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Data and Design

creative, analytical, practical

About Brightman

Brightman (Burlington, Vermont) is a consulting firm focused on brand strategy and competitive intelligence solutions. Our approach: deliver actionable insights and effective designs.

Founder - Augustus Brightman

Competitive Intelligence

Every business needs competitive intelligence, the act of gathering and analyzing information about your industry in order to anticipate market change, control risk, and increase strategic awareness. Brightman believes this is best achieved by engaging in business war games and implementing analytical frameworks that together can stress-test objectives and creatively extract valuable insights. Competitive intelligence can help you get outside of your firm-centric views and put yourself in the shoes of both existing and future competitors and customers.

Brand Strategy

Brightman connects data and design to create concise, consistent, and compelling brand strategies, from initial brand conception to repositioning an existing identity. We offer logo design, website UI, illustration, and information design. We dedicate our time to understanding your company, industry, and competition. In order for any brand strategy to succeed, it requires clear communication, client involvement, and feedback, from the first design sketches to the finished product.

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What people say?

Our company was starting out and we needed to know what our top competitor was investing in sales. Brightman provided us this and more. We are the lead health care management provider in our region.

Jessica L.

What people say?

Augustus provided us with a brand package that exceeded our expectations and helped establish a social media strategy that effectively doubled our customer base.

BJ Donovan, Drone Media

The Process

Define, Gather, Simulate, Analyze, Repeat

It begins with asking questions, exploring topics of concern, and developing a strategic plan. These key intelligence topics (KITs) will guide and define analysis.

An initial executive meeting is held to determine competitive intelligence strategy pathways. We recommend further interviews with members of your organization. Different perspectives can derive different objectives and possible intelligence pathways that were not discussed during the initial executive strategy. We understand that every company is unique with different short-term and long-term approaches in order to structure deliverables accordingly.
We value trust and open dialogue throughout the entire process. Constant communication, from preliminary findings to strategy debriefing, makes it easy to adapt and identify areas of concern. Certain framework strategies can also foster communication and facilitate debate between senior executives and management.

A casual encounter with a vendor who works for a competitor can often prove more valuable than an interview with the CEO in a business magazine.

Information about your competitors and market can be ethically obtained with the right level of commitment. Competitive intelligence can be divided into two sources: primary (direct) and secondary (indirect). Primary sources involve human intelligence. Company-directed patents, speeches by executives at trade shows, SEC filings, product specs, and interviews with contractors and suppliers would be considered primary sources.
Secondary sources are those that can be found in the public domain (also called open source intelligence), often independent of a competitor's direction. Countless real-time aggregate monitoring tools help gather and analyze this information. Sources might include Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, research papers, news stories, budgets, government reports, legislation, and hearings.

Maximize your competitive intelligence advantage by integrating business scenario simulation (i.e., business war games) into your strategy.

We harness the predictive power of simulations using both qualitative and quantitative analysis. By forcing members to role play as the competition, you increase employee knowledge and awareness, encourage strategic thinking, and provide a place where realistic predictions about your competitors can be hashed out and market intelligence blind spots can be identified.
Simulations serve many purposes. They open up lines of communication within your organization, gain insight before risk, bring realism to the competitive analysis, and promote creative thinking. Business simulations mean lower costs, decreased risks, increased competitive spirit, and more market knowledge. Need to think through a product introduction? Nothing beats an old-fashioned war game.

SWOT, PESTEL, Four Corner’s Analysis, Value Chain Analysis, Porter’s Five Forces, SCOR, and many more

Over one hundred models and frameworks are used to report and define a competitive intelligence strategy. Often, executives are accustomed to using one or more of these models. “That’s what my predecessor used” is the most frequent response. Executive-level analysis lacks the necessary objectivity to identify vulnerabilities. A SWOT matrix is one such area. It implies that you can define strengths and weaknesses objectively. Problematic for any executive who believes they are running a top-notch firm. Rightfully so. That’s why we are here, to help you gain an objective view of your position.
Our analysis and strategy suggestions augment multiple models and frameworks. We don’t rely on algorithms that promise optimal solutions. Relying on mathematical models to understand the complexities of human behavior and the unpredictable nature of business in a digital age would be doing you a disservice.

We understand that you hire us to help you, not to be another yes-man.

Whether you’re a tech startup or a Fortune 500 company, competitive intelligence should be a mainstay in your overall business operations.

We will not overwhelm you with information overload, big data, and spreadsheets that provide yesterday's view of a dynamic business world. Current mathematical models can’t measure attitude, faith, creativity, and other social norms. Competitive intelligence strategy should always balance the quantitative with the unpredictable nature of human behavior.
Identifying your competitive intelligence objectives and analyzing your market should be an ongoing, organization-wide participatory experience that is both fun and insightful. Lastly, competitive intelligence proves fruitless without counter intelligence. Any findings will lack substantial value if you have a leak.

Contact

CalL
(800) 746-0857
Address
Burlington, Vermont
Email
hello@brightman.co
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