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Recently, FirstRain had the opportunity to sponsor a dynamic event on leaving the competition behind, hosted by the Silicon Valley chapter of Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP).

SCIP has the mission to “be the premier advocate for the skilled use of intelligence to enhance business decision-making and organizational performance to create competitive advantage.”

Photo by Jop Baylon

This recent event included information on SCIP by the Silicon Valley chapter head, Alok Vasudeva, and a presentation on escaping velocity by Michael Eckhardt. Eckhardt, Managing Director & Senior Workshop Leader for Chasm Institute was also a contributing author to Geoffrey Moore’s book, Escape Velocity: Free Your Company’s Future from the Pull of the Past. You likely remember Geoffrey Moore’s name from his bestseller, Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Technology Projects to Mainstream Customers.

Photo by Jop Baylon

Eckhardt presented and highlighted the assessment of competitive dynamics using those frameworks and tools depicted in Moore’s book.  According to Alok Vasudeva, this chapter event was one of SCIP’s best attended in number, with a global audience ranging from Canadians to Brazilians.

Appreciative of the opportunity to hear Eckhardt speak, we dove into note taking, live-tweeting the whole way. The Hierarchy of Powers outlines 5 ‘powers’ a company must align in order to escape velocity. We challenge you all to evaluate your own powers.

A convenient example, and no stranger to Moore, Apple once analyzed seems to have a solid 4 out of 5 powers in action.

• Category Power: Digital music, smart phones, and digital media consumption
• Company Power: iTunes and Apple’s Appstore
• Market Power: None currently being leveraged
• Offer Power: From great products to brand legacy
• Execution Power: Known to ‘stay its course’

Giving us a glimpse into the future, Eckhardt outlined the top 9 tech trends that will be driving the next $1,000,000,000,000 of revenue for 2017-2018.

Because of our own industry focus, it was exciting for us to see the words “Analytics”, “Big Data”, and “Real-Time” in big letters as top revenue drivers. However, we’re still plenty excited about the trends outside our direct space that many of the attendees at the event are top leaders in. With the security and privacy market trending almost daily on every news forum from the national to the tech-specific, we’re looking forward to watching the major changes innovative companies will bring to the table.

After this event, we’re looking forward to finishing Escape Velocity and using it in customer conversations. We don’t want to give too much away but here’s a final teaser on the strategic wisdom strung throughout Moore’s pages,

“Leadership is about being in service to a higher cause; management is about ensuring that service is appropriately rewarded. Both are necessary. You just can’t put the focus on rewards first.” – Moore (p.13)

A big thank you to Alok Vasudeva for organizing, and for inviting FirstRain to participate in and sponsor, this engaging and enlightening Silicon Valley chapter event. We had a lovely evening and look forward to participating in future SCIP events.

Photo by Jop Baylon

If you are interested in learning more about how FirstRain can help you in your go-to-market strategies please contact Daniela Barbosa, our VP Marketing and Partnerships, to schedule a demo or to get more information.

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