CI profile: Michael Sandman.
 
Michael Sandman, Senior vice-president, Fuld and Company. msandman@fuld.com


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Summary: After 20 years of "hydraulic fluid in my veins," Michael Sandman's move into the CI profession was precipitated by a 'blind date' with Leonard Fuld. In this interview, Michael discusses some of his most interesting CI problems, the importance of understanding your own company before you can understand a competitor, and how you can make an impact even if your office is not next to the company President's.

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How did you get into CI?

I grew up in manufacturing operations, and I was always curious about how other companies solved some of the problems that my company wrestled with. At one point I was running a company that made composites, and we had eight or ten competitors around the world. So we invited each of them to visit our plant in exchange for a visit to theirs. Each of them got to see one competitor's plant (ours) while we got to see all 10 of theirs. We learned something from each visit, but it was the sum of all those visits that really helped us change the design of a new production line we were building, and make numerous other improvements in the way we worked. So curiosity paid off.

In 1986 I was COO of a manufacturing company, and one of our competitors had a fire in their plant. We wanted to know the extent of the loss and when the plant would be back in operation. Our parent company suggested we call Kirk Tyson, and we got a quick turnaround and an accurate answer. So that was my first experience with an outside CI firm.

Then in 1989 I started working as a manufacturing consultant. I met Lenny Fuld through a "blind date." Our wives knew each other and they thought we'd be a good match, so they introduced us. I read his first book on CI and recognized that there was a profession growing up around the kinds of things I'd been doing for a long time in industry. I joined Fuld & Company about a year later.
 
 
What has been one of your most interesting CI problems?

With 20 years of manufacturing operations experience, there's hydraulic fluid in my veins. The most interesting tasks are ones where the client starts by asking us to come up with the competitor's P&L. They ask because the competitor is selling at a lower price, and no one can understand how they can do so. But it's usually not possible to get detailed costs and stay within the bound of proper intelligence gathering.
 
On the other hand, it is possible to ask people questions about how they do their work. It's something they'd talk about to a stranger they met on a plane. So that's what we ask about when we call them, and from those interviews we have to figure out how the competitor operates -- how they plan to use technology, or how they managed to reduce downtime or scrap or how they made their service staff more efficient, and what they'll do next. What's really exciting is that the "how" is usually much more valuable to the client than the pure numbers on the P&L. From this the client can learn how to improve themselves in some way.
 
The first time I did this was 1991. The target company had figured out how to reduce the ageing time of pepperoni from 4 weeks to 2 weeks, and it made a huge difference in costs. The pepperoni ageing facility was half the size we expected, so the taxes and utilities for the building were half, and only half the cash was tied up in inventory... a whole cascade of savings from the one innovation. Since then we've used operations information to reverse-engineer costs for many clients, and we've studied everything from call centers to telecommunications satellites. But the first time was the most fun, and I got to see 5 million pounds of ageing pepperoni in one place. What an aroma!
 
 
What was one of your biggest problems?
 
The biggest problem is making sure that you don't let your own preconceived ideas keep you from having an open mind. CI is a process of discovery, and you have to be open to all the possibilities. That way all findings are unexpected.
 
 
What has been your most valuable resource?


The most valuable resource isn't the Internet, it's the people we talk to and the students we teach. We learn from our clients and students. They always know an enormous amount of detail about their businesses. And then we add what we learn from the people we interview on behalf of our clients. Consulting relies very heavily for its raw material on people, and CI practitioners can do the same. It's particularly important to talk constantly to people in your own company about how they do their jobs. It gives you leads to understanding the competitors and it helps you figure out what they're likely to do in the future.
 

What was your best personal reward while working in CI?
 
CI people are usually very smart, and it's great to be surrounded by people who are smarter than I am. It's an opportunity to learn. And I'm an information junkie, so CI consulting is the perfect fit. We get to learn about a new industry every week. And once in a while we get to see a client respond very visibly in the market to something we've done.

A client in the brokerage industry completely re-thought their retail brokerage operations after one of our studies, and we could see their response to the intelligence right out there in the retail marketplace. It was very gratifying to see them moving from being both inefficient and ineffective to being a strong, technology-enabled competitor.


What has been your greatest disappointment?

I guess the greatest disappointment is when a client doesn't listen or can't use the intelligence they've paid for. Being a CI consultant is a bit like being a therapist -- you want the patient to get better, to take the medication you prescribe.

But it's not our job to implement the recommendations that arise from the intelligence we deliver, and when the people who should be implementing fail to do so, it's frustrating. It doesn't happen often, but when it does we tend to blame ourselves for not making a more convincing case.
 
How do you keep track of what is going on in your field?
 
SCIP is a great resource for keeping track of what's going on in CI and in CI consulting. Our competitors have to reach the SCIP audience to market their services, so if we listen to what they're saying it makes us think about what we may need to change, and what we want to keep the same. And our clients' needs continue to evolve and become more sophisticated, so I look at how their needs are changing to understand what we will need to deliver in the future.
 
We also talk to our competitors about the evolution of CI, and to thought leaders like Ben Gilad and Liam Fahey. And teaching courses for SCIP and the Academy of Competitive Intelligence forces me to explain CI to others, which is a great way to sharpen one's own understanding.


What advice do you have for someone entering the CI field?
 
Don't isolate yourself behind a pile of data. You need to understand your own company before you can understand a competitor, so get out of your office and visit the operations areas of your company. Always ask what your management's assumptions are. Learn enough about your company and your industry to investigate the validity of those assumptions and don't be afraid to challenge them. Mistaken assumptions lead to bad strategies.
 
Get your clients (or managers or intelligence users) to define the decisions they need to make, and focus your efforts on supporting those decisions. If the people who are supposed to use your intelligence can't define their assumptions and the decisions they face, find another employer.
 
And don’t worry if you don’t report to the CEO. Product line managers, R&D directors, marketing vice presidents, and operations managers all need good CI. You can make an important contribution even if your office isn’t next to the president’s.


Background:
 
Mike Sandman is senior vice-president of Fuld & Company Inc., a competitive intelligence consulting firm in Cambridge, MA. Prior to joining Fuld, he was an operations manager in the composites industry. Mike has an extensive background in international business. He is lives in Brookline, MA, and is co-chair of the town’s Transportation Board. Mike often bikes to work through Boston traffic, which he claims is no more foolish than his persistent rooting for the Boston Red Sox.

Copyright 2002 Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals

SCIP.online, volume 1 number 12, July 24, 2002.