IDF in Gaza – Exaggerated expectations

During the promotional activity in the Israeli media, which is naturally exaggerated and excessive, the long build-up leading up to the IDF’s entry into Shifa Hospital in Gaza, led by the IDF spokesman, stood out.

Even before the IDF soldiers physically entered the Gaza Strip, all the commentators and retired generals who have been manning the TV panels for the past few weeks have already explained to us that one of the major goals of the ground operation is to capture the Shifa Hospital, under which – so they explained to us, including particularly convincing graphic illustrations – will be built the hole of the Hamas high command, and that’s where, we were convinced, many of the Israeli hostages were also taken in October 7th.

These high expectations, which were backed up by persuasive activity in the world, and in the preparation of hearts for action, led yesterday to a feeling of disappointment. The representatives of the IDF spokesman showed the cameras several Kalashnikovs hidden behind an MRI machine, a room that looked like a side office in a run-down factory, with a few phones and computers. Nothing like the big promises made in the hours upon hours of discussions on the television channels about the terrible blow that Hamas would receive when the IDF took over the complex.

These high expectations, which were backed up by persuasive activity in the world, and in the preparation of hearts for action, led yesterday to a feeling of disappointment

From a military point of view – entering Shifa Hospital was an impressive achievement. The soldiers of the IDF managed to carry out this complex and delicate task without harming the patients and doctors and without harming themselves. The takeover of the Rantisi hospital two days earlier – at the end of which IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari entered the place accompanied by foreign journalists – was also achieved in the same way.

In terms of communication and information, we remained stuck with the expectations that were flown to the sky and then crashed on the ground of reality. At least for now, we are only left with a “painful injury to an important symbol of Hamas”.

We must maintain modesty these days (and in general). We certainly do not know everything that is currently happening in the Gaza Strip. The IDF only reveals what it is comfortable to reveal now, and it is good that way. It is possible that later in the day, week or month – they will reveal more things that were discovered in the Shifa Hospital and the tunnels under it. Then we will all understand the true importance of what happened yesterday.

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Israel’s New Challenges of counter-terrorism in Gaza

Dr. Avner Barnea is a research fellow at the National Security Studies Center of the University of Haifa in Israel. He served as a senior official in the Israel Security Agency (ISA). He is the author of “We Never Expected That: A Comparative Study of Failures in National and Business Intelligence” (Lexington Books, 2021).

Note: This article was published in YNET, the most popular news website in Israel on 8 November, in Hebrew. https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/yokra13669409

Two days before the outbreak of the Second Gulf War in 2003, a diplomat from the US Embassy in Tel Aviv contacted a professor from the Hebrew University specializing in the Palestinian issue and asked to meet with him as soon as possible. At the beginning of the meeting, the diplomat stated that he was asked to study the Israeli experience of how to deal with the terrorism expected after the occupation of Iraq. At the end of the meeting, the professor said to the diplomat he wondered why the Americans only now remembered to ask about this matter.

It is known that the American army that occupied Iraq was not prepared for intelligence capabilities towards counter-terrorism, which became critical as time passed. The responsibility was in the hands of the army’s intelligence, which lacked counter-terrorism experience, and personnel specializing in the Islam issue and had to make extensive use of local interpreters which was very problematic. This is what happened to the Americans in Afghanistan as well. This was also the case throughout the years of the Vietnam War when the responsibility for intelligence was mainly in the hands of the military who operated with the assistance of local interpreters.

In Israel, the situation is completely different. Immediately after the end of the Six-Day War, Prime Minister Eshkol, on the advice of Defense Minister Dayan, decided to place the responsibility for countering terrorism in the territories on the ISA (Israel Security Agency known as Shabak) thanks to the experience it had gained in dealing with Israeli Arabs. This has been the case ever since the ISA operates in areas that are under military rule in full coordination with the Israel Defense Forces. The successful experience led to the fact that even at the outbreak of the Lebanon war in 1982, Prime Minister Sharon decided to place the responsibility for countering terrorism in Lebanon on the ISA. There, as in the territories, the ISA worked in close coordination with the IDF. The success in Lebanon was partial, and the ISA had great difficulty penetrating the ranks of Hezbollah and thwarting attacks against IDF forces.

Assuming that the IDF is expected to remain in Gaza in one form or another for about a year or even longer, clearly, the ISA will handle the issue of counter-terrorism in Gaza in any international constellation of one kind or another that will manage Gaza the day after, probably in cooperation with the Palestinian Authority. Even if we succeed in collapsing Hamas, which I am skeptical about, it is possible that the day after a “new Hamas” arises in light of the desire to avenge the many losses in addition to the fanatic religious ideology.

After the disengagement and Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, the ISA adapted its Modus Operandi when it was outside the territory. This situation made it complicated to execute intelligence activity, and perhaps this should be seen as one of the reasons for not giving a warning about the Hamas attack on October 7.

