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The Future Stratfor Offering.

A great deal of time and money has been spent in the last six months on defining new products and variations of existing ones. Both good and bad ideas have been examined. Some of the participants have been fund wanting.

This is a modest attempt to build on good ideas, and put forward for discussion a product range that could be both profitable, cost effective and create a minimum of disruption.

I will argue – as I have argued before – that what Stratfor needs is product differentiation based on market segments, rather than product separation. ( I am not suggesting that the principal focus in the last six months has been product separation, but use of the terminology ‘consumer product’ and ‘enterprise product’ has encouraged that kind of thinking.)

There are few, if any, examples of successful publishing enterprises based on product separation, but many companies have had success with product differentiation.

I think we could look at the structure and branding of the American Express Platinum card as an example of successful product differentiation, and apply some of its logic to Stratfor. There are four types of Platinum card – Platinum Edge, Platinum Reserve, and The Platinum Card. There is also a Business Platinum Card. (See PDF attachments of the Australian example, but the US one is much the same)

The basic version (The Edge) offers many attractions, and has a relatively modest fee. The Reserve offers a lot more. The top of the range card offers an annual fee of around $1000, but is definitely a premium product, while the Business card provides for large numbers of users.

I have designed the Stratfor offering on the same lines.

1. Stratfor Main is the existing product, though it needs continuous improvement. The main change needed is one of design and presentation. Though what it offers is an improvement on that presented two years ago, its design is still unwieldy, navigation is difficult, and the search engine is poor. (I understand this work may already be in hand with a new designer/IT person). It would probably be sensible to increase feature type material like Geopolitical Diary and Security Weekly, and reduce the section split by region, especially as our coverage of some of the specified regions is very light.

Although Stratfor Main is not a good name, that is what I think the philosophy of the core product should be. I would remove access to the archive from Stratfor Main, and also special products like the Mexican Security Memo, which should be in the next tier product

Summary of Changes to Stratfor Main:-

• Improve Navigation, especially to recent material (last two weeks)

• Add additional video – a weekly two subject program on East and SE Asia. This has already been discussed extensively with Rodger Baker.

• Provide one summary quarterly forecast, not the full one.

• Reduce archive access to one month, or even two weeks.

• Provide big discounts to students.

• Remove special sections like Navy, Mexican Security Memo.

• Remove Geopolitical Diary from free list and make it available to this tier.

• Add a Global Economic Diary to this tier, with a strong focus on the impact of geopolitics on economics.

2. Stratfor Plus. (Again not a good name but defines what it is). Should cost about 25 per cent more than Stratfor Main, with the main benefits as follows:

• The Mexican Security memo and other similar specialist memos.

• Full access to the archive.

• A much improved search engine (provided by Google?)

• Full access to sit reps in up to 10 areas of choice, by region or subject.

3 Stratfor Platinum

This would require a subscription of $1000 per year for individuals.

It would contain everything from the other tiers, but with the following valuable additions.

• Live access to Stratfor’s exclusive weekly on line video briefing. (Produced on the lines of the pilot you have seen recorded with Stick). This is a very low cost product, but it provides very high value, especially with its ability to offer members the ability to answer questions by SMS, email and phone.

• The ability to ask for a revision of the net assessment of any major Stratfor document in the archive. Two examples of documents where people could seek an upgrade are attached, one on Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the other on Iran’s sanctions. This would be extremely valuable for anyone making speeches, or writing speeches for someone else. At present you can dive into many archives, but I know of no one offering a service like this. (It would also help us keep our net assessments up to date)

• Access to Dossier. One of George’s best ideas, in my opinion, was Dossier. Unfortunately it was badly executed by the man from Hollywood, and RWM wanted to do different kinds of data bases, and then shelved the idea. Dossier, supported by data bases, is very powerful, and a big draw for our Platinum product.

• Cloud Storage. Keeping the Stratfor files you want to keep apparently on Stratfor, though of course it would be on cloud space we would acquire, connect it to a members log in, and make a lot of money on it.

The right to book webcasts with George and others, as well as personal briefings. (At the moment anyone can do this. In future you would make this available only to members of Stratfor Platinum or Stratfor Business Platinum)

Stratfor Business Platinum.

This is a corporate offering, and equivalent to Stratfor Platinum. The only difference is that Business Platinum comes in multiple units, discounted for numbers. Thus 1000 seats bought individually would be $1,000,000, but you might consider selling Stratfor Business Platinum for $500,000.

To get that kind of money you should probably consider offering the corporation or institution some carrots – such as two private briefings for boards a year. At that point Stratfor Business Platinum begins to look cheap, but the great advantage is that a dozen of these customers would not only net $6 million, but also provide wonderful PR for Stratfor.

Colin Chapman

11 October 2010

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