Using Market Intelligence to Add Value to Businesses
By: Natasha Richardson
Tags: Market Intelligence, Competitive Intelligence, Business Intelligence, Business, Artificial Intelligence

photo credit- William iven from unsplash

Market Intelligence provides businesses the added advantage of knowledge for moving forward. The information on market trends, government policies, news updates, customer behaviors, competitive intelligence reports, product/ service development, competitive insights, and almost every other conceivable topic is available at the click of a mouse due to the empowerment of the Internet. The sources are limitless- search engines, online libraries, company websites, news websites…the list goes on.

But as there are always two sides to the coin, another side points out that gathering market intelligence is pain strikingly difficult in the wide space of the internet. Then, how do you decide which information to trust if the sources of information are plentiful?

Gathering market intelligence

The sources to gather market intelligence depend on the objectives of one’s business. The range of market and competitive intelligence sources can be limited to a category but in the end, the internet has no limitations and so does relevant updates. The hyperactive market is updated every second with new insight and the market intelligence that reaches the first getter always gives an elevated advantage. So, the manual research of market intelligence through the internet is ruled out because of the wide scope of information it captures. Organizations, therefore, use a market intelligence system that cuts the high cost and time of the organization and gives quality updates of the market and competitive intelligence with an easy-to-extract taxonomic structure.

Now that we have discussed how to gather market intelligence, let us move on to how to make the best use out of this market intelligence.

3 most important ways to use market intelligence

Designing the roadmap

One very obvious use of market intelligence for organizations is to get enough knowledge and information about the industry, customers, competitors for planning the future of the organization. The strategies of different teams like sales, marketing, and procurement are dependent on such insights extracted from market intelligence. This step helps leaders and strategists design a roadmap for the organization by analyzing the current and even historic market trends and patterns of the industry.

2. Positioning yourself differently

When you are keeping up with the happenings around you, you get the opportunity to discover your industry customers in better ways and learn more about their leanings and choices. Every business needs to build its uniqueness in the market full of copies. But doing that would not be possible if you wouldn’t know how other brands and your competitors are projecting themselves or their products and services in the same market. Hence, market intelligence helps you conduct a competitive landscape analysis and gives you the best space to learn from other peoples’ experiences.

3. Connecting with customers

Every customer is a different use-case but in an industry, their demands could be put under the same umbrella. Market intelligence helps organizations in understanding the behavior of the customers. If one uses it backward, this market intelligence can also be used to trigger sales conversations — be it through marketing events, sales calls, or content marketing for building a competitive edge different from others in the industry.

Conclusions

Organizations are leaning towards accepting and acknowledging the importance of market intelligence to drive the growth of their businesses. This has become easier with the automation of the market intelligence system that saves time and cost significantly for different teams of the organization. Therefore, market intelligence when used wisely is adept in bringing additional value to your business operations, and hence, leading organizations find it logical to invest in the market and competitive landscape for boosting their business growth.