Most people conflate business intelligence and market intelligence, but in reality, they are two distinct concepts. While business intelligence focuses primarily on internal elements like billing rates, headcount, processes, etc., market intelligence collects data from outside sources to provide you with a comprehensive view of the industry as a whole, not just your own niche within it. However, by integrating market intelligence with business intelligence procedures, a company would be able to get a comprehensive picture of its continued performance in a given market environment. With so many platforms, data sources, technologies, and tools at our disposal today, the term “market intelligence” has become what is used in a generic sense. But where do you even start to source such important data about your target market? This guide will educate you on what market intelligence is while also explaining the role of a MI analyst and S&P Global MI.
So, What Exactly Is Market Intelligence?
Market intelligence, in its broadest definition, refers to the gathering of data pertinent to a company’s markets. In a more concrete sense, it refers to the gathering, analysis, and communication of data pertinent to the market segments in which your organization already operates or aspires to operate. This generally includes four key activities: competition intelligence, product intelligence, market analysis, and market research, as the graphic below illustrates. Data alone does not provide market intelligence. Information that is important for decision-making is produced by combining data with analysis.
What Are the Elements of Market Intelligence?
There are a number of ways in which a company can benefit from marketing intelligence in order to successfully traverse the complexities of its own marketing landscape. When executed properly, each marketing intelligence strategy has four components that aid in the development of sound strategic decisions.
- Competitive Advantage
- Product Intelligence
- Marketing Understanding
- Consumer Understanding
While each of the four key components of MI has the potential to be a discipline unto itself, the combination of all these disciplines gives them their full power. For instance, you might be aware that a rival is charging less than usual for a product (Product Intelligence). However, the rationale for their pricing move becomes evident when you are also aware that this corporation intends to replace this product with a completely new line of products (once more, Product Intelligence).
This data becomes significantly more powerful when integrated with the understanding that the company’s BOD has tasked the CEO with increasing market share (competitor intelligence). In addition, they have a strategic objective of entering a fresh market segment (also competitor intelligence).
Knowing that a rival has lowered prices in anticipation of the introduction of a new product line in an effort to capture market share in a new market sector is advantageous. How lucrative is this market sector, though, and what does it take to succeed there? Here, Market Analysis and Market Research step in. One can determine whether this market sector will “boost the competitors’ expansion” or be a strain on their resources by examining secondary market data, market share trends, as well as other market data (Market Analysis). Market research offers specialized insight into the most important customer needs, customer loyalty to current vendors, and many other factors that will affect a company’s chance of success in a fresh (or current) market segment.
How Do You Get Market Intelligence?
With the use of market intelligence, businesses are better able to cater to the requirements of their target market and gain a better understanding of their rivals and the overall market.
Better decisions, expanded market share, and stronger brand positioning can all result from collecting up-to-date data through a thoughtful MI research program. To get MI, you follow the below tips;
- Decide on a goal.
- Establish metrics
- Create a research strategy.
- Collect information, analyze it, and
- Take action on the findings
What Do Market Intelligence Companies Do?
Basically, a market intelligence company draws data from a variety of sources to provide a comprehensive picture of the current market for your firm. It evaluates the clients, issues, rivals, and potential for developing new goods and services for your business.
What Are the 3 Sources of Marketing Intelligence?
Here are a few of the sources of competitive intelligence to monitor competitors in your industry
- Competitors’ websites
- Social media
- Your customers
- Competitors’ customers
- Competitors’ employees
- Your coworkers
- Earned media
- Competitors’ content channels
What Are the Four 4 Phases of Intelligence?
Here are the four pillars upon which Market Intelligence is built:
- Competitor Intelligence
- Product Intelligence
- Market Understanding
- Customer Understanding.
Market Intelligence Tools
To better understand the consumer and their behavior, market intelligence tools gather data that is either client- or publicly available. The information might be gathered from sources that concentrate on comprehending particular trends or ideas over a marketplace or consumer industry as opposed to a particular business or individual organization. A variety of marketing or sales entities frequently use market intelligence products to compile lists of general or niche market data and analytics to better guide business strategy.
What Do Market Intelligence Tools Do?
In order to produce records or combine them with already-existing CRM data, market intelligence software gathers publically available information on businesses and individuals from a range of sources. Market intelligence tools gather data from a variety of sources, including customers, competitors, and growth prospects, to create a comprehensive picture of a company’s market. This merged profile gives businesses a more thorough understanding of their present and potential clients, highlights market opportunities, and as well assists in decision-making.
Market intelligence tool, in contrast to business intelligence software tools which offers insight into a company’s data to promote data-driven decision-making for the enhancement of a business, is designed to collect and combine unique sets of data in order to create summaries of likely opportunities and identify the most efficient means of outreach.
Read Also: COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE: How To Conduct A Competitive Intelligence Research
Why Use Market Intelligence Tools?
Business organizations benefit from market intelligence tools throughout the data management process. To support strategic, operational, and tactical decision-making, market intelligence tools assist in the collection and unification of contact data. It also helps with;
- Enrichment of data
- Prioritization of accounts
- Data integrity and quality
Who Uses Market Intelligence Tools?
