Our guest today is Vivek Soman, a former McKinsey Engagement Manager who is the founder and Managing Director of The Ananya Group, which has completed over 300 projects since it was founded in 2008. Ananya is a Bengali word meaning “unparalled.” Vivek’s firm has a very clear focus: the client focus is large $1 billion revenue and up tech, media, telecom, and professional services companies  The service offering includes three types of projects: 1) competitive intelligence 2) customer intelligence 3) focused strategy projects Vivek has worked to standardize the process of doing competitive intelligence, and we discuss that as well as a couple practices I found interesting: 1) found that obscure tech journals in the Middle East and Europe – executives of large tech companies sometimes talk more openly about their product strategy that you can find in the US 2) developed a process to source 80-100 interviews, with very specific questions, just 3-4, You can read more about Vivek’s firm at www.TheAnanyaGroup.com Vivek is currently looking for someone to help with business development. If you are interested in that role, or just have other questions about his work, he invites you to contact him at vivek.soman@theananyagroup.com