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Have consulted with major financial institutions on toy and video game competitive intelligence since 2002.

Sources include retailer panel [ten stores each for toy and video game], buyers at WalMart, Target,ToysRUs, GameStop, Game Group etc. Sources also include senior sales executives at the major toy and video game companies as well as peripheral sources such as headhunters, ad agencies, PR agencies, independent reps etc.

Is considered expert on European, Latin American and Asian sourcing as he has managed or supervised manufacturing operations in Arigentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Thailand and the United Kingdom

Competitive analysis is a companion product for competitive intelligence.

Competitive intelligence in this context is synonymous with business intelligence

As the CEO of four turn-around manufacturers, decision-making is the most important aspect of the overall management process. Since these turn-arounds were successful, the decision making process going into them must equally have been solid

In any turn-around, accurate market assessment is probably the most important starting point. In each case, I found a niche in the market place which allowed me to develop profitable products and to place these with key retailers.

Market research is the underlying discipline that drives competitive intelligence. For this, he has established two ten-store retailer panels - one for toys, the other for video games - allowing access to sell-through data, merchandising allocation, vendor information and consumer reactions

In March 2007, a very large hedgefund wanted to know what the outlook for Mega Bloks was. I consulted my retailer panel, talked to my friends in the industry [specifically Lego and K'Nex] and said that Mega was losing market share, shelf space, buyer support, and money. at an accerating rate. On November 6, 2007, Mega webcast their third-quarter result, which was a disaster, and their share price fell from $15 to $5 in two days. In January 2008 I was asked by the leading banking institution to predict the likely first-quarter sales result of Mattel and Hasbro. I again consulted my retailer panel and talked to my friends in the industry including national buyers at leading toy retailers. As a result of this research, and contrary to the opinion held by the analysts at that point, I predicted that Hasbro would show considerable sales growth and Mattel considerable sales declines in the first quarter. The sales result bore out my assessment - Mattel declined by 2.3% and Hasbro grew by 12.8%. For toy fair 2009, I had asked two national buyers at large toy retailers, who were visiting all major toy manufacturers during toy fair, to share their notes with me. They agreed to do so provided that I kept their identity confidential and changed their notes to the extent which made identification of the writer impossible. I was able to share these notes with my analyst clients following these manufacturers and they were as a result in a better position to assess the sales potential of their new products and hence of the two companies for 2009On November 17, a client asked me to forecast Ubisoft's sales for the third quarter 2008 as well as for the full 2008/9 year. I talked to my contacts at GameStop and GameGroup as well as friends at Ubisoft's competitors and predicted that Ubisoft would handily exceed their guidance for the third quarter and would increase guidance for the fourth quarter. This did indeed take place in their webcast of January 22, 2009.My clients who followed the video game industry asked me in January 2009 to assess the sales potential of the new games slated for release in 2009. I asked my friends at GameStop and Game Group in January 2009 for their help and they ranked the top seventy games for me according to what they considered the sales prospects for each. My clients told me that this information was instrumental in their assessment of the outlook for ERTS, ATVI, THQI and TTWO as well as of the major console manufacturers [Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft].