Ellen Naylor, MBA, brings 25 years of marketing experience, including sales, across many industries. She initiated a competitive intelligence* (CI) department at Verizon where she built a process to capture competitive information, especially from Sales. Her analyses helped management make the right decisions that made/saved money, while sales were won through her timely competitive intelligence. Ellen conducted financial competitive analysis and economic forecasting at Northwest Airlines where she created an exhaustive quarterly forecasting report on key competitors.

Ellen thrives on creativity in projects whether they involve facilitating a competitive intelligence (CI) process, finding hard-to-obtain data, jumpstarting a company's early warning process, capturing CI from Sales, or coaching customers to select and implement CI software. Ellen's clients benefit from her passion, active listening, and ability to work effectively within each company's unique culture.

Over the past 10 years, Ellen has been a sought-after public speaker on competitive intelligence and marketing. She has been a regular contributor to SCIP's (Society of Competitive Intelligence) Competitive Intelligence Magazine, and is now a columnist on Cooperative Intelligence, which helps CI professionals develop the right people skills to run a dynamic CI operation: leading, connecting, and communicating.

Ellen has held leadership positions at SCIP-on the board of directors and with the Minnesota and Rocky Mountain chapters-over the last 16 years. Ellen is a SCIP Fellow and Catalyst award winner. She is also active in the Association for Corporate Growth, the Association of Independent Information Professionals, Special Libraries Association, and Stellar Connections.

Ellen was raised in Japan and spent an academic year in France. She is fluent in French and has a working knowledge of Japanese. She earned a BA at the University of Notre Dame and an MBA from the University of Virginia's Colgate Darden Business School.

*Competitive intelligence is the systematic process of gathering, analyzing, and disseminating information about competitors' activities, products/services, technical innovation, and the general market environment to help your company achieve or surpass its goals.

Sample Projects

Opportunity Analysis. A utility company hired Ellen to research the US cement industry to determine if their product could be marketed as an ingredient in the cementious material process. Ellen contacted key players, industry experts, and government officials, and concluded that the market for this product was saturated, not lucrative, and the client would lose money if they entered it.
An 18-month follow-up confirmed that more established industry players had only made small inroads. The decision not to enter this market saved the company millions of dollars.

Capturing Competitive Intelligence from Sales. In a major reorganization, Ellen's client fired one sales force and hired a new one. She was asked to tap the expertise of the new sales force quickly, and develop a competitive intelligence process. Individuals previously employed by competitors were interviewed to establish baseline-competitor profiles, which included a SWOT analysis. Specific sales needs for marketing materials, customer testimonials, industry consultant support, and Intranet sales support were identified.
Key communications issues between sales and marketing were resolved. Competitor profiles that Sales had started were further developed in a format that would allow them to keep current. The client's competitive intelligence process was "jump-started" by engaging its sales force.

Areas of Expertise

• Conducting primary research
• Developing business processes
• Capturing CI data from Sales
• Performing win/loss analysis
• Conducting trade show analysis
• Developing customized CI seminars
• Selecting CI and market intelligence software
• Developing cooperative intelligence within CI