
1963 Start of LeasePlan in equipment leasing.
1970 Pioneering of fleet leasing.
1972 Start of internationalisation process with the incorporation of LeasePlan Belgium.
1990 Bank Mees & Hope acquires 100% of LeasePlan Holding N.V.
1992 ABN AMRO Bank N.V. acquires 100% of LeasePlan Holding N.V.
1993 LeasePlan Holding N.V. obtains full-scale bank license.
1994 LeasePlan Holding N.V. name changes to ABN AMRO Lease Holding N.V.
1994 Amstel Lease Maatschappij N.V., Auto Lease Holland B.V. and Leaseconcept b.v. join the Group.
1997 ABN AMRO Lease Holding N.V. obtains A+1 Commercial Paper rating from Standard & Poor's.
1998 ABN AMRO Lease Holding acquires the Dutch company KPN Autolease.
2000 Joint venture Keddy Services (UK) and Qual-Effic Services (USA) comes into effect on 1 January under the name QEK Global Solutions.
2000 ABN AMRO Lease Holding outlines a revised business strategy, which will be incorporated in the years ahead. The management structure is modified accordingly.
2000 ABN AMRO Lease Holding acquires Dial Group present in Italy, Spain, France and the UK.
2000 ABN AMRO Lease Holding sells the Dutch equipment leasing activities (Amstel Lease) to ABN AMRO Bank N.V.
2000 ABN AMRO Lease Holding acquires Consolidated Service Corporation (CSC) in the U.S.A.
2001 ABN AMRO Lease Holding integrates network of damage repair companies in Dutch-Belgian pilot project CarflexS/JB.
2001 ABN AMRO Lease Holding decides to integrate the leasing activities of LeasePlan Netherlands, Auto Lease Holland and Leaseconcept in one company, LeasePlan Nederland B.V.
2002 Start of CARVANTIS in France.
2003 ABN AMRO Lease Holding renamed to LeasePlan Corporation N.V.
5
Appendix 4: Organisational Structure
Appendix 5: Presence LeasePlan Group
LeasePlan Group
Northern Europe
& Italy
Central Europe Southern Europe
&
South America
Asia-Pacific &
North America
Denmark
Finland
Ireland
Italy
Norway
Austria
Belgium
Czech Republic
Germany
Hungary
Luxembourg
Poland
Slovakia
Switzerland
Brazil
Greece
The Netherlands
Portugal
Spain
Australia
India
New Zealand
United Kingdom
U.S.A Sweden
France
7 Appendix 6: Business Development - Organisational Chart
Director Business Development
Director Product Development& Communication Secretary
Senior Manager eBusiness Director Project Manager SB &PC ProductDevelopment Manager Profitability Manager
ProductDevelopment Manager ProfitabilityManager
ProfitabilityManager Int. Market Development Manager
Market Development Manager
eBusiness Manager SB & PC ProjectTeam Project Team LPO
Internet Quotations
Fleet Administration Communications Manager Int. Communications Manager
Intranet manager
Appendix 7: The competitive environment
The first environment to take into consideration is the industry environment, which refers to the immediate external market where interactions take place that affect the organization. Porter (1980) described that the state of competition in an industry depends on five basic competitive forces and that strategy formulation is predicated on an understanding of these forces. The forces are rivalry within the industry, threat of new entrants, threat of substitutes, bargaining power of suppliers, and bargaining power of substitutes.
Important forces outside an organization’s immediate markets and competitors will shape an organization’s operation and thrust. These forces include economic, political, social, technological, infrastructure, ecological, legal and demographic factors.
Environmental analysis is the process of identifying and understanding emerging opportunities and threats created by these forces. When putting these external factors together with the elements of industry structure, the following figure can be made (Hussey and Jenster, 1999: 54).
Figure 1 - The competitor environment.1
Other factors that are not included in the above figure but still influence the competitor environment are market factors. These factors belong to the industry analysis and include market size, market growth, phase in the product life cycle, economic trend sensitivity, season fluctuations, and profitability (Alsem, 1991). The scope of this research only includes the competitor analysis, which means that only the direct competitors in the industry are included.
1 Adapted from Hussey, D. and P. Jenster, Competitor Intelligence; Turning Analyses into Success, John Wiley & Sons, p.54, 1999.
Environmental analysis Social
Rivalry among existing competitors
Competitor analysis Threat of new entrants
Bargaining power of buyers Bargaining
power of suppliers
Threat of substitutes
Political Demographic
Legal
Ecological
Infrastructure
Economic
Technological Industry analysis
9 Appendix 8: Contents of a competitor profile
Financial results: to record a few meaningful figures that gives a snapshot of the competitor’s recent history. Because most companies are multinationals a distinction can be made between group, division and unit figures.
Product analysis: to compare the different products of one competitor that LeasePlan competes with. Information is recorded about headings sales, direct costs, contribution, and market share.
Marketing and sales activity: this notes key information about how the competitor influences the market. This may include information about the size and organization of the sales force, and promotional activities including their duration.
Sources of competitive advantage: to identify which of the particular activities of the competitor provide value to the customer.