The ISA has been active in the Gaza Strip since the Six-Day War in  1967 and since gained broad experience in counter-terrorism in Gaza. The situation of entering again Gaza is not similar to the one when the ISA entered Lebanon in 1982, which was a completely new territory for it, and it had no familiarity with what happened there. The study period was long and partly painful. A few months after entering Lebanon, in November 1982, while the ISA was in the process of organizing, a serious attack took on the IDF and ISA headquarters building in Tyre that was blown up by Imad Mornia, who led the activities of the newly formed Hezbollah against Israel. The headquarters of US Marine forces operating in Lebanon was also the target of a severe attack by Hezbollah in which approximately 300 of them were killed. It is very difficult to estimate what will happen in the strip in the future.

In the “day after” the ISA expected to have two main objectives: thwarting attacks on the IDF forces that will be deployed throughout Gaza or later when they enter to carry out targeted tasks according to the model  Zone B model of Judea and Samaria. It can be expected that over time elements of “New Hamas” which will emerge will emerge in the Strip and/or others as happened in Lebanon. At the same time, the ISA will work to locate Hamas members who will remain in the area. The ISA is expected to quickly use up the significant advantage of returning to Gaza with experienced field personnel, renewing contact with former agents, and using other intelligence capabilities. The ISA did indeed have a very difficult time formulating a broad picture as happened in the absence of warning before the “Black Sabbath” (The Hamas attack on October, 7^th) but upon his return to Gaza, its advantage will be manifested in countering terrorism.

Assuming that the Palestinian Authority will be a major factor in Gaza the day after, and since both sides have a common enemy – Hamas, cooperation between its security forces and the ISA is expected as a significant force multiplier as has been successfully operating for many years in the Judea and Samaria. To this will be added the contribution of the US in helping to build the capabilities of the Palestinian Authority security forces in Gaza as it exists in Judea and Samaria.

It can be estimated that the great destruction in Gaza and the high number of casualties, dead and wounded, will make it difficult for the ISA since not a few of the residents of Gaza will have the motivation to take revenge, therefore, the ISA is expected to deal with a large and hostile population from the first moment of its entry and also during its establishment in Gaza. This will oblige the ISA to be extra careful for fear of attempts to harm its personnel and facilities, as well as difficulties in recruiting agents.

Dilemmas of ethics in intelligence in business

By Dr. Avner Barnea

Summary

Recently, I led a workshop on Competitive Intelligence (CI) and Innovation and I came across many questions about the ethics of CI together with queries about the management of ethics in the business world. I have decided to share some of the points that I discussed in class that I believe will be useful to the readers.

About the Internet and competitive intelligence

The Internet era changed the world starting from the beginning of the 21st century and brought on a change that no one expected and certainly not at such a speed. Suddenly, in a relatively fast process, the information on the Internet became available to everyone and the quality of this information has improved greatly. One of the results is that we live in a “transparent” era where it is very difficult to hide secrets since the Internet gives access to almost every piece of information, and hiding secrets has become nearly impossible.

Since the early beginning of the “information revolution”, the business world understood that the new era provided great opportunities unlike before. The information became available and everyone can get to it easily, quickly and usually for free, and most important – it can help companies to gain a business advantage.

Competition in the business world requires companies to gain an advantage over their competitors and maintain it. This cannot be done without gathering information about what is happening in the markets, what the competitors are doing, and even what they intend to do. This information is found on the Internet, and search engines have been developed for retrieval. The first search engines from the beginning of the 21st century and even before that were not sophisticated enough. It took them a long time to search through the information, and the results were not good enough. This changed when two young entrepreneurs named Sergey Brin and Larry Page developed the Google search engine which was launched in 1998 and immediately gained a substantial market share and advantage over competing search engines, most of which disappeared within a few years.

Parallel to the development of the Internet and the enormous speed with which information was received from the network, including from social media, a field called CI began to develop.[1] This is a business area where information is collected mainly from the Internet which is used as a basis for studying the competitors’ moves and market changes to better understand the external environment where the competition takes place.

CI began to develop mainly in the USA in the late 80s of the last century, but the main difficulty it faced was how to get at the sources of information. Until the age of the Internet, the information could usually be found in the press and other publications and books, but it was very difficult to get the information, while access to it was laborious and the information was not immediate. At that time, the ability of CI was very limited, so it was not used frequently.

Over the last 15 years, CI became a vital tool to support decision-makers in business.[2]

Aspect of Ethics

Already in the era before the Internet, ethical and legal questions arose regarding the collection of business information. Like, what is allowed and not allowed while collecting the information? Is it permissible to listen to a conversation between two managers of a competing company who are having lunch? Or is it permissible to enter the competitors’ office under pretense or impersonation and take information from there? Beyond the question of what is legal, ethical questions also arose. For example, is it appropriate for a company to collect information about a competitor and to what extent? Another example – if an employee who worked for a competitor joins your company, is it permissible to ask him to talk about his former employer when it may be against the confidentiality statement he signed in his former workplace?

The Internet era brought about a significant change in the field of CI. By using search engines, it was possible to gather almost any information on the market, competitors and other business players. The collection of visible information is known as OSINT – (Open-Source Intelligence) which is information that is in the public domain. From almost the very beginning of the Internet, we face an era of information overload (overload of information), as there is a lot of interesting and important information from a business point of view, but there is also important information that is not in the public domain and therefore, companies cannot access it. For example, internal information of companies that is accessible only to the company’s employees. There is also information that is kept in closed databases (for example, information of research companies) that are usually protected. This information can only be obtained after payment or meet other conditions. The general trend is that quality information on the Internet is not free anymore.

