Handbook on Market Intelligence
Get an insider’s look at how some of the world’s most respected international companies use Market Intelligence.
Tips from the authors
Collectively, Hans Hedin, Irmeli Hirvensalo and Markko Vaarnas have decades of experience in advising global companies on their Market Intelligence programs. What are some common challenges companies and their heads of Market Intelligence ask for advice on?
Have any questions for the authors? Please email us.
5. Can you give some examples of how market intelligence can be a source of competitive advantage?
6. How can I advise someone who has more industry expertise than me?
9. What is the fastest route to developing a world class Market Intelligence program?
10. What are the three most typical and easy-to-fix problems in Market Intelligence programs?
1. Top management sees Market Intelligence as only a supporting function for specific strategic projects. How can I make sure that market intelligence becomes a strategic function in itself?
Hedin: “Market Intelligence needs to be embedded into the decision process in key areas such as strategy, innovation, sales and marketing. Only then can Market Intelligence have the power to provide strategic value in the long run.
Your Market Intelligence team needs to be aware of when strategic issues are to be made, who is making them and what intelligence is needed to best support each decision. If you want to reach this level, you need to adopt a more a strategic consulting approach to Market Intelligence rather than just taking on an information or research perspective.
In the Handbook of Market Intelligence, we provide a framework for how this can be developed over time. We also have a case on how ABB’s intelligence program developed over a period of four years - from a research-oriented program to a consultative program that supports the board of directors in creating future strategies.
Another case from the Handbook of Market Intelligence, Dunkin Brands, demonstrates how the Market Intelligence director can successfully work together with the CEO. This type of interaction with and access to top-executives is of paramount importance if you want to have a Market Intelligence program with strategic impact.
At other times, it could be a matter of poor awareness of what the Market Intelligence function does, especially if it is erroneously placed under Marketing or Research & Development in the organization chart. So organizational reporting lines do make a difference.
Internal marketing is another topic of importance. It can be very helpful to create a brand and communications strategy for your market intelligence program. Some companies create logos for their market intelligence deliverables and use an editorial style that is suited to management preferences, ranging from articles to investment bank style reports.
At GIA’s Amsterdam Conference in 2011, we heard Anders Marvik at Statoil describe how they were lay-outing their report in line with investment bank reports in order to “fit” the type of reports that management are used to. Carlos Zwikker, Senior Director Insight & Intelligence, Major Appliances Europe for Electrolux stated in his presentation that market intelligence managers need to clearly articulate how their work is directly linked to business strategy. This might be an obvious comment to some, but I think that many Market Intelligence programs would benefit from following this recommendation to a greater extent.
2. I am satisfied with our market intelligence operations but I just feel that there is so much knowledge left unused within our organization. What tools are there to help gather and share this intelligence?
Hirvensalo: “If you have a great Market Intelligence program, start marketing it more widely inside the organization, and you can expect it to evolve towards a genuine intelligence culture. In the Handbook of Market Intelligence, there are ideas on how to do make this happen, such as Cintas’ development of their internal Market Intelligence network consisting of partners and sales people using an intelligence software tool. You may also involve Market Intelligence expert groups, but do make sure everyone in the organization more aware of Market Intelligence in general.
Furthermore, using a dedicated Market Intelligence software, like the GIA’s Intelligence Plaza®, is a powerful way of both collecting, analyzing and sharing intelligence throughout the organization. When you store all your internal and external market analysis reports, competitor intelligence reports, megatrends, and all other news related to the external business environment, a user-friendly and scalable knowledge repository tool is necessary.
When employees are provided access to this tool, they will start to see the power of intelligence. This also makes them more prone to provide their own input of market news and ideas, by entering new input into the system or commenting on existing input from others. Such software tools available in the market now provide social media functionalities such as commenting, voting, sharing information, alerting specific individuals, etc.
Ensure that your Market Intelligence program also offers a wide range of formats for deliverables such as videos, podcasts and audio, which can be accessed easily via smartphones. In the future, we will see an increased use of such formats that allow intelligence to be accessible all the time, everywhere.
At the 2011 GIA Conference in Amsterdam, Joost Drieman explained how at Cisco, they had broadened the Market Intelligence deliverables by adding podcasts, videos and smartphones to the more traditional Market Intelligence output such as reports and briefings. In addition to making Market Intelligence more accessible, this form of output also affects the corporate culture in a positive way, by making intelligence a part of daily communications.”
3. How can I motivate my colleagues in other departments to share information with my market intelligence department?
Hedin: “Think of sharing information as a trade: People typically want something in return for engaging themselves in an activity that may not immediately seem to fall within their scope of work.
Another key issue is of course, to ensure that the key functions and departments are supported with high quality intelligence. When intelligence is a part of the decision making mechanism of a specific department, it is also easier to have them share information.
Try to demonstrate how your work can be of help to them. Share success stories from other departments. Build personal relationships.
In the Handbook of Market Intelligence, we also talk about intelligence co-creation as a method for improving the sharing mentality. This means that Market Intelligence users and Market Intelligence providers jointly collect information, and participate in the analysis and conclusions. This is quite opposite to the traditional approach where the Market Intelligence function does the collection and analysis, and then reports the results to management.
This collaborative approach is best achieved in workshops where people meet face-to-face to analyze and discuss the market situation. These sessions could take place during regular monthly marketing and sales meetings or quarterly strategy meetings, for example. Or they could also take place in form of more focused workshops, such as scenario analysis workshops, megatrends seminars and war game sessions. This form of personal meetings is perhaps the strongest form of knowledge sharing