Appendix A: CSI method
From:
Ian C. MacMillan, Alexander B. van Putten, and Rita Gunther McGrath, For multinationals, competition is a complex series of moves and countermoves on a global landscape. But what's the best opening move, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 81, No. 5, May 2003.
Competition among multinationals these days is likely to be a three-dimensional game of global chess: the moves an organization makes in one market are designed to achieve goals in another market in ways that aren't immediately apparent to rivals. We call this approach "competing under strategic interdependence," or CSI.
With the following mapping tools and techniques, you can learn to see the whole chessboard— that is, you can anticipate how the moves you make in one market can influence competitive interactions not only in that market but in others far afield.
the first step in the CSI process is to set up a table that reflects all your assets and all the territories you compete in. For an example of this, let's consider Unilever, a consumer-goods manufacturer. The company's well-known brands include Knorr soups, Dove soap, and Snuggle fabric softener.
Unilever competes in three principal product categories—foods, personal care, and fabric care— and in three major global geographic arenas—Europe, the Americas, and the Asia-Pacific-Africa region. In most of those categories and in all of those territories, Unilever's principal rival is U.S.-based Procter & Gamble, makers of Folgers coffee, Pampers diapers, and Tide laundry detergent. Unilever's CSI table, shown below, indicates that the company competes in nine different product and geographic arenas (each represented by a cell in the table).
Unilever's executives could then drill down further and draw up CSI tables for each product group, for specific types of products within those groups, and for different geographic arenas. For instance, if the company's personal-care group were thinking through its global positioning prospects, a manager in that unit might look at the competition more narrowly, by product type.
Once you've created your tables, the second step in the CSI process is to take a rigorous look at where you stand relative to your main competitor in each arena. The best way to do that is to analyze three important factors: your competitor's potential reactiveness to increased pressure in that arena; the arena's attractiveness to you; and the relative clout each of you brings to the table.
Reactiveness measures how much incentive your competitor has to counter your move. It is based on several sub factors, including your competitor's market share in a particular business arena (the larger the share, the greater the arena's importance to your competitor) and the arena's profitability (the more profitable the arena, the more incentive your rival has to defend it). The final sub factor, your competitor's emotional attachment to the arena, is more difficult to ascertain, but it can be as critical a consideration as share and profitability. Essentially, you should be looking for any noneconomic factor that would make your competitor more likely to want to protect the arena—for instance, national or corporate pride, the historical significance of the arena, and any significant sunk costs.
Attractiveness, in this scheme, is the mirror image of reactiveness. It's the measure of how important the arena is to you and is based on the same sub factors as reactiveness: How much market share do you have in the arena? How profitable is it? How emotionally attached to it are you?
Relative clout, the third factor, measures who's in a better position to launch, or defend against, a strategic move in the arena. Clout can be determined by looking at the relative sales of a company and its competitor, then adjusting for other factors such as each party's distribution dominance or technology advantages. (Clout measures the ability to fight back, while reactiveness measures the propensity to fight back.)
We've set up a web site that offers our methodology and formulas for measuring reactiveness, attractiveness, and relative clout based on publicly available information—things like a company's individual product sales, a product division's performance compared with that of the rest of the organization, the company's sales in a particular region of the country or the world, and so on. The end result will be numerical ratings for reactiveness, attractiveness, and clout—numbers you can use in the third step of the CSI process, mapping the competitive terrain on a bubble chart. To do this, first plot your competitor's reactiveness along the horizontal axis. Reactiveness increases from left to right, so bubbles further to the right indicate arenas that are more important to that competitor, also known as the defender. Then plot the arena's attractiveness to you along the vertical axis. The higher the bubble, the more attractive the arena is to you. The size of a bubble indicates the defender's market clout—the bigger the bubble, the stronger the competitor. The chart may end up looking something like this:
The bubble chart is useful because it quickly conveys a great deal of information about two competitors' relative positions. For instance, bubble b in the upper left appears to be the most appealing arena for the instigator, the company that wants to make an opening move. The size and position of the bubble indicate that this arena is highly attractive to the instigator and that any strategic ploy it launches in this arena would prompt relatively little reaction from the defender. Conversely, the least appealing arena for the instigator is represented by bubble e, because it reflects low attractiveness to the instigator and the highest reactiveness score on the chart for the competitor—a promise of much pain for little gain.
Choices get more difficult when comparing bubbles like d and e. Bubble d suggests that this arena would prompt less of a reaction by the defender than bubble e would, but the defender has more clout in this product or geographic arena. The instigator would have to make a judgment call about which arena, d or e, it would best be able to defend from a competitor's retaliation.
The ultimate purpose of this mapping technique is to help managers plan competitive campaigns in multiple markets, but it is useful for other reasons. First, it allows a company to look at its world
TRIZ is a methodology, tool set, knowledge base, and model-based technology for generating innovative ideas and solutions for problem solving. TRIZ provides tools and methods for use in problem formulation, system analysis, failure analysis, and patterns of system evolution (both 'as-is' and 'could be'). TRIZ, in contrast to techniques such as brainstorming (which is based on random idea generation), aims to create an algorithmic approach to the invention of new systems, and the refinement of old systems.
Appendix C : Insight Activator Tool
The insight activator tool is developed to trigger consumer insights, brand vision and technological or scientific inventions and ultimately drive ideas and innovation itself. The tool itself is multifocused only not general used by all departments. Only Marketing use the tool to create and develop ideas. But also not very often because it takes a lot of time to fulfil the five steps of the tool.