In different countries, including Israel, some laws protect business information held by companies[3]. For example, laws dealing with trade secrets. Therefore, for example, an employee who leaves his workplace must not take with him the customer list of the company he is leaving or take with him internal commercial information which can give an unfair business advantage. As the Internet progressed and the capabilities of the search engines developed, it became possible to reach more information and more significant information that is online and available to everyone, but there are still closed “corners” that are kept confidential.

Various organizations around the world have established capabilities that enable professional teaching and guidance for those involved in CI or others who wish to expand their knowledge of how to better understand competition and markets (executives in marketing, sales, strategy, business development, and other fields). The graduates in these courses receive various certificates attesting to their training. CI professionals are often asked to present certificates of completing these courses. Those organizations invest in efforts to inform their members also about ethical rules that allow them to gather information only from the public domain. For example, the code of ethics by: Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals – SCIP[4]. The matter of ethical rules that bind SCIP’s members is presented prominently on SCIP’s website.[5]

As we can see in the link above, SCIP has a code of ethics in which seven main sections explain the rules of conduct expected from CI professionals. Although it is obvious that everyone who acts in this field goes by the law, nevertheless, the second section of the ethical code is about the need for experts within the field: “Always in Compliance – To comply with all applicable laws, domestic and international.” For example, a person dealing in this field will not try to break into the database of the competing company, which in most countries, including Israel is a criminal offense. The first topic indicated in SCIP’s code of ethics is: “Elevate the Profession – To continually strive to increase the recognition and respect for the profession,” which means that everyone who deals with CI is obliged to act professionally and behave accordingly.

The last section of SCIP’s code of ethics is as follows: “Strategically Aligned – To faithfully adhere to and abide by one’s company policies, objectives and guidelines.” The meaning of this section is that those who act in the field of CI must ensure that they act according to company policy. The reason for mentioning this matter is that over the years, it became clear that some engaged in CI chose to act independently and often illegally and contrary to ethical rules out of a desire, not to mention an obsession, to bring unique intelligence to their managers without considering the implications that an illegal and certainly unethical move might have. The starting premise is that in a business, there is a clear policy on how to behave in legal and ethical matters and so is expected of those whose area of ​​responsibility is CI.

It is very important to note that the word “intelligence” often has the connotation of a mysterious world where intelligence organizations make clandestine moves to obtain information. But these behaviors are allowed only for the intelligence that countries usually gather by using secret tools and methods. In the business field, the approach is completely different and even the opposite. It is allowed to collect only information that is visible and in the public domain. The business world does not have any privilege to be above the law and practitioners in this field (as well as others!), are forbidden to act except according to the law and in many cases according to clear ethical rules.

Since, as mentioned, we are in the heart of the “information explosion” era, there is a great deal of open information that one just needs to know how to “get your hands on” and there is no need for dishonest ways to obtain it. For CI professionals, it is made clear from the beginning that it is unthinkable to act with James Bond methods but only in straight ways. To collect information from the Internet, there are various advanced software solutions for companies to use. These are tools that know how to collect information almost automatically,[6] often relying on AI (Artificial Intelligence) tools that know how to collect information according to keywords and tags and present the information to those who requested the information.[7] While, as mentioned, there are tools for the automatic collection of information, there are still not good enough tools that know how to analyze the information. A suitable replacement for the human brain in this sense has not yet been developed.

Conclusion

Practitioners within the field of CI and others in business occasionally have dilemmas as to what is allowed and what is not. It is self-evident that what is stated under the law is the main guideline. Sometimes some issues are in the gray area of ​​the law, but these are usually exceptional cases. For example – an employee of a competitor is interviewing with a new company where he may work and talks about what is happening at his company even though he has signed a confidentiality agreement – is it possible to receive the information or not? And in cases of doubt, is it right to turn to legal advisors to get their advice and act accordingly?

Regarding the ethical matter – beyond the ethical code mentioned above, large companies often have ethical codes on various topics and there can often be a section that can be attributed to the field of gathering information and using it. For example, the employee is expected to act in such a way as not to embarrass the company with unacceptable activity, and this is of course also relevant to an employee in the field of CI as well as to others.

There were occasions when CI practitioners were asked to initiate or take part in spreading disinformation and false news, often through social media, to mislead competitors. It is essential to state that this kind of activity is wrong and it is not in the action plans of the CI professionals and it must be defined under the category of unethical activity.   

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[1] For a definition of Competitive Intelligence see: https://www.scip.org/page/CI-MI-Basics-Topic-Hub

[2] See discussion on this issue in the book by Avner Barnea: We never expected that, a comparative Study of Failures in National and Business Intelligence, Lexington Books, 2021, pp. 21-28. https://www.amazon.com/Never-Expected-That-Comparative-Intelligence-ebook/dp/B09CKMHF9K

[3] Regarding the relevant laws in Israel, there is a separate paper in Hebrew that cover this issue. See also: https://www.scip.org/store/viewproduct.aspx?id=5129427&hhSearchTerms=%22legal%22

[4] Link to the website of SCIP – www.scip.org

[5] Ethical Intelligence – Competitive & Market Intelligence Ethics (scip.org)

[6] For example https://www.digimind.com/?hsLang=en

[7] See Christophe Bisson and Avner Barnea- “Competitive intelligence: from being the eyes and ears to becoming the brain of companies.” Competitive Intelligence Magazine, Vol. 23, No. 4 2018.

