What is Market Intelligence?

1 - I can do better 2 - Jury's out 3 - Pretty darn good 4 - Splendiferous 5 - Awesometastic by 1 person | Log in to rate

Ranked #4,063 in Business, #97,438 overall

What is Market Intelligence

A lens that will help you understand market, competitive and business intelligence.

What is Market Intelligence? 

By Wikipedia

Market Intelligence (MI) - information relevant to a company's markets, gathered and analyzed specifically for the purpose of accurate and confident decision making in determining market opportunity, market penetration strategy, and new market development metrics.

Organisationally, Market Intelligence may be the name of the department that performs both the market intelligence and competitor analysis roles. Competitive Intelligence describes the broader discipline of researching, analyzing and formulating data and information from the entire competitive environment of any organization. Business Intelligence of any kind may also be responsible, in tandem with (or solely performed in) the Finance department, for measuring market share and setting growth targets, the Mergers & Acquisition group for exploring acquisition opportunities, Legal to protect the organization's assets or R&D for cross-company comparison of innovation trends and the discovery of opportunities through innovative differentiation.

Market Intelligence (MI) is the information relevant to a company's markets, gathered and analyzed specifically for the purpose of accurate and confident decision-making in determining market opportunity, market penetration strategy, and market development metrics.

Organizationally, Market Intelligence can be the name of the department that performs both the market intelligence and competitor analysis roles. Competitive Intelligence describes the broader discipline of researching, analyzing and formulating data and information from the entire competitive environment of any organization. Business Intelligence of any kind may also be their responsibility, in tandem with (or solely performed by) the Finance department, for measuring market share and setting growth targets, the Mergers & Acquisition group for exploring acquisition opportunities, the Legal department to protect the organization's assets or R&D for cross-company comparison of innovation trends and the discovery of opportunities through innovative differentiation.

Share your thoughts on Market Intelligence 

submit

Intelligence Literature 

What is Competitive Intelligence? 

By Wikipedia

"Competitive Intelligence (CI) is both a process and a product. The process of Competitive Intelligence is the action of gathering, analyzing, and applying information about products, domain constituents, customers, and competitors for the short term and long term planning needs of an organization. The product of Competitive Intelligence is the actionable output ascertained by the needs prescribed by an organization."

Key points of these definitions:

1. Competitive Intelligence is an ethical and legal business practice. (This is important as CI professionals emphasize that the discipline is not the same as industrial espionage which is both unethical and usually illegal).
2. The focus is on the external business environment.
3. There is a process involved in gathering information, converting it into intelligence and then utilizing this in business decision making. CI professionals emphasize that if the intelligence gathered is not usable (or actionable) then it is not intelligence.

The term is often viewed as synonymous with Competitor analysis but Competitive Intelligence is more than analyzing competitors - it is about making the organization more competitive relative to its existing set of competitors and potential competitors. Customers and key external stakeholders define the set of competitors for the organization and, in so doing, describe what could be a substitute for the business, votes, donations or other activities of the organization. The term is often abbreviated as CI, and most large businesses now have some Competitive Intelligences functions with staff involved often being members of professional associations such as the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals.

The Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) is an organization for those who are interested in learning more about Competitive Intelligence. Established in 1986, they provide education and networking opportunities for business professionals, and provide up to date market research and analysis. "Members of the SCIP have backgrounds in market research, strategic analysis, science and technology."³

A broad definition of competitive intelligence is the action of defining, gathering, analyzing, and distributing Intelligence about products, customers, competitors and any aspect of the environment needed to support executives and managers in making strategic decisions for an organization.

Key points of this definition:

#Competitive intelligence is an ethical and legal business practice, as opposed to industrial espionage which is illegal.

#The focus is on the external business environment.Haag, Stephen. Management Information Systems for the Information Age. Third Edition. McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 2006.

#There is a process involved in gathering information, converting it into intelligence and then utilizing this in business decision making. CI professionals emphasize that if the intelligence gathered is not usable (or actionable) then it is not intelligence.

A more focused definition of CI regards it as the organizational function responsible for the early identification of risks and opportunities in the market before they become obvious. Experts also call this process the early signal analysis. This definition focuses attention on the difference between dissemination of widely available factual information (such as market statistics, financial reports, newspaper clippings) performed by functions such as libraries and information centers, and competitive intelligence which is a perspective on developments and events aimed at yielding a competitive edge Gilad, Ben. "The Future of Competitive Intelligence: Contest for the Profession's Soul", Competitive Intelligence Magazine, 2008, 11(5), 22.

The term CI is often viewed as synonymous with competitor analysis, but competitive intelligence is more than analyzing competitors ? it is about making the organization more competitive relative to its entire environment and stakeholders: customers, competitors, distributors, technologies, macro-economic data etc.

More Literature 

Proven Strategies in Competitive Intelligence: Lessons from the Trenches

Amazon Price: $42.90 (as of 12/22/2009) Buy Now

The Warroom Guide to Competitive Intelligence

Amazon Price: (as of 12/22/2009) Buy Now

The Complete Guide To Competitive Intelligence (4th Edition)

Amazon Price: $150.00 (as of 12/22/2009) Buy Now

Jobs in Market Intelligence 

Finance Manager, PC Market Intelligence-Windows Finance
Microsoft - Redmond, WA
meetpeople/default.aspx>! Group: The PC Market Intelligence Team (PCMIT) provides one of the most... strategies. The PC Market Intelligence Team provides... ...
WW Lead, PC Market Intelligence Team
Microsoft - Redmond, WA
The PC Market Intelligence Team (PCMIT) helps shape and dissect a very influential input to Microsoft’s... team and influence our market forecasts, both long... ...
Market Research and Customer Intelligence Manager
The College Board - New York, NY
Customer and Market Intelligence • Direct... market research vendor sourcing to achieve more effective market research investments. Market Management... ...
Health Care Insurance Competitive Intelligence Director
UnitedHealth Group - Market Research, Mkt Strategy & Intelligence-MA - Edina, MN
the competitive intelligence function and works closely with health plan executives and local field sales in determining competitive intelligence requirements... ...
Sr. Market Intelligence Analyst
EMC - Hopkinton, MA
MARKET INTELLIGENCE GROUP: The mission of the Market... The Senior Market Intelligence Analyst is responsible for delivering strategic market intelligence through... ...
See more results

Powered by Indeed

What is Business Intelligence? 

Business Intelligence (BI) refers to skills, processes, technologies, applications and practices used to support decision making.

BI technologies provide historical, current, and predictive views of business operations. Common functions of Business Intelligence technologies are reporting, OLAP, analytics, data mining, business performance management, benchmarking, text mining, and predictive analytics.

Business Intelligence often aims to support better business decision-making.

Thus a BI system can be called a decision support system (DSS).

The term business intelligence is often used as a synonym for competitive intelligence.

More Online Information 

Loading Fetching RSS feed... please stand by

Market Intelligence News 

Loading Fetching RSS feed... please stand by

by Tallguy2

Hi,

I am a 35 year old
Tall Guy from Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

(more)

Explore related pages

Create a Lens!