Market Intelligence Tools Must Offer Improved Collaboration, User Experiences, Reporting Tools and Systems Integration
Social media has led to fundamental changes in online behavior as well as a proliferation of information sources and formats. How will market intelligence processes and tools evolve as a result of these changes? Most business planning, market intelligence and IT teams have yet to agree on the perfect answer. The Market Intelligence Trends 2015 survey and GIA’s soon-to-be-released Intelligence Plaza 7 offer some clues.
Director of Product Management at Global Intelligence Alliance, Aleksi Grym, also gives us a sneak preview of Intelligence Plaza® version 7, before its official launch in December later this year.
What are some of the biggest changes in the way the market intelligence process is being managed today?
“Firstly, companies are relying more and more on information that is collected from both external and internal sources and on greater collaboration between these two sources. We expect to see more collaboration in the co-creation of market intelligence - crowd forecasting is one example. Group analysis that is supported by collaborative tools will be more common.
Secondly, Twitter,
Facebook and other social media platforms are increasingly used as sources of
information in market intelligence circles. More companies are in turn, trying
to inculcate social media best practices into their internal information
sharing and inter-unit networking processes.
Thirdly, mobile devices such as smart phones and eReaders will have the biggest impact on how business information is shared internally within companies, as well as externally with trusted business partners. Planned and unplanned, spontaneous video clips, photographs and text messages will be sent on such devices to ‘intelligence hubs’ where business information is collected.
The multiple formats in which market intelligence is available today, ranging from text and charts to audio files and videos, introduce new challenges to how companies manage market intelligence input and output. While there may seem to be more decentralization in the collection of business information, there also needs to be more centralization in how all this information is filtered, analyzed and distributed.”
How will business information be delivered in future?
“There will be a
greater need for collaborative and processing tools as well as a greater
integration of smart phones and other devices in the information collection and
communication process.
Chart 1: Preferences in receiving business information in next 5 years
Source: Global Intelligence Alliance, Market Intelligence Trends 2015 White Paper (1+ increase moderately, 2 + increase significantly)
According to the Market Intelligence Trends 2015 survey from GIA, people are in favor of the increased use of RSS feeds, news aggregators, webcasts and iPhone applications over the next five years.
I think that in future, we can also expect to see artificial intelligence, desk-based text mining and GPS tools being introduced and an even greater proliferation of delivery channels and gadgets. Who knows, maybe one day we will all have personalized news readers developed for our cars!”
What are the implications for in-house intelligence
tools?
“Intelligence tools and software need to offer the capability for further collaboration, improved user experiences both in and outside of the office, better reporting tools that allow for multimedia formats and better integration of market intelligence results into internal systems.”
Which of these aspects does Intelligence Plaza® 7 from GIA offer?
“Intelligence Plaza 7 promises to offer all of them.
In terms of improved user experiences, a new alternative lightweight web user interface will enable full access to the Intelligence Plaza from smart phones. The front page of the Plaza will become a true intelligence dashboard that is easy for users to personalize.
Intelligence Plaza’s
email alerts will be enhanced with new formatting options to better support
smart phones. On the desktop, email alerts will become more newsletter-like.
Configuring and subscribing to email alerts has also been made more
user-friendly.
Plaza is already well equipped to handle incoming and outgoing RSS feeds, but this will be improved even further with personalized tools for feed configuration.
Collaboration and
social interaction is playing a bigger role than ever before. In the new Plaza,
users can add their comments to all of the contents, set up simple personal profiles
with photographs and set up discussion forums. The Plaza user experience will
become more “social”.
Plaza will have improved support for quantitative and financial data. New reporting tools will be available to analyze market size data, company financials and to conduct product benchmarking. Textual content such as news flows can be analyzed using timeline and category matrix tools.
Finally, Plaza and
SharePoint can be connected so that the intelligence content managed by Plaza
can also be accessed from SharePoint through company intranets.”
Contact us: info(at)globalintelligence.com for more information on Intelligence Plaza 7.
Download the Intelligence Plaza® - Microsoft Partner Solution brochure.
For
media inquiries, send an email to media(at)globalintelligence.com.
Download any of our Industries White Papers.
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Global Intelligence Alliance
Global Intelligence Alliance (GIA) is a strategic market intelligence and advisory group. GIA was formed in 1995 when a team of market intelligence specialists, management consultants, industry analysts and technology experts came together to build a powerful suite of customized solutions ranging from outsourced market monitoring services and software, to strategic analysis and advisory.
Today, we are the preferred partner for organizations seeking to understand, compete and grow in international markets. Our industry expertise and coverage of over 100 countries enables our customers to make better informed decisions worldwide.
