The challenge
Irdeto sells content protection, anti-piracy and security products in very different markets, from pay-TV operators and streaming services to game publishers and vehicle fleets. Each business unit needed a steady view of its market and competitors, and leadership needed reliable answers when big decisions came up.
What I set up and ran
- Regular intelligence for every business unit: monthly newsletters for video entertainment and video games, and quarterly updates for connected transport and connected health, combining third-party research highlights with competitor activity.
- Competitor tracking: analysis of competitors' quarterly and annual results, strategy and M&A moves, and a master list of more than 400 competitors across the business units.
- Trade-show intelligence: competitor briefings before and reviews after the main industry events, including IBC, NAB Show, ANGA COM, CABSAT, Broadcast Asia, GDC and gamescom.
- Digesting the market for the business: summaries of major industry reports so teams got the findings that mattered to them, without reading the full reports.
- Sales and marketing enablement: competitor battlecards, target account lists, account and country intelligence, sales training material for IBC, and shortlists for account-based marketing.
Supporting decisions
- Supervisory board: I presented the competitive landscape to the company's supervisory board: market drivers, positioning against the closest competitors and where the company was showing resilience.
- A market-leader finding that became a press release: analysing an industry content security report, I identified that Irdeto's market share was growing and that it had become number one in managed security. The company announced it publicly. Read the press release
- Go/no-go on a new market: I managed an external market study that informed a go/no-go decision on entering a new streaming market.
- Partner and supplier due diligence, partner searches, and competitive intelligence supporting product launches and partnerships.
- Group-level strategic analysis for the wider media group.
Commissioning external research
Part of the job was knowing when to buy research rather than do it in-house. I wrote briefs and requests for quotation, compared research firms, managed the projects and pushed back on drafts that didn't answer the question. One project, on cybersecurity for electric vehicle charging, became a published white paper and an industry webinar. See Market sizing for new products.
Building the team's capacity
I supervised five market intelligence interns over four years, along with research support from colleagues. That meant scoping their projects, reviewing their work and turning it into outputs the business could use.
What it shows
- Running market intelligence as a service across several businesses, not just one-off projects.
- Getting intelligence in front of the people who make decisions, up to board level.
- Judgement about when to research in-house and when to commission outside work.
- Developing junior researchers.
This was internal work. Customers, prospects and internal decisions are not described here; only publicly announced items are linked.