Reconverge Agenda 2016

BREAKFAST & NETWORKING

HUMINT/Elicitation Workshop

Effective intelligence is derived from many different types of information. A lot of exclusive, timely, valuable information can be obtained by Human Intelligence (HUMINT). This can happen, for examples, in conversation with a new employee who formerly worked for a competitor, with the collection of available information on competitors in one’s own company, or engaging in purposeful conversation with customers, suppliers, industry experts and other stakeholders at trade events and annual industry exhibitions. The opportunities to collect valuable information through communication are manifold. How do you structure communication to receive the maximum relevant information?

This workshop will benefit anybody who is charged with doing primary research. The workshop leaders will illustrate the fundamentals of advanced communication techniques, provide some time-proven models for performing elicitation more effectively, use actual practices and experiences to explain these, and, most importantly, interact and practice them with attendees in a hands-on, “coached-up” fashion, thus helping participants improve their application. Practical advice, experiences and tips are offered throughout.

6 Analytical Tools You Really Really Want

Every veteran CI practitioner should have these 6 tools in their analysis toolkit: 4 Corners, Actionable SWOT, Industry Fusion, Scenario analysis, War Gaming, Win/Loss. This workshop will describe the KITs/KIQs they best respond to, apply each of these to case studies, explain their benefits and limitations, provide you with templates to organize your data, and help you understand the key steps to apply them.

LUNCH

How Intelligence Processes Can Enhance Business and Economic Development, Growth and Innovation

Supporting entrepreneurship, sustaining growth and accelerating innovation are key processes for overcoming the problems that kill most start-ups/new ventures. In this workshop, we share and discuss the success factors of examples from around the globe of how competitive and market intelligence processes are used to help the entrepreneurs, inventors, intrapreneurs and new venturers increase their probability of success. This workshop will describe a roadmap for how to plant and cultivate economic gardens, explain the factors necessary to manage an innovation ecosystem, identify the key CI processes that need to be present in supporting sustainable growth, and explain the key resources and steps needed to be a successful innovation accelerator (promoting business development) or economic gardener (for economic development).

Wargaming: Facilitator Training Workshop

Acquire the tools and techniques that will enable you to become the war gaming expert in your organization and thus the impetus behind successful product launches and early detection of threats and opportunities. Attendees will walk away from this workshop with forms, templates and models that can be immediately applied to their own organization’s business problems.

Hilton Monona Terrace (14th Floor)

BREAKFAST & NETWORKING

Maximizing the Role of Insights Throughout the Product Lifecycle

Product Portfolio Management is a critical part of the P&L “operating system” of nearly every organization.  While the nuances may change from industry to industry, the core management tenants remain the same.  In this session, Jason Voiovich will show you how to anticipate unique stakeholder intelligence needs using a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) framework using real-world examples from med-tech, aerospace, consumer and industrial products and services.

How to Build an Early Warning System

An effective early warning system can help companies better manage their business by proactively identifying and tracking external business uncertainties. A systematic system enables strategies to be kept on track and so that management is given early warning when assumptions incorporated into corporate strategy are shifting. Attending this session will provide you the steps to implement a strategic early warning system and key practical tips to make it all work.

NETWORKING BREAK

Building Insights for SMBs

Decision-makers have to sift through a vast amount of information and insights on a daily basis in order to make calculated and well informed decisions. And this is even more daunting if you are a small or medium-sized (SMB) business owner. SMB executives are bombarded from all angles with key strategic information that impacts their business. Key data, and more importantly, insights, are sometimes lost amongst the noise. What are the drivers underlying clients’ purchasing decisions? What new tech will become a disruptor in the marketplace? Why are so many patents being filed in a specific area? These and other questions are primers for why a formalized approach to Intelligence can yield SMBs more focused and strategic information that will not be lost in the noise, that will be continually monitored and relayed to decision makers and how this information can be utilized to successfully drive business forward to a more desirable future.

Clouds Over The Great Wall: Practicing CI in China’s New Normal

China is experiencing a difficult transformation at the moment after three decades of high speed growth. The government has been struggling to find the right strategies (financial reform, outward FDI including One Belt One Road, entrepreneurial innovation and thirteenth five year plan) for a soft landing. How do we assess the situation? What lies ahead for businesses from all sectors? How do CI practitioners in China cope with the new challenges?

LUNCH

Tactical vs. Strategic (Presentations)

Is the Future Revolutionary or Evolutionary: The Impact of Artificial Intelligence in CI

NETWORKING BREAK

Capitalizing on Intelligence Functions: How to Integrate Market, Business, and Competitive Insights

Integrate business intelligence to measure the impact of competitive activity and elevate the value of insights and recommendations through comparative analysis.  Attendees will learn how to business analytics can enable quantified insights that lead to actionable intelligence, how it can help you influence your business leaders and redefine your intelligence deliverables for maximum impact.

Using Financial Early Warning Indicators to Understand Competitor KPIs

Apply financial KPIs to determine how your competitors measure success in business and understand if their strategies are working.  Using easily relatable examples from retail companies with whom everyone is familiar, we will teach how to use public information to build a forensic financial early warning capability.

EVENING ACTIVITY / DINNER – Wisconsin Brewing Company (Tour & Presentation)

BREAKFAST & NETWORKING

Manage the Present, Invent the Future

Effective leadership excites individuals to exceptional performance. In this session, Mike will discuss practical steps to lead in ways that will overcome resistance and motivate change. That change pathway is fueled by benchmarking to build a realistic understanding of the challenges and opportunities in front of the organization. That baseline then sets the stage for involving all hands in helping to create a collective vision of the future that will be implemented rapidly and with high alignment.

Predicting the Present: Strategic Learning to Anticipate and Iterate

NETWORKING BREAK

Using High Performing Teams to Gain Early Advantage

Join Alfred Rezska in sharing what one of the best CI teams in Pharmaceuticals does at Merck. What makes the team tick, and how has it grown and evolved over the years. CI at Merck is in the center of a process that drives insights to action. Alfred will explain several topics he’s learned in building a CI function such when you need a CI pro, and when you need a deep subject matter expert in your field, how the best teams spend their time and how various intelligence teams work together as a coherent whole.

2016 JIM MATHEWS AWARD WINNERS PRESENTATION

LUNCH

The Intelligence Shark Tank

Back by popular demand from Reconverge 2015. Teams compete to secure executive buy-in as they “pitch” their Competitive & Market Intelligence program design and roadmap to building a world class function to the shark panel. The panel is vicious and as seen on TV and in the board room, there are no holds barred.

NETWORKING BREAK

Wrap Up and Concluding Remarks

Symposium Concludes