BAF® Request: 366-KAR® – Growth Opportunities in Steel and Services

ICG BAF

This is a BAF® Best Accredited professional Forward request. ICG is seeking interested and available professionals to respond to a service request.

A Knowledge Area Review (‘KAR®’) is a short, focussed assignment that researches and presents “structured and synthesised, publically available” information to a client on a specific topic.

Typically containing information-rich slides, synthesised knowledge, categorised insights and data visualisations, KARs are a unique ICG intellectual property tailored for almost any topic, assembled to a client’s specifications.

Client

A new ICG client, a Canadian subsidiary of one of the world’s leading manufacturers of high quality tool steels, high speed steels, powder metallurgical steels, stainless steels and specialty alloys is seeking a KAR focused on the “Growth Opportunities in Steel and Services”.

With a focus on a variety of markets across the globe, this KAR will focus on identifying non-traditional and innovative approaches from steel and beyond the traditional steel business that, if employed, or used to extend product offerings, could provide opportunities for profitable growth in Canada and beyond.

These hypotheses will be tested in a future work effort.

Knowledge Area Review – KAR®

The successful lead accredited professional will be accountable for structuring and managing the development of a KAR, the planning and performance of the team in support of the KAR mandate and the integration of findings into a final report.

The KAR review will identify, filter and synthesize all relevant published mainstream content (e.g., consulting industry, academic, economic, and industry association perspectives), insights and frameworks on the Growth Opportunities in Steel and Steel Services.

For additional background information on what a KAR is, excerpts are available on the ICG web site under Publications. They are typically 70-120 PPT pages long and are carefully curated, filtered and structured.

The Role

The KAR will be developed by a team comprised of:

  • One or two lead affiliates responsible for authorship;
  • Up to three additional (3) expert panel members to help guide the structure of the KAR and supplement with key content perspectives as subject matter experts.

Lead Co-Author(s)
The Lead Co-Author(s) must have a passion for consulting and research assignments and have some understanding of Steel or related industries. Expertise working within the Steel environment is not a requirement. Some knowledge of the market, other potential markets and the ability to help think outside of the box is a requirement.

The individual(s) must have spent 3-5 or more years in a leading consulting firm or be able to demonstrate the highest levels of rapid knowledge synthesis and publishing skills through existing published research reports.

Expert Panel Members
Respondents seeking to be members of the expert panel must demonstrate they have leading expertise applicable to this topic. This will be demonstrated by a background in the field and by their identification of selected public IP examples as part of their application for the role. Importantly, as above, first-hand experience working in Steel is not a requirement, but a working understanding of the business and the ability to thinking strategically about cross industry applications will be highly regarded.

Logistics, Process and Rate

Logistics: The Client Lead is an existing ICG accredited professional managing the client relationship. The Lead Co-Author(s) may work remotely, but must be available for teleconferencing with the client and client lead consistent with a NYC/Toronto time zone. It is anticipated that the work required will be in the vicinity of 20 to 30 days of consulting support over a four to five-week period.

  • Kick-off meeting with client: immediately, culminating with an outline of the structure of the work and an outline of the final deliverable by the end of week one
  • First draft of KAR: three or four weeks hence
  • Delivery of final KAR: four to five weeks hence
  • Work must be completed by the end of May 2016 as input into ongoing planning

Accredited professionals should allow for up to 3 teleconference meetings with the Lead accredited professional and expert panel and the client team along with the time dedicated to the work effort as outlined above.

The successful accredited professionals will be supported by a generous level of ICG Research and where necessary limited ICG Production resources, as well as support from previous relevant KAR materials and highly polished templates.

Process: APT’s must be lodged by the time and date specified below.

AKL 7:00pm Friday, 15 April 2016
SYD/MEL 5:00pm Friday, 15 April 2016
SGP 3:00pm Friday, 15 April 2016
PAR/BRU/STO 9:00am Friday, 15 April 2016
LON 8:00am Friday, 15 April 2016
TOR/NY 3:00am Friday,15 April 2016

 

We will review all APT’s and select the best 3. The client will then conduct interviews.

Rates:
Lead KAR Co-Author(s): USD $8,000 NET (plus HST) each or USD $16,000 NET (plus HST) if single author or shared as agreed, plus one third of all global revenues generated by future sales of this report.

Expert Panel Members: USD $500-1,000 NET (plus HST) on effective minimum contribution of 4 hours to 1 day of individual and team research and review sessions. Participants will also receive a PPT copy of the KAR final, and thus be well placed to market the KAR in other markets with access to the 33% sales commission on each re-sale of this product.

To apply for this BAF® you should submit your ICG Accredited Professional Transcript (APT’s) in the required format (in ICG GDrive here – Accredited Professionals only) to [email protected] and confirm that you are available (or will make yourself available) for interviews at the client’s discretion.