Teva: Its troubles are long in ending

Looking at the prospects to Teva, further to their recent business results, (Q1) revenues in the first quarter of 2018 were $5.1 billion, a decrease of 10%, or 15% in local currency terms, (Q2 $4.7 billion) compared to the first quarter of 2017, mainly due to unfavorable market dynamics in the U.S. generics market, generic competition to COPAXONE. Non-GAAP gross profit was $2.7 (Q2 2.4) billion in the first quarter of 2018, a decline of 18% from the first quarter of 2017. R&D expenses for the first quarter of 2018 were $317 million, down 27% compared to the first quarter of 2017. It looks that Teva will continue to struggle as the other generic drugs companies.

Unless Teva has a new significant Blockbuster, it is hard to see its great future. The two challenges are closing on Teva from two sides – its unbelievable deep debt and the increasing competition in the generic drugs, including the threats from India and China when they expand their penetration to the US and EU markets ((http://en.sumec.com/ppt-jtgw-EN.pdf).

Teva Net Tangible Assets are a negative $ -32,326 million!!! Who hold TEVA debt? Israeli; Insurance companies, Banks, Pension Funds. This is a major threat to the pension funds of many Israelis who are not aware of this problem.

In summary, TEVA is running fast on a railroad over a canyon but without a bridge in hope, but in the meantime enriching top management on the expense of bondholders and shareholders.

Best watch China and India, and not EU or the US, as they are catching up technologically and become more competitive. Bad news for Teva!

Special thanks to Haim Branisteanu for his valuable contribution.

Key words, Teva, generics, competition, business results

Avner Barnea, Ph.D. is a senior competitive intelligence strategic consultant and also teaches strategic CI in various MBA programs in academia, in Israel. He is the head of a special program on competitive intelligence, corporate security, cyber security and crisis management in the MBA program at Netanya Academic College, in Netanya, Israel. Dr. Barnea is teaching the course “Strategic Intelligence in the Competitive Landscape” in several MBA programs, including the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffa, and the MA program of the Department of Information Science, Bar Ilan University. He is currently Chairman of the Israel CI Forum (FIMAT); he also member of SCIP (Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals) Board of Directors and distinguished member – academia, of SCIP. Dr.  Barnea is a former senior officer with the Israeli Security Agency (ISA) and is a research fellow in the National Security Studies Center, University of Haifa, Israel. avnerpro@netvision.net.il

Perspectives on Strategic Intelligence: in Government and in Business

This course (in English) I taught in the IDC Herzliya, Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy has just ended on the 21^st. June. 35 students that have attended my class  looked into the phenomena of strategic surprises in both governmental intelligence and in intelligence in business, discussing what can be done to avoid them relying to theory and practice of intrelligence. Four case studies have been discussed, two in national intelligence (the Iranian revolution of 1979 and 9/11) and two in intelligence in business (Shdemoth [an Israeli corporation] and Kodak vs. Fuji). I have shown that there is a great similarity between national strategic intelligence and strategic intelligence in business. Since they are both based on the same discipline, but there are differences resulting from the implementation of the special nature of the two areas.

So far, these areas studied separately. For the first time since my doctoral thesis: “Comparative analysis of intelligence failures in the national sphere and in business” there was an attempt to combine the two disciplines in order to enrich our understanding within the field of strategic intelligence. Despite the extensive activity in strategic intelligence scholars and experts agreed that it is necessary to break through the “glass ceiling” of the intelligence product quality.

The uniqueness of this course, was to make use of the intelligence discipline to challenge our thinking, through which we will help better understanding of the threaten environment in both areas and their influence on decision-making processes.

My intention was to develop awareness among students on how to integrate intelligence into the decision-making processes in both areas in order to maximize the contribution of this discipline.

Avner Barnea, Ph.D. is a senior competitive intelligence strategic consultant and also teaches strategic CI in various MBA programs in academia, in Israel. He is the head of a special program on competitive intelligence, corporate security, cyber security and crisis management in the MBA program at Netanya Academic College, in Netanya, Israel. Dr. Barnea is teaching the course “Strategic Intelligence in the Competitive Landscape” in several MBA programs, including the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffa, and the MA program of the Department of Information Science, Bar Ilan University. He is currently Chairman of the Israel CI Forum (FIMAT); he also member of SCIP (Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals) Board of Directors and distinguished member – academia, of SCIP. Dr.  Barnea is a former senior officer with the Israeli Intelligence Community and is a research fellow in the National Security Studies Center, University of Haifa, Israel. avnerpro@netvision.net.il

 

Competitive Intelligence in Pharma – A New Direction?

The PharmaCI European conference in Lisbon (25-28 th. Feb. 2018) went very well and was highly interesting. The participants (app. 120) can be divided into two groups: practitioners in CI and related areas (Market Research, Marketing) and outsourcing services, mainly in MR, focus on Pharma and also on primary research, data bases, intelligence reports etc.

