Market+intelligence

Market intelligence methods to improve the efficiency of moving products and services to markets
**Market intelligence** is the information collected by companies to assess market opportunities, strategies to access markets, and make marketing decisions. **Competitive intelligence** is the process of researching and analyzing data to determine a company's competitive position.

 In this discussion we will consider **Market intelligence** and **Competitive intelligence** together.

 Typically, countries which are developing their innovation and commercialization strategies are inexperienced in collecting competitive and market intelligence. Benefits of market intelligence include:
 * Understanding the market environment for your product or service
 * Forecasting the future environment
 * Promotion of a focus on markets and customers
 * Identification of new opportunities and new trends before competitors
 * Early warning of competitor moves to enable counter measures
 * Reducing investment risks by identifying threats and trends early
 * Finding markets, market needs, competitors and competing products, gaining market entry.
 *  Improved market selection and positioning, discovering under-served market opportunities
 * New product development strategies
 * Minimizing investment risks
 * Developing quicker, more efficient and cost-effective ways to find information – avoiding duplication of report acquisitions and expensive services

 Thus, it is common for new, small, technology companies to waste resources in developing products for which either the market is not clear, or there are existing competitors and competing products not known to the company. "We have no competitors" is a common, but rarely true, statement made by companies unskilled in the ways of market intelligence. In turn this weakness in market intelligence creates impediments to investment. Your company business plan should include a section on competitive intelligence.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Market intelligence for your product may include
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Which routes to market and distribution channels would be most effective for your business structure?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">How does your product and company compare with your competitors?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">How does the performance of your product compare with competing products?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">How does the price of your product compare with competing products?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">How does the support for your product (e.g. customer service after a sale is made, upgrades) compare with your competitors?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What are weaknesses in my company's product?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Qualitative research methods can be used to find about consumers and the industry in which you are operating. Methods include:
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Discussion groups and social media**. Review conversations taking place on <span class="wiki_link_ext" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">LinkedIn <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> or <span class="wiki_link_ext" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Facebook <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> for example - but be careful what information you provide, your competitors are also monitoring social media.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Talk to the potential customers**. The best way to get reactions to your product.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Focus groups**. Groups of users or potential customers to give insight into what consumers want.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Trade shows and conferences.** Get reactions to your product and build personal networks.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Stages of collecting information:
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Decide what questions need answering.
 * <span class="paragraph" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Collect and process relevant information.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Analyze the information relative to the questions to be answered.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Disseminate the results to the people who need them.


 * ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Exercise: learn by doing === ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Choose an invention, technology, new product or business idea.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Product**: Describe in terms of benefits to customers. Avoid a description of technical features.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Customers:** Who are the customers??

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Markets:** Which countries or regions? Industries? Niche sectors? Try to focus effort onto well understood, attainable markets.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Maturity:** Existing or new? Developed or developing? Proven use? Sales history?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Customer drivers:** Why does the customer want it? What product features most strongly influence the buying decision?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Competitors:** Who are the competitors and competing products? If your answer is "there are no competitors" - prove it.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Use your favorite search engine to look for:
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Similar or competing products or services.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Reports on the market environment
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Information on market size and market projections (In many cases full market reports are expensive to buy. Just review the free summary or table of contents for the information you need)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Ideas from a focus group.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Also search in social media and blogs using social media and blog search engines.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Try using: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Factiva** [] ||

<span class="head4" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Legal and ethical issues
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> When conducting competitive intelligence search publicly available information, do not make false representations about who you are when asking questions, do not record conversations without permission, and do not exchange price or market share information

<span class="head4" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Analytical techniques
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> After information has been compiled and verified, several analytical techniques can be applied:
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">//Strength and weakness analysis// — do we -- or our competitors -- have what it takes to our maintain our lead or get into this line of business?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">//Financial statement analysis// — are our current ratios in line with industry averages?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">//Industry segmentation// — are we ignoring new groups of buyers?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">//Technology assessment// — how will this new technology impact our business?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">//Merger and acquisition analysis// — does this firm meet our acquisition criteria?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">//Issue analysis// — how will new regulations affect us?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">//Benchmarking// — how do we rank on a certain issue (e.g.R&D spending) vs. other firms?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">//Critical success factors// — are currency rates key to our success?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">//Management profiles// — a major trading partner has a new president -- how will that affect our relationship?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">//Industry scenarios// — what are three plausible scenarios for the next 10 - 20 years and how would each affect us?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">//Synergy analysis// — which companies should we approach for possible joint ventures?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">//Portfolio analysis// — what kinds of investments constitute a competitor's long and short term assets
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">//Reverse engineering// — can we make a competitor's product better, faster, or cheaper?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> [|http://web.fumsi.com/go/article/find/3789]
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Finding Competitive Business Information in Six Steps **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> []
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Filling in the Gaps: Company Intelligence Beyond the Corporate Website **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">[]
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Tapping into the collective intelligence of social media to brainstorm a new project **

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Tapping into the collective intelligence of the public is referred to as //crowdsourcing////.// Using social media sites to ask questions is a new part of this trend that works brilliantly for brainstorming a new project".

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">[]
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Twitter for business intelligence **

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Many businesses, large and small, are using Twitter as part of their overall marketing campaigns, to monitor their brand for customer service or product issues, and to announce company-related information as part of their public relations efforts".