The five steps are (Unilever, 2006):
• Pause: Setting the goal, enrol members and define area of interest (BOSCARD). • Rewind: Gathering Information and knowledge about defined area.
• Forward: Plan activities to search for new and relevant stakeholders and information outside the project team
• Mix: Screen new information and ideas for new opportunities
• Play: Consulting on opportunities, create prototypes and propositions, screen ultimate opportunities and get agreement.
Appendix D: Survey
Appendix E: survey questions barriers
The question concerning the three selected barriers of integration is integrated in the overall survey (Appendix D):
• Thought world barrier: See question 12 in appendix D ( or question 17 or 22). • Language barrier: See question 13 in appendix D (or question 18 or 23).
• Physical distance barrier: See question 9 and 10 in appendix D (or question 14 and 15 / or 19 and 20).
Appendix F: Invitation survey
F.1. First invitation (e-mail)
Dear colleague,
May I (re-)introduce myself, I am Frans Smeets, located in Unilever R&D Vlaardingen and from there I give (facilitation) support to (Global) Innovation Project Teams for both Foods and HPC. At current we are looking at how we can further improve the support to teams, very much in co-operation with the IPM training group, the One PM team and the organising team for the Global/Regional Project Leaders Workshop.
We approach you as (technical) leader of a global/regional project for supplying us with information related to the new product development process. Via the link below you get to a questionnaire designed by Frans Larmené, student from Groningen University in the Netherlands who will use this investigation also for his graduation.
We kindly ask you to spend 20 minutes of your time to complete this questionnaire that has been organised such that we guarantee anonymity. Completing this questionnaire will also give you the opportunity to get the final results of the survey.
Here is the link to the survey:
Thank you for your effort and support!
Kind regards,
Frans Smeets and Frans Larmené
F.2. E-Mail Reminder
guarantee anonymity. Completing this questionnaire will not only give you the opportunity to get the final result but also to win a MP3-player!
Here is the link to the survey:
Thank you for your effort and support! Kind regards,
Frans Smeets and Frans Larmené
Appendix G: Survey results
0,0% F a c e t o f a c e T e le p h o n e E -m a il (+ a tt a c h m e n t) W ri tt e n d o c u m e n t (M a il) M ic ro s o ft O ff ic e C o m m u n ic a to r M S N -M e s s e n g e r O th e r
Figure G.1: Way of communication during idea generation and development and evaluation of all respondents (Marketing and R&D).
way of communication 0,0% 5,0% 10,0% 15,0% 20,0% 25,0% 30,0% 35,0% F a c e t o f a c e T e le p h o n e E -m a il (+ a tt a c h m e n t) W ri tt e n d o c u m e n t (M a il) M ic ro s o ft O ff ic e C o m m u n ic a to r M S N -M e s s e n g e r O th e r Marketing R&D
Reason for succesful cooperation between
Marketing and R&D
0,0% 5,0% 10,0% 15,0% 20,0% 25,0% 30,0% 35,0% 40,0% 45,0% Understanding and appreciation of each other; goals, decision criteria, ideas and tradeoffs Good communication process about diff erent Marketing and R&D specific technical terms Small physical separation betw een Marketing and R&D Other (please specify) R&D Marketing
Figure G.3: Reason for successful cooperation between Marketing and R&D
Reason for succes on product level
0,0% 5,0% 10,0% 15,0% 20,0% 25,0% 30,0% Meets cost goals of developing the product Launched on time Technical performance of product performs to specifications Met quality guidelines Speed to market Other (please specify) R&D Marketing
(n=345) and evaluation (n=266)
contacts (n=266)
Figure G.5: Gender of contacts of Marketing and R&D in the fuzzy front end.
0 50 100 150 200 250 N u m b e r o f re la ti o n s ( n ) Idea creation (n=343) Idea development and evaluation (n=271) Cross f unctional contacts (n=271) Kind of relations (formal / informal) Formal relations Informal relations
0 50 100 150 200 N u m b e r o f c o n ta c ts ( n ) Idea creation (n=345) Idea development and evaluation (n=261) Cross functional contacts (n=266) Respondents
Worklevel contacts of respondents
work level 1. work level 2. work level 3. work level 4. work level 5. Don't know
Figure G.7: Work level of Marketing and R&D respondents and contacts during the fuzzy front end.
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 N u m b e r o f re la ti o n s ( n ) Idea creation (n=339) Idea development and evaluation (n=271) Cross functional contacts (n=271)
Origin of relations
Past work relation Current work relation Friend
Family Other
Figure G.8: Origin of Marketing and R&D (=respondents) contacts during the fuzzy front end.
Can Pol Swed Ja pa Turk Belg Fran Br In Thaila Ita Ger m Uni ted Stat Uni ted King do Net herla
Figure G.9: Work location of respondents (survey section: idea generation, development and evaluation)
Work location of respondents
(Section 3 of survey)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Can ada Pola nd Swed en Japa n Turk ey Belg ium Fran ce Braz il Indi a Thai land Italy Ger man y Uni ted Stat es Uni ted King dom Net herla nds N u m b e r o f re s p o n d e n ts R&D MartketingAge of respondents
(section 1 and 2 of survey)
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 <20 20-29 30-39 40-50 >50 N u m b e r o f re s p o n d e n ts R&D Marketing
Figure G.11: Age of respondents (survey section: idea generation, development and evaluation)
Age of respondents
(section 3 of survey)
0 5 10 15 20 25 <20 20-29 30-39 40-50 >50 N u m b e r o f re s p o n d e n ts R&D MarketingFigure G.13: Number of years with Unilever (survey section: idea generation, development and evaluation)