The discussions, presentations and panels were mostly about improving performance with special emphasizing on success stories. I felt the lack of sufficient discussions on methodology and theory (my workshop combined both theory (peripheral vision) and practice: a case study (a failure of a leading global brand to enter the Israeli competitive food market.

attending the presentations and taking part in discussions together with talking with participants (it was my first time in PharmaCI conference) led me to raise a few questions and  to draw some insights.

The Pharma industry seems to be characterized by being highly innovative with long time of development cycles of products and costly investments in R+D. The entrance barriers are huge and so are the amounts of resources demand to develop and market successful medications. Although this industry is operating in an information transparent environment where Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) is available and extremely valuable, still those who are innovative have significant advantages. In this industry, there are also vital needs to gather primary intelligence, which usually can be found “under the line” making CI in this field very proactive. The price of strategic mistakes can be very expensive and as a result of the hyper competitive landscape the sales (market access) strategy is quite aggressive. Prices of medications are going down partly as a result of regulation initiatives and making this area more competitive.

It is well known that competitive intelligence in Pharma is very sophisticated and enjoys significant budgets. The implicit assumption is that CI in this area is very practical as it is the defense goods, medical devices and in Telecom.

Based on this interesting conference, there are certain questions that need to be discussed further:

1. What is the precise position of CI units in this industry and how these units have to be embedded with other units like market insights, market research, strategic planning, etc.?
2. To what extent CI can deliver significant value and how to make it more worthy?
3. Is it evident what is expected from CI units?

It looks to me that there is a growing gap between the degree to which CI practitioners are assessing their performance and the real distance between them and the decision-makers, which is too large. This gap may indicate that CI professionals are not perceived as role players by their senior executives. The question is how can CI professionals bridging the gap between where they are and where they believe they need to be, in order to strengthen their domination as role players in the decision- making process.

Here are possible explanations for this situation. The ongoing information gathered by CI in Pharma companies is usually needed by the medium-level management for current and immediate events. These managers generally do not seek for deep analysis, and too often do not use the information supplied to them properly as has been indicated in Harvard Business Review paper from 2016. The result is lacked of strong expertise in strategic analysis by CI units.  Senior executives are preoccupied with other concerns and do not define their intelligence needs and anticipation, unless there is a major failure, but then it can be too late. This circumstance causes approaching to outsourcing firms, which may bridge the gap but at the same time can make CI unit quite worthless and not influencing in major decisions.

In my view CI unit has to serve, firstly, the needs of the C Suite and thus to be highly focused in strategic issues while outsourcing will be targeted its attention to tactical issues.

This seems to be different than the present situation.

The reason for my proposal is that internally there are quality employees at various levels of command with a strong comprehension of the industry, markets and patients’ needs and expectations, but they are not involved enough in the analysis phase. CI units must build internal networks with broad capabilities mainly in analysis, by strong collaboration with internal forces and professionals. Nowadays, it is easy to do by digitals means. It is just a matter of awareness. Let us remember what the strategy guru Peter Drucker said more than 20 years ago: “Ninety percent of the information used in organizations is internally focused and only 10% are about the outside environment. This is exactly backwards.” (in Seena Sharp book, Competitive Intelligence Advantage).

Thus, CI units have to position themselves as Center of Excellence regarding predictions of the next steps by key competitors and important events happen in the external landscape, as have done by Jack Welch when he was leading GE to enormous success. The meaning is to be more focused on the future rather the present.

This change can happen if CI directors keep a close collaboration with strategic planning units in addition to marketing and business development. CI units have also to look differently at the characteristics of their staff and to have more diversified manpower and involve people with strong academic background and experience in business rather than life-science background. I have done a short analysis based on the CV’s of the speaking faculty of this PharmaCI conference. Out of 24 members, 16 had an academic background in life -science, 4 with MBA and only 4 with life -science combined with MBA. This proportion has to be different with more emphasize on business academic studies and practice.

Keywords: competitive intelligence, pharma, business strategy.

Avner Barnea, Ph.D. is a senior competitive intelligence strategic consultant and also teaching strategic CI in various MBA programs in the academia in Israel. He is the head of special program on competitive intelligence, corporate security, cyber security and crisis management in the MBA program at Netanya Academic College, in Netanya, Israel. Avner is teaching the course ‘Strategic Intelligence in the competitive landscape’ in a few MBA programs including the Academic College of Tel Aviv- Yaffa, and the MA program of the Department of Information Science, Bar Ilan University. He is currently chairman of the Israel CI Forum (FIMAT); he also member of SCIP (Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals) Board of Directors and distinguished member – academia of SCIP. He is a former senior officer with the Israeli Intelligence Community and is a research fellow, the National Security Studies Center, University of Haifa, Israel. avnerpro@netvision.net.il

 

Why a successful business suddenly collapsed? The case of the Israeli fashion chain: Honigman

One morning it happened – Honigman, a well-known fashion chain is filed for court protection from its creditors by asking for a stay-of-proceedings. The company owes creditors NIS 234 million. Looking into this case study will teach us that although the sudden collapse, there were strong signals showing the failure is on its way. Other Israeli fashion retail chains are also under pressures feeling the decline in sales, while the Israeli economy is doing well. So what is going on?

