Competitive Intelligence at the Speed of DevOps Clint Sprauve Enterprise Solutions Architect (Former Competitive Intel Specialist)

2 What is Competitive Intelligence?

3 Competitive intelligence (CI) is the field dedicated to capturing, analyzing, and driving action related to a company’s competitive landscape.

4 CI is leveraging information from a business’s market and competitors to help a business gain a competitive advantage

5 The Rise of Competitive Intel

6 The Rise of Competitive Intel

7 About GitLab

8 GitLab at a Glance COMPANY - Incorporated in 2014 - 1110+ employees across 65 countries - GitLab Federal entity est. in 2018 BROAD ADOPTION - 100,000+ organizations - Millions of users - 70% share of self-managed DevOps repository market STRONG COMMUNITY - Open source model - 2,500+ code contributors - 10,000+ total contributors

9 GitLab Company Values Collaboration ○ Work asynchronously with fully remote workforce. ○ Use GitLab to build GitLab. There’s an Issue and/or Merge Request for everything. Results ○ Track outcomes, not hours. Diversity ○ Remote-only tends toward global diversity, but we still have a ways to go. ○ Hire those who add to culture, not those who fit with culture. We want cultural diversity instead of cultural conformity. Efficiency ○ Boring solutions win. Complexity slows cycle time. Iteration ○ Minimum Viable Change (MVC); if the change is better than the existing solution, ship it. Transparency ○ Everything at GitLab is public by default: Strategy, Roadmap, Quarterly goals, Handbook, and Issue Trackers.

10 The DevOps Ecosystem can be Large and Complex Developers Product Management Quality Assurance Security Operations Infrastructure Typical DevOps Footprint within the Enterprise Secure Manage Plan Create Verify Package Release Configure Monitor Defend

11 A Single Application delivering the Full DevOps Lifecycle Single Conversation Single Data Store Single Permission Model Single Interface Governance & Security Team Collaboration Lifecycle Analytics Developers Product Management Quality Assurance Security Operations Infrastructure Plan Create Monitor Verify Package Release Configure Secure Secure Manage Plan Create Verify Package Release Configure Monitor Defend

Competitive Intel Challenge: One Solution vs. 60+ DevOps Competitors 9 Secure Manage Plan Create Verify Package Release Configure Monitor Defend

13 How We Do It (Tools, Techniques & Resources)

14 Strategic Marketing (PMM) Org Structure @GitLab Product Marketing Technical Marketing Competitive Intelligence Technology Partnerships and Channel Marketing Enablement: Sales, Partners and Resellers Market Research & Customer Insight Analyst Relations Customer References Buyer Research ● Competitive Inquiries setup by AR ● Customer Advisory Board (CAB) participation ● Mix of market intel research from Gartner, Forrester, IDC, 451, Redmonk and others ● Peer review sites ● Shared across all of PMM

15 Competitive Intelligence Value Chain For selected Competitor and Use Case the sales team should have the following in order to compete and succeed. Products & Services Identify Product Gaps from a competitive standpoint and prioritize with Product Mgmt. Assets - Comparison pages include use case framing - Demos/How To’s - Knowledge Base - Product Plans ROI - Phase1: ROI model customized to use case - Phase2: Add Competitor Lens Customer Case Studies - Customer Case Study & References arranged by Use Case, Competitor & Industry Partner Leverage - Examples of partners we have leveraged in this competitive scenario Strategy Crayon Competitive Cards Contain - How we win - How to use assets, ROI, References, Partners and Products Public Comparison Pages Private

16 Battlecards and Competitive Insights ● We track our top 15 competitors ● Collect and curate intel from multiple sources: internal/external ● Align battlecards with current sales methodology ● Access battlecards & insights in SFDC (single source of truth) ● ANYONE in the company can create, edit or update a battlecard

17 Other Solutions ● Slack channels for intel from the field ● Chorus to capture customer conversations (win/loss analysis) ● LinkedIn (groups, following companies, thought leaders, etc.) ● Force Management - command of the message; focus on defensible differentiators for competitive situations

Full Transparency: GitLab Feature Maturity by Stage 11

Our Competitors Keep Us Honest! 11

20 Lessons Learned

21 Competitive Intel is everyone’s responsibility ○ Create an environment where everyone can contribute - including your competitors! ○ Don’t try to boil the ocean for EVERY competitor ○ Focus on the top three to five competitors, but continuously monitor other emerging competitors and the shifting competitive landscape ○ Collect and curate different points of view for competitive intel (sales, SDRs, BDRs, PMs, partners, executives) ○ Iterate - gather what you can. All competitive info doesn’t have to be complete

22 Thank you https://about.gitlab.com