- Basically sales and marketing team
The use of market intelligence tools helps sales and marketing teams to compile lists of probable customers and choose the most effective methods of contact. In addition to identifying possible high-opportunity leads, market intelligence tools aid sales and marketing professionals in gathering actionable data and knowledge about relevant markets as a whole.
Additionally, market intelligence tools aid in filtering out redundant and pointless data to assist marketing teams in creating more effective campaigns and aid sales in concentrating on making sales rather than merely prospecting and collecting leads. This kind of information can assist marketers in choosing the channels that will best connect with their target contact persona.
Market Intelligence Analyst
A market intelligence analyst compiles, examines, and produces actionable data about important corporate rivals.
Market intelligence analyst is in charge of assisting their organization or business in making wise selections regarding the next activities.
They accomplish this by compiling pertinent information in order to predict the likely course of action that others will adopt. For instance, if they are employed by a company that offers network television to customers, they will look into potential rivals’ business plans. They choose the strategy that will help their business grow, increase its market share, and offer more appealing services than their rivals.
A market intelligence analyst collects this information from both internal and external sources to the company. Internally, this encompasses the product, sales, and customer success teams. Press releases, rival websites, and social networking sites are examples of external sources.
What Does a Market Intelligence Analyst Do?
- Examine any potential shortfalls in the organization’s fresh and existing product lines, as well as its value-added offerings.
- To fully understand the competition, a market intelligence analyst gathers data about them and carries out an assessment of their sales, prices, and marketing and distribution strategies.
- By constantly controlling the data flow from many sources, including internal and external data sets, work is being done with the purpose of automating and/or developing self-service reporting for the top management.
- Utilize cutting-edge visualization techniques to demonstrate your ability to communicate and offer the management team vital, actionable market and competition data.
- Keep track of costs and significant material swings, including internal and external influences and logistics.
- Create a good working relationship with a variety of internal and external stakeholders.
How to Become a Market Intelligence Analyst
How much schooling you need to pursue a career as a competitive intelligence analyst should be one of your first considerations. A study has also shown that 74.2% of market intelligence analysts hold bachelor’s degrees. Also, 19.3% of market intelligence analysts have master’s degrees, which is higher education. Even though a college degree is typically required to become a market intelligence analyst, you can not enter the field with just a high school diploma or GED.
S&P Global Market Intelligence
S&P Global Market Intelligence, originally S&P Capital IQ and SNL Financial (NYSE: SPGI), is a subsidiary of S&P Global.
The company is a global leader in providing investment professionals, governmental organizations, businesses, and institutions with financial and industry data, research, news, and analytics.
To follow performance, produce alpha, find investment ideas, comprehend competitive and industry dynamics, execute valuation and evaluate credit risk, S&P Global Market Intelligence mixes news, thorough market and sector-specific data, and analytics into a number of tools.
What Type of Company Is S&P Global Market Intelligence?
S&P Global Market Intelligence is a company that provides institutional investors, investment and commercial banks, insurance companies, investment advisors and wealth managers, corporations, and universities with multi-asset class and real-time data, research, news, and analytics. S&P Global Market Intelligence also works with universities.
Is S&P Global a Reliable Organization?
On AmbitionBox, employees have evaluated their employer 4.3 out of 5, giving the company an overall rating of 4.3. The company culture of S&P Global is renowned for being one of the best in the business, earning it a rating of 4.4 out of 5. On the other hand, the Career growth score is the lowest at 3.5 and has room for improvement.
Market Intelligence vs Market Research
The word “marketing intelligence” is generally confused with two distinct processes: business intelligence and marketing research, even though efforts in this area can result in stronger campaigns and higher marketing ROI.
While both phrases assist organizations in making defensible, data-driven decisions about campaigns, there is a distinction between the two terms’ ultimate objectives. Marketing research only focuses on the initiatives of the particular business, assisting in the clarification of some areas of campaigns but offering no insights into any outside issues. The goal of business intelligence, on the other hand, is to collect data from various business operations and processes in order to increase the productivity of all organizational divisions and locations.
What Is the Goal of Marketing Intelligence?
Market intelligence help businesses need to keep tabs on market trends and customer preferences in order to stay ahead of the competition. The goal of collecting and analyzing market intelligence is to improve strategic decision-making by gaining insight into target markets and key competitors.
What Are the Advantages of Marketing Intelligence?
Market intelligence provides a comprehensive view of the market since it incorporates knowledge of the industry, the products available in it, and the competition. As a result, you’ll be able to draw stronger conclusions from your data and act on them in your organization. To sum it up MI helps you as a business to;
- Gain a comprehensive overview of the market.
- Acquire an edge over the competition.
- Be prepared for what’s to come
- Put your money into worthwhile endeavors.
- Recognize your target market
- Launch goods and services with a solid plan.
- Boost operational effectiveness
Conclusion
Market intelligence is an excellent technique to determine where your product or service stands in the current market. Because of the dynamic nature of today’s markets, collecting and analyzing market data should be an ongoing initiative for your company. Hence, acquiring market intelligence is not something you should do once and then forget about.
You can get ahead of the competition and know exactly where to put your time, money, and other resources across all of your company’s divisions and departments if you take a proactive approach to gather and analyzing market data.
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