About Honigman

Hoingman Ltd. is an Israeli fashion chain with 150 stores throughout Israel and over 1000 employees, specializing in kids and woman’s clothing founded in 1947 and is privately owned by the Honigman family. It has a good reputation and many loyal customers over the years, managed by conservative management. Its stores are located in the big shopping molls, and its products are positioned in the mid-range prices as well as its quality. The Honigman group chain manages three brands – Honigman Women, TNT, and Honigman Kids. Its revenues in 2015 were NIS 287 million with net profit of NIS 3.3 million and in 2016 NIS 276 million with net profit of NIS 2.8 million.

The competitive landscape

The local fashion market is known for being highly competitive, and over the years, Honigman was successful in building its own strong brand. Even though, the cost of having stores in shopping molls is high and increasing while  far away almost under the radar, a new competition is slowly approaching – the online sales. Andy Grove, the phenomenal founder of Intel, wrote in his outstanding book Only the Paranoid Survive  referred to the difficulties identifying changes: “This change didn’t happen from one day. It came gradually,” (p. 63). Meaning, that the major challenge of competitive threats is to trace them earlier otherwise it is often too late.

The online threat

Israelis are known for being early adapters. Since the broad civil protests of 2011, Israelis became more aware and criticized towards the cost of living, among them high on the list is clothes, especially kid’s clothing. Parallel in the same time, Israelis started to discover the secrets of online buying and the expenditure of buying through this channel began to grow gradually. The most attractive products for the online are children clothing, which is considered to be too expensive in local shops.

Honigman under pliers pressures

Honigman group has found itself under pliers pressure from two arms. One is the high and increasing expenditures of keeping its shops in shopping centers, the declining in sales and cutting its prices in order to stay competitive. On the other side, it was the fast increasing of online orders by local customers reached to huge quantities. So, the Israeli customers became one of the leading buyers of Next and ASOS UK online highly successful brands, in addition to eBay and Ali Express, with more than 61 million packages arrived in 2017, with total weight of 10,800 tons!

Business strategy

Such a business phenomenon as significant online orders, has never before challenged Israeli business sector, especially fashion. It didn’t come from nowhere. From one side, the cost of living became a major issue here since 2011 while people became more aware and shopping more wisely, and this, for example, caused the collapse of one of the leading local food chains, Mega, last year. This food chain was unable to modify itself to a new business model.

The challenge of online buying is new and for quite a long time the leading local chains did not see it as a major threat. They thought that a small reduction of prices will satisfy the customers. They did not assess right the strength of the online alternatives. They were greatly surprised not only by the low prices and the quality of the online goods but also by the high level of customer’s service. This, together with the strong willing of the customers not only to buy in much better prices but also to punish the chains for being so disconnected with their customers’ expectations for such a long time, were the drivers caused the change.

What could be done?

The first challenge by the various retail chains, firstly in fashion, was to comprehend timely that something very significantly is changing in customers’ behavior.  Obviously, they failed here expecting that the online phenomenon either will fade away or will keep in small size.

The local retail chains including Honigman, had to reduce immediately their expenses by smaller shops; pressures on shopping centers managements to reduce significantly their fees, to pressure the relevant government ministries to reduce taxes, differentiating themselves from global online brands and cut more expenses severely. Those who build up strategic alliances with global brands unlike Honigman, are in better situation. It is still a question why these retailers did not develop aggressively their own online delivery systems, and those initiated it (like Fox and Supersal) waited so long and look as if they missed the train.

Scholars in business strategy are aware of the phenomena that successful businesses often ignore threats and are too focused on daily activities and ignore external treats. As strategy guru, Peter Drucker once said, “Ninety percent of the information used in organizations is internally focused and only 10% is about the outside environment. This is exactly backwards” (see the book by Seena Sharp, Competitive Intelligence Advantage, p. 13) .

Too often, when corporations don’t peruse correctly the signs ‘written on the wall’ i.e. ‘early warning signals’, and avoid acting promptly, they are doomed to fail.

Keywords: Online buying, Israel, competition, fashion, retail chains, competitive strategy.

Avner Barnea, Ph.D. is a senior competitive intelligence strategic consultant and also teaching strategic CI in various MBA programs in the academia in Israel. He is the head of special program on competitive intelligence, corporate security, cyber security and crisis management in the MBA program at Netanya Academic College, in Netanya, Israel. Avner is teaching the course ‘Strategic Intelligence in the competitive landscape’ in a few MBA programs including the Academic College of Tel Aviv- Yaffa, and the MA program of the Department of Information Science, Bar Ilan University. He is currently chairman of the Israel CI Forum (FIMAT); he also member of SCIP (Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals) Board of Directors and distinguished member – academia of SCIP. He is a former senior officer with the Israeli Intelligence Community and is a research fellow, the National Security Studies Center, University of Haifa, Israel. avnerpro@netvision.net.il

 

 

Teva – More lessons to draw from its Collapse

My friend Haim Branisteanu, who has an excellent understanding of the capital markets has written to me the following analysis which I find really important to share with you as I fully agree with his insights.

Hi Avner;

The more I am looking at Teva the more baffled I am.

It is incompressible how a year ago brokers at Israeli banks under BOI and ISA supervision where pushing to buy Teva stock when it was a sell!

Yesterday January 12 Teva debenture where lowered to Junk by Moody after financial markets closed.

What it means that the company may not be able to pay back its loans, some of which mature in 2018 and 2019.

The value of the debentures is now around 75% to 84% of face value depending of maturity and interest rates.

From a practical matter it means that on top of the -$34 billion negative equity, the loss to those holding the debt that is around of around $34 to $35 billion face value, the market value is an average of 0.8×35= $28 billion or a loss of an additional $7 billion and this before yesterday downgrade of Moody.

Teva troubles are around 12% to 13% of Israel GDP with jurisdiction on any financial claims or disputes related to Teva only in Israel – this is outright outlandish who will cover this?

The Israeli newspapers where filled with articles about Fishman bankruptcy of around $1 billion.

TEVA is 45 times bigger as an ongoing concern!!!!

And this is in normal circumstances if Teva will continue as an ongoing profitable concern. What if they would be unable to refinance debt are reasonable interest rates?

I did not have followed the company at all in the past, but one thing is for sure the bond market knew well in advance that Teva is in trouble (see the above debenture pricing graph) even before the stock started to slide precipitously.

Below is the link to Moody Investor Services, with the following remarks “While Teva’s cost restructuring program will help to partially offset declines, execution risk is high. In addition, we believe earnings declines from Copaxone and its US generics business will be severe, and that meaningful deleveraging to under 4 times gross debt/EBITDA will take several years to achieve,”

https://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-downgrades-Teva-to-Ba2-outlook-stable–PR_378074

My take on this whole long run of events is; the lessons to be taken are that CI to be properly applied in certain companies. Companies with worldwide markets NEEDS a CI expert that also understand financial markets and behavioral economics of the financial markets and his reports should contain information of their competitors on this subject including the stock and debenture prices aside form only real commercial market information.

After all the financial investors or hedge funds on the buy side, have their own CI experts based on which recommendation they buy or sell a financial asset.

After seeing the behavior of Teva Debt which I attach I also understand why Mylan was pressuring the FDA to approve the generic Copaxone to market.

Mylan action with its Indian partner NATCO Pharma is a commercial knock out to inflict financial pain or even try to eliminate a competitor, and this all about the essence of Competitive Intelligence, of an ongoing successful concern, never feel you are at the top always check what other know and you do not know. Mylan teamed up with the small NATCO to fight a competitor in the generic drug market – just as simple.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mylan-nl-stocks-teva-pharm-ind/mylan-surges-teva-slumps-after-fda-approves-copaxone-copy-idUSKCN1C91CT

Teva may have not even considered a company in India’s Pharma as a worthwhile competitor and was too busy with litigating Sandoz in the Southern District of New York, where Sandoz sued to invalidate Teva’s patent on a drug for the treatment of multiple sclerosis.

TEVA management and board of directors conduct is a classic example whereby the company troubles where there for all to see even that the company made great efforts in buying back the stock and not lower the dividend at a time the company was already junk.

Best Regards

Keywords: Teva, competition, Pharma, competitive intelligence.

Avner Barnea, Ph.D. is a senior competitive intelligence strategic consultant and also teaching strategic CI in various MBA programs in the academia in Israel. He is the head of special program on competitive intelligence, corporate security, cyber security and crisis management in the MBA program at Netanya Academic College, in Netanya, Israel. Avner is teaching the course Strategic Intelligence in the competitive landscape in a few MBA programs including the Academic College of Tel Aviv- Yaffo, and the MA program of Information Studies, Bar Ilan University. He is also a former senior officer with the Israeli Intelligence Community and currently chairman of the Israel CI Forum (FIMAT); he is also member of SCIP Board of Directors and distinguished member – academia of SCIP. He is a research fellow, National Security

Thinking Strategic Intelligence – in Search of Excellence in Intelligence Analysis

For quite a long time, I’m certain that one of the major challenges of Competitive Intelligence professionals is how to improve their intelligence delivery, which is not good enough. How I know that? As I follow this discipline and actively involved by CI consulting to CI units, writing, researching and teaching in the academia in Israel, I hear how CI professionals are often frustrated for not being able to impact the decision- making in their corporations. It is actually a worldwide phenomenon. Usually, they are mistakenly critical towards the senior management claiming they (the latter) are not open enough to see the value of CI, mainly the strategic intelligence.

I’m convinced that the problem quite often lies in the quality of the deliverables which are carried out by CI professionals, especially the essential ability to move from Information to Intelligence and mainly to deliver strategic intelligence to decision-makers and senior executives.

I personally use the excellent book by Richard Heuer: Psychology of Intelligence Analysis (2010) which was also translated to Hebrew. However, it is not acknowledged the fundamental needs of intelligence analysts.

And then, I have come across with Ketherine and Randolph Pherson in the recent SCIP European Summit in Cascais, Portugal. I have spoken briefly with Katherine, and she showed me their book:  Critical Thinking for Strategic Intelligence. Upon arriving home, I have ordered the book which arrived after a few days.

I would like to share with you my thoughts after reading this book carefully. Although it was

written from the point of view of strategic intelligence in national/ government, based on the broad perspectives of the writers, it is highly relevant to CI professionals, as the authors say: “We fervently believe the book has value to audiences far beyond our “home base,” the US Intelligence Community.” This book will not only teach you how to think strategically but will show you how best you can do it. It is also written like a hand-operated manual, including a lot of figures and boxes and at the end of each chapter, there is a valuable short section of “Key Takeaways.”  The book leads the reader how best to do intelligence and to convey the value to the corporation.  And this is the main obstacle CI professionals’ face.

Just an example – in pages 22-23 – Figure 3.2 – “The analysts Role in the operating Environment  “:

As the authors write: “Your goal should be to ground- of Familiarize – yourself with the forces and personalities driving the situation, honing your ability to recognize what is known, unknown and uncertain. This will keep you focused on the questions about which your audience wants clarify thought, data and foresight rather than being sidetracked into what is easily collected and answered.” If one is not implemented this model successfully how he/she can produce something of real value?

Richard Allen, Former Assistance of Central Intelligence for Collection, CIA, has written in the Foreword of the book: “They (the authors, A.B.) not only tell you what makes up a good analytic product but how to fashion the message in an appropriately compelling manner.”

Final word – this is an actual textbook  for CI professionals which can help them to ease their way in becoming much more influential in their corporations.

Keywords: Strategic intelligence, competitive intelligence, strategy, strategic planning, strategic thinking.

Avner Barnea, Ph.D. is a senior competitive intelligence strategic consultant and also teaching strategic CI in various MBA programs in the academia in Israel. He is the head of special program on competitive intelligence, corporate security, cyber security and crisis management in the MBA program at Netanya Academic College, in Netanya, Israel. Avner is teaching the course Strategic Intelligence in the competitive landscape in a few MBA programs including the Academic College of Tel Aviv- Yaffo, and the MA program of Information Studies, Bar Ilan University. He is also a former senior officer with the Israeli Intelligence Community and currently chairman of the Israel CI Forum (FIMAT); he is also member of SCIP Board of Directors and distinguished member – academia of SCIP. He is a research fellow, National Security Studies Center, University of Haifa, Israel. avnerpro@netvision.net.il

 

How the Israeli Government Was Caught in Surprise – Again?! Teva’s Crisis…December 2017

A few days ago, the new CEO of Teva- Kare Schultz – presented an ambitious turnaround program. Accordingly, Teva’s Manpower will be reduced by 25% worldwide. In Israel, app. 2000 people will go home. The Israeli government was caught in shock! Hard to believe! Already a few months ago Teva collapsed (see my post from August 5, 2017, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/collapse-teva-israeli-giant-generic-drug-company-case-barnea/) and it was inevitable that the new CEO will have to cut expenses drastically including Manpower, to stop the terrible landslide. One can only wonder how comes that the relevant Israeli ministries – Finance and Economics, have not done any strategic plan to support Teva, the largest corporation in Israel that in recent years got tax benefits of $22 billion? These ministries did not foresee the devastating storm coming? No. They did not see it.

Only after Schultz’s announcements, just a few days ago, these ministries start to relate to this issue not before the public opinion was wondering where the relevant cabinet ministries and the Prime Minister are. PM Netanyahu, an ultra-right economist, is suddenly pushed to help a private corporation with huge governmental funds! As it always happens in Israel – this crisis has become a political issue while some of Teva’s plants are located in areas considered to be the basis of Netanyahu’s political party’s supports.

This event shows again, like in military surprise attacks by states (Pearl Harbor, Yom Kippur war, 9/11 and many more…) that a surprise is firstly; a mental phenomenon and leaders are caught again and again unprepared although the intelligence is before their eyes….And  this situation assures bad decisions as a result of huge pressures…Will they ever learn?

CEO Schultz is due to learn very fast that doing business in Israel – is totally different than in any other country, especially in Denmark… One of his predecessors in Teva – Jeremy Levine had to go home because he wanted to turn Teva around already in 2013…

And now to the Board of Directors of Teva – how comes that none of them did not take responsibility to major strategic mistakes that have done in the last two years – and resigned? They all failed, and it seems that only one of them was in opposition, but it was not in brought to the public knowledge so the investors and the public could not be aware of the fast declining of Teva.

And I cannot think about some of the pharma analysts that only a year ago predicted that Teva’s share will soon reach to $100 per share –  ( when it was around $30)- not more and not less!! How they were so blinded? It takes us back to analysts’ major mistakes before the 2008 Financial Crisis – will they ever learn?

Avner Barnea, Ph.D. is a senior competitive intelligence strategic consultant and also teaching strategic CI in various MBA programs in the academia in Israel. He is the head of special program on competitive intelligence, corporate security, cyber security and crisis management in the MBA program at Netanya Academic College, in Netanya, Israel. He is also a former senior officer with the Israeli Intelligence Community and currently chairman of the Israel CI Forum (FIMAT); he is also member of SCIP Board of Directors and distinguished member – academia of SCIP. He is a research fellow, National Security Studies Center, University of Haifa, Israel. avnerpro@netvision.net.il