Market intelligence (MI) is the information relevant to a company's market - trends, competitor and customer (existing, lost and targeted) monitoring, gathered and analyzed specifically for the purpose of accurate and confident decision-making in determining strategy in areas such as market opportunity, market penetration strategy, and market development.^[1]

It is a subtype of competitive intelligence, is data and information gathered by companies that provides continuous insight into market trends such as competitors and customers values and preferences. MI along with the marketing capabilities of an organisation provides a guideline into the allocation and implementation of resources and processes^[2]. It is used for the purpose of continuously supplying strategic marketing planning for organisations to gauge marketing positions in order for companies to gain competitive advantage and best meet objectives ^[3][4].

Market intelligence includes the process of gathering data from the company's external environment like online sources - news websites, company websites, secondary data sources, social media, RSS feeds, etc., whereas the business intelligence process is based primarily on internal recorded events – such as sales, shipments, and purchases. The purpose of incorporating Market Information or intelligence into the Business Intelligence process is to provide decision-makers with a more “complete picture” of ongoing corporate performance in a set of given market conditions.^[5]

Background and Development

MI and its broader term, marketing intelligence, was first introduced in “Marketing Intelligence for Top Management” by Kelley^[6], to provide information that was analysed, reliable and consistent for an organisation to better create policies and make business decisions. Following Kelley, in “How to Develop a Marketing Intelligence System”, R. Pinkerton^[7] shows the proactiveness of organisations as marketing intelligence systems is applied whilst the technological revolution arises^[8]. MI to this current date continues to change to meet organisational requirements.

Framework

The implementation of MI varies depending on how organisations perceive it. Frameworks can be flexible, however the basis that organisations use to model the MI surrounds a four-step process, which are, collection, validation, processing and communication. MI is a continuous process that organisations need to keep track of to improve their strategic marketing planning. The model can be adjusted and adapted when required and can be implemented all at once or by sections ^[9].

Collection

Collection is the first step in the MI model, it involves the gathering of data and information of a particular market sector. Such data and information can be gathered from external sources, such as other organisations and their market strategies, research institutes and business reports. Internal factors can include looking into current strategy processes and personal customer trends^[9].

Validation

Validation is the second step in the MI model, it is the “normalisation and correction of data and information collected” ^[9]. Data and information obtained from sources can be dirty, meaning that it is incomplete, wrong, inappropriate, duplicated. This step will allow data and information to be adjusted and understandable to the organisation^[9].

Processing

Processing is the third step in the MI model. It involves the use of translating the clean data using organisational rules, modelling, logic and analysis to produce readable information, reports and spreadsheets that allows the organisation to gain specified knowledge^[9].

Communication

Communication is the last step in the MI model. It involves the sharing, delivering and transmission of information gained from the processing step to figures in the organisation who will apply it accordingly to the market strategy^[9].   

Intelligence Organisation

Intelligence organisation refers to the “people and information resources who make the market intelligence process happen” ^[4]. The five elements of an intelligence organisation are, MI leadership who manages and leads the MI process, a MI team, a portfolio of external information sources that is set up by the MI team, internal MI network made up of MI users and the MI user’s personal information source network. An intelligence organisation element is made up of external and internal factors that allows for a continuous MI process^[4].

Gathering market intelligence data

Market intelligence needs accurate market information that is gathered with curated Market and Competitive Intelligence tools and methods. To gather information companies can conduct surveys, interviews, visit and monitor competitors outlets or gather and buy data from different sources.

The gathering of MI data is different dependent on an organisation’s financial capabilities. Sources of data and information is separated into qualitative, quantitative, formal, informal, published and unpublished. With such sources being retrieved both internally and externally from the organisation^[8]. It involves using search engines and corporate web sites to see competitor’s strategies, identifying business trends through reputable publications and existing customer clientele^[10]. Organisations use different systems to gather MI, one system is that is used is Open-source Intelligence system^[11].

Traditional interviews and surveys can be done either in-house or by using specialist agencies. As more and more markets are digitalized the market intelligence space has seen a lot of new digital tools that companies can use. There are tools such as Google Consumer Survey that enable companies to ask web users a question through Google network of online publishers. There are also specialist sites companies can buy market intelligence information and market intelligence software like Contify, Uptime that companies can use to collect and monitor data from the internet.

Open-source Intelligence (OSINT)

Open-source intelligence is a predominant form of MI gathering that organisations employ. OSINT is defined as the “scanning, finding, gathering, exploitation, validation, analysis, and sharing with intelligence-seeking clients of publicly available print and digital/electronic data from unclassified, non-secret, and grey literature^[12]. It is frequently used as its system is user friendly, its inexpensive and that it processes an abundant amount of raw materials that can be further processed^[13].

Benefits

MI processes have been used in many organisation’s strategic market planning, however, there are still difficulties in what the hard and soft benefits in using a MI process for an organisation. The benefits of a successful MI process can be sectioned into three categories, better and faster decisions, time and cost savings and organisational learning and new ideas, however, overall, it can improve profitability and the competitiveness of an organisation^[4].

Issues

There are issues that arises in the process of acquiring MI data and information. These issues if not mitigated or resolved can lead to financial and reputational damages to the organisation. An issue that can arise is the unethical and illegal collection of data and information. Organisations can collect data for MI illegally or unethically. Industrial espionage is the gathering. An example of illegal MI collection practice is when British Airways breached the Data Protect Act 1984 through accessing Virgin’s confidential flight details ^[14][9]

A standard of conduct was developed by the non-for-profit organisation Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals, creating a code of ethics that can be adhered to by organisations when collecting market intelligence, to prevent the illegal and unethical collection of data and information^[9].

References