Importance of the activity to the whole group: it records the activities that generate the most value for the group. These will be defended aggressively if attacked.
Scope of international operations: to know how a competitor views global operations to understand and predict how it will behave in different circumstances. Two important factors influence this behaviour; competitive advantage through economies of scale and the organization of its international operations.
Key factors: to record information like the location and number of factories, where R&D is undertaken, changes to the top management team, any recent change in ownership, and any other facts that are worth noting.
Strengths and weaknesses: to record the strengths and weaknesses of the competitor.
Organization philosophy: to get an insight in how a competitor runs itself because that will impact its strategies and many operational issues.
Personnel policy: The quality and qualifications of the competitors’ employees, the career development opportunities open to them and the training that is provided are matters, which may have strategic importance and are worth recording.
Critical success factor ratings: to assess the critical success factors for the industry and to rate the own organization and the competitor against them.
Appendix 9: Steps of a successful benchmarking process
A successful benchmarking process includes five steps:
1. Identify the benchmarks: Pick the benchmark categories based on the best guess as to where the problems lie or identify areas that could be improved. The various functions within the company should be prioritised in order of importance because a shortage of time and other resources makes it impossible to benchmark everything at the same time.
2. Identify the best-in-class companies: a choice should be made whether to select a best-in-class company which could be a direct competitor, a parallel competitor or a latent competitor, or another company that is not in the industry (generics) but whose operations may have aspects worth to emulate.
3. Measuring the performance of the best-in-class companies: once it is clear which functions to benchmark, and which companies to benchmark against, the data can be gathered. Data for benchmarking analyses usually comes from three types of sources: published sources, data sharing and interviews.
4. Determine gaps: after the data has been collected and analysed the finding have to be compared with information about the own company. The result can be a positive or a negative gap. Negative gaps occur where outside operations are superior to inside operations; positive gaps are where internal operations are superior to outside operations.
5. Project future performance: in order to carry out the changes needed according to the best-in-class companies, a translation of the analysis into recommendations have to be made, it must be supported by top management, and the right individuals have to be involved.
11 Appendix 10: The intelligence hierarchy
Error!
Figure 2 - The intelligence hierarchy.2
Each layer differs in level of strategic value, starting with tactical value at the bottom to high strategic value at the top. The database is the basis from which all the intelligence reports are derived. The monthly news bulletins and competitor profiles have no strategic value in themselves. Analyses have to be performed first to determine the impact of the information on the organization. The different levels of strategic value also have implications for the target audience because the higher in the organization the more strategic the intelligence has to be. A summary of the intelligence reports will be given below.
2 Adapted from Bernhardt, D., Perfectly Legal Competitor Intelligence; how to get it, use it and profit from it, London: Pitman Publishing, 1993.
High strategic value
Some strategic value
Primary tactical value
Data base Monthly News bulletins
Competitor profiles Strategic impact worksheets
Situation Analyses Monthly Intelligence
Briefings Special Intelligence
Briefings Senior management
Strategy committee Division management Marketing managers Planning managers Functional managers
Marketing Mgr.
Sales Mgr.
Field Sales Personnel Functional Mgr.
Strategic Value Target Audience
Report type Description Level of strategic value
Target Audience Frequency of
distribution Monthly News
Bulletins
Contains both strategic and tactical information from both internal and external sources.
None Field sales personnel
Marketing/ Sales management
Monthly
Competitor Profiles
Contains general information about a competitor.
Updates on a continuous basis.
None Marketing/ Sales management
Field sales personnel
As required
Strategic Impact Worksheets
Similar to monthly news bulletins but the aspect is added whether an item has a strategic or tactical impact.
Low Marketing/ Sales management
Other functional managers
Monthly
Monthly Intelligence Briefings
Includes key strategic and news items. It is a bound report. Articles and interview notes are summarized and presented in bullet format for
management.
Medium Division Management Functional Managers
Monthly or quarterly
Situation Analysis
Summarizes key strategic issues and includes the
detailed analyses which support the summary.
Medium Division Management Senior Management Functional Management
As required
Special Intelligence summary
A one or two page report, which identifies an issue, summarizes the key supporting analyses and prepares a recommended course of action.
High Senior Management
As required
13 Appendix 11: Supplements to Marketing Information Systems
Historical development of marketing information systems
To get an idea of how marketing information systems have been developed in the past to where they stand now an historical overview is given.
1. Transaction systems (1950-1965): those systems, also called Electronic Data Processing (EDP), where not designed specifically for marketing, but more for processing transactions. Marketing information was a by-product.
2. Marketing Report Systems (1965-1970): those systems were used for periodic, detailed standard reports.
3. Marketing Decision Support Systems (1970-present):
• Data oriented MDSS: used for ad hoc reports.
• Model oriented MDSS: used for solving problems.
4. Marketing Expert Systems (1985-present): systems used to capture the knowledge of marketing experts into a collection of rules.
5. Neural webs and genetic algorithms (1992-future): used for pattern recognition.
Building a marketing information system
Building a marketing information system implies going through its life cycle. This life cycle consists of three phases; information planning, system development, and usage and maintenance.
Figure 3 - The life cycle of a marketing information system.3
Phase 1: Information planning
During the first phase of information planning the question is raised what the contribution of information is when realizing the objectives. This will result in a collection of systems
3 Huizingh, K.R.E., Marketing en Verkoop Informatie Systemen, Schoonhoven: Academic Service, 1995.
Information planning System development Usage and maintenance Prioritization Implementation
that have to be developed in order to capture the necessary information. Afterwards a prioritisation has to be made that indicates the order in which systems should be developed.
Phase 2: System development
The design of the marketing information system can be done through four different methods:
1. Linear methods: most methods are linear. It means that several phases are followed successively, without the possibility of feedback. Generally four phases exist; definition study, system analysis, system design, and realization. A big advantage of this way of developing is the existence of milestones that makes control possible, which also means a good planning of time and resources.
2. Evolutionary method: this method is also called prototyping. The difference with the previous method is that the complete system is not introduced at once but it is started with a smaller, limited, but working system that is expanded step by step until the complete system has been introduced. The phases of this method are; definition study, system analysis, system building, evaluation, and assembly of the system.
3. Design through users: with this method the development of a system is left to the users who mostly use the evolutionary method. This has been made possible through the emergence of fourth generation languages for personal computers, which made it easier for users to create their own information system.
4. Purchase of a ready-for-use package: standard packages have been developed with several possibilities to adjust the system to the organization in question.
Phase 3: Usage and maintenance
The last phase is the usage and maintenance phase. In this part of the life cycle
adaptations are made when errors occur or when the information needs of the users are changing.
Components of a MDSS
MDSS can be divided into three functional components: interaction with the user, management of data, and management of models.
1. The dialogue component takes care of simple but fast communication between the marketing manager and the MDSS. This can be done by choosing one or a combination of the following options: menu’s, forms, question and answer, and command language.
2. The data management component takes care of the possibilities to enter, save, retrieve, analyse and present data. This is mostly done in the MDSS own database in which internal end external data are stored.
3. The task of the third component, which is model management, is to support marketing managers with drawing up and using mathematical models. A distinction is made her between a model base and a model base management system (MBMS), in which the MBMS contains the orders that are necessary to draw and use the models. Examples of MBMS functions are sensitivity analysis, what-if analysis, and linear programming.
15
The three components are linked to the user in the following way:Figure 4 - Marketing Decision Support System.4
4 Huizingh, K.R.E., Marketing en Verkoop Informatie Systemen, Schoonhoven: Academic Service, 1995.
Data base
Data management Model management
Model base
Dialogue component
User
MDSS
Appendix 12: Interview questions
1. What purpose are you collecting and analysing the information for? What kind of analyses do you use?
2. a) Do you use a specific tool/ framework for collecting, analysing and storing competitor information? Please explain the format. (Midas and/or other?)
b) What are the advantages and disadvantages of this tool?
3. a) How do you collect competitor information?
b) What sources of information do you use?
c) What is the quality of the sources used?
4. With which frequency are you collecting, updating and communicating competitor information?
5. Who is responsible for maintaining and updating the information?
6. a) Do you distribute the competitor information after analysis back to your employees, and how?
b) How often?
c) Who is the information being distributed to?
d) Is the information filtered so that the right information goes to the right person, or is there one standard format distributed to everyone?
7. a) Do you also collect information about external factors that influence the competitor environment, like technological changes, tax regulations, trends etc?
b) What do you think of the quality of these sources?
8. a) How would you approach a global framework for competitor information and what requirements would you link to this?
b) Can you give a priority rating?
c) How often would you like to receive information?
9. Where do you think LPC could add major value in supporting local countries with competitor information?
10. Do you have any other remarks?
17 Appendix 13: Overview of tools currently used within LeasePlan
Tools Countries available
Advantages Disadvantages
Midas Competitor Database
All • Tool for storage and retrieval of data
• Linked to Midas
• Existing tool
• Diversity of subjects
• Possibility to capture date and source of info
• Local database
• No analyses possible
• Not user friendly
Intranet:
2 formats
1. LPI website
2. Knowledge Centre
In general
All
LPUK
• Global access
• Interactive
• Tool for storage and dissemination
• Quick and short overview of info per competitor
• Tool for storage and dissemination
• Info on clients,
prospects, markets and competitors combined
• Separate source of information
• No historic info
• No possibility to store underlying data.
• Just focuses on global competitors.
• No competitor profiles available
• Very brief
• No possibility to store underlying data.
• Just focuses on local market
Excel file
(Competitor Matrix)
All LPSA
• Tool for analysis
• Detailed in different areas (not only price)
• Not standardized
• No historic info
Newsletters/
Flash/Reports
LPZA, LPFR, LPPT
• Tool for dissemination
• Regular updates
• Create awareness of certain news
• No central repository
Appendix 14: Required data
Confidential.
19 Appendix 15: Sources
Confidential.
Appendix 16: Templates for analysis
Confidential.
