Using Smart Phones in Market Intelligence

Digitization of content, broadband everywhere and pocket computing are three trends that are set to redefine market intelligence. Privacy and copyright concerns with the use of digitized information will always be issues that need to be dealt with sensitively, but the ubiquity of smartphones will have a big impact on intelligence.

We ask GIA’s Business Development Vice President, Hans Hedin, for his views and observations.

How often are smartphones used in market intelligence?
“Not often enough, in my opinion.

Many of us have our smartphones by our side 24/7. Plus, the popularity of social media makes it more natural for us to communicate using our smartphones. As intelligence tools however, smartphones are under utilized.

As market intelligence professionals, we need to ask ourselves how the intelligence strategy and deliverables can be improved through the use of mobile devices.

Busy managers want flexibility in how they receive, read and share intelligence updates, beyond just the standard meetings, PDFs, emails or corporate intranets. Decision making these days must be fast and accurate. Smartphones can be real enablers for greater efficiency, both as intelligence-collecting and -receiving tools. Cisco for example, supplies each of its managers with a Blackberry, so they can receive intelligence alerts, briefs or reports and be kept up to date anytime, anywhere.

I am convinced that the development of social media applications and the capabilities of smartphones can greatly benefit a company’s intelligence operations. But it will not happen without a good structure and proper implementation.”


Text-based messaging has been around for a while. Is it used in market intelligence?
“Text-based messaging, through instant messages, SMSs or emails for example, is a simple and quick solution for providing real-time field intelligence.

Feedback, complaints and any type of field signal gathered through interactions with customers, suppliers, partners or competitors can be quickly disseminated via text-based messages, either directly to the market intelligence team or to the corporate intelligence intranet. Such field signals can then be pushed to the appropriate intelligence users through personal alerts. Using such messages is much easier for those who spend a lot of time “in the field” as they won’t have to wait to get back to their computers to write a report.

Companies can take advantage of this and develop Twitter like applications for specific groups of people with common interests. Smartphone messages can be sent to the intelligence portal and then automatically re-transmitted via customized xml or RSS feeds. Alternatively, companies can set up internal forums where employees can access discussion threads through their smartphones to provide real-time input from anywhere in the world.

Good management of content portals, distribution channels and information architecture is necessary, in order to prevent possible overloads.

Let’s take trade show intelligence as another example. In this context, a lot of information must be gathered during a limited time span. Traditionally, market intelligence teams would wait until the end of each day to meet and share the information that they managed to gather. This could be quite inefficient.

Text-based messages are easy to distribute quickly and allow team members to respond to and share information, or ask questions as they arise. Let’s say the messages are centralized with one main coordinator who puts the information pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle. This coordinator helps identify when intelligence questions are resolved and issues new intelligence questions based on the texts received. Valuable time is won, the intelligence operation more flexible, and the output more intelligent. Other off-site experts can also get involved and benefit!”


How will the prevalence of cameras and videos in smartphones impact market intelligence?
“Phone and video cameras can be enormously useful in intelligence work and are even more underutilized than text messaging.

Videos and photos used in combination with GPS (global positioning systems) can enable quicker and better decision-making. Military personnel today use them to gather and provide battlefield intelligence for every soldier in a combat mission. At Fort Bliss, the U.S. Army is developing widgets for real-time battlefield intelligence using commercially available smartphones. This will increase both the speed of the intelligence process and the quality of the results.

In the commercial battlefield, we can also use what I term “photointelligence” in numerous ways.

First, there is photointelligence in mystery shopping. Videos are more powerful and more reliable than text based reports.

In product profiling and benchmarking analysis, photointelligence can be used to get an even more thorough understanding of how a product works. Consumer goods companies are using photointelligence for store checks and analysis of competitor products. By photographing how the products are displayed, valuable information can be provided to the sales team. Photointelligence is also an easy way to obtain competitor product information such as packaging, prices, guarantees and promotional campaigns.

Specsavers, the eyewear-franchising firm, uses photointelligence to evaluate store locations for potential franchise partners. Photos are taken of the store location, the neighboring area and competitor stores. They document everything that may be useful with the use of cameras, in order to better understand the potential value of the store location.

For network analysis, photointelligence provides a solid understanding of the network and the interaction that a company has during, for instance, an exhibition. Who are your competitors meeting? Are they meeting old clients, new clients or your clients? Is the company about to acquire another company; is the CEO meeting a new technology provider, a competitor or one of your main suppliers?

At trade shows, photointelligence can also relay what products or solutions competitors are focusing on and how they invest in a trade show.

In the case of customer intelligence, photointelligence has been used for more in-depth consumer research. Nokia uses smartphones to enable photo or video diaries, home visits, shadowing and mystery shopping. It could be the consumers themselves who are taking the photos, or Nokia’s consumer research team.

Photointelligence is much less intrusive and easier to conduct using a smartphone compared with using a normal camera. One must, however, be sure to follow appropriate laws as well as ethical guidelines for shooting in public and private places. These differ greatly from country to country, but must be taken into consideration. The U.S. National Press Photographers Association has developed ethical guidelines for this and the SCIP code of ethics naturally applies here as well as for any other intelligence operations.”

What aspects of mobile communications are under-utilized for market intelligence?
“It is possible to retrieve useful information from corporate intranets onto our smartphones' screens using specialized applications, known as widget applications. Such widgets need to be developed with careful and well-planned intelligence screening and routing in order to avoid information overload.

Another future solution we can expect to see is the use of smartphones for more analytical work, such as crowd forecasting or crowd analysis of a specific topic. By providing input data to some carefully chosen questions, a large group of people can evaluate and forecast specific issues such as future competitor pricing positions. By making it easier for people to provide input for analysis, smartphones can increase the probability of getting people involved as well.”

Coming Up! GIA Survey: Global Market Intelligence Trends 2015

• What future channels will decision-makers receive business information through?
• Will social media have an impact on the cultural side of MI programs?
• What kinds of megatrends will influence intelligence topics in 2015?

• What type of information will be most valuable for decision-makers in 2015?

You are kindly invited to take part in the GIA Survey - Global Market Intelligence Trends 2015 that will take a long term view on the anticipated developments in the strategic Market Intelligence domain.

The survey results, which will be presented in the GIA Conference 2010 in Helsinki on June 9, and later on in a Global webinar on June 23, will look into the emerging trends in global Market Intelligence. All participants will receive a copy of the report that will be a useful tool for executives and MI professionals planning and budgeting for the next few years.