Frost & Sullivan Competitive Intelligence November 2010
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EVENT RECAP
Latin America’s Competitive Intelligence Summit

  By Adrian Alvarez
Board Member
SCIP

Last month, SCIP’s second Latin America’s Competitive Intelligence Summit was held in São Paulo, Brazil. The main conference took place over two days, plus a half-day war game workshop. During the first day of the conference, speakers presented their sessions in English, giving the conference an international appeal. For the second day, speakers gave their sessions in Portuguese. This allowed for more local and regional content, which supported the interests of the local and regional community.

The keynote speakers included Leonard Fuld, one of the leading thinkers and pioneers in the competitive intelligence discipline. He also ran a war game workshop the day before with the assistance of Eduardo Flores Bermúdez (SCIP’s Chair) and Paulo Gustavo Franklin de Abreu (SCIP’s Board Member and Head of Collaboration and Strategy at Embraer).

Outside of the official program, Adrian Alvarez organized dinners with attendees and speakers from abroad, which provided increased networking possibilities for those who came from outside of Brazil. These dinners also provided a means to have some taste of the real Brazil (besides the atmosphere always enjoyed at international hotels) as they included meals from Minais Gerais (a State in Brazil), as well as enjoying one of the best views from Sao Paulo at the Skye terrace.

The committee organizing SCIP’s Latin American conference consisted of Paulo Gustavo Franklin de Abreu, Edson Ito, Adrian Alvarez, Ken Garrison, Yvelise Tonon and Sandy Skipper. Attendees considered the conference a rousing success for a number of reasons:

Increased attendance. Given that this was only the second competitive intelligence conference held in this region, our 20 percent increase in attendee numbers indicated an extremely successful turnout.

Increased networking. Following SCIP’s emphasis on delivering maximum networking opportunities at our events, the schedule provided increased networking time for all involved. Attendees ranked this feature highly.

Increased sponsorship. One of the values of attending a conference is the ability to learn about and meet new consulting and vendor providers in a focused timeframe. For this second event, the sponsorship numbers grew by 80 percent over last year, and included almost all of the major competitive intelligence groups in the Brazilian market.

Quality speakers. In their session rating forms (which we use for all speakers at all SCIP events), attendees assessed the speakers 4.2 on average, using a 1 to 5 (very satisfied) scale. This attests to the high quality level of the speakers at this event.

Brazil chapter launch. The conference served as a platform to develop, organize and launch a new local Brazilian SCIP chapter. The chapter now has a working steering committee and will further help develop a vibrant competitive intelligence community in Brazil. (If you are interested in participating in this group, please contact the Brazil chapter chair, Edson Ito, at edson.ito@givaudan.com

Expanded country representation. More individuals from outside of Brazil attended the event, particularly from Columbia. This is encouraging, given the current cost of traveling to Brazil.

Increased presenter selections. The conference committee received approximately three applications for every speaking slot, a 50 percent increase over last year. This increase in the number of people wishing to participate attests to both the brand equity enjoyed by SCIP and the reputation developed by the conference in this short time.

All these achievements are additionally significant considering that there is no lack of Competitive intelligence conferences in the Brazilian market. As companies, sponsors and practitioners work with a limited budget, the fact that all figures showed significant growth speaks for itself about the positioning the conference is obtaining in this market.

We have already developed new ideas regarding next year’s conference as a means to keep improving to show further positive growth figures in 2011; hopefully we can count you among the speakers, attendees, or sponsors. Additionally, the committee is soliciting ideas on how the conference could better serve SCIP’s Latin American members. Please send me any comments in this regard, and the committee thanks you in advance for your suggestions.

About the Author:

Adrian Alvarez is a member of the SCIP Board of Directors and Founding Partner of Midas Consulting. Midas Consulting focuses on CI and management consulting in Latin America, Spain and Portugal, serving large multinational and local customers as well as global consultancies. He can be reached at Adrian_Alvarez@midasconsulting.com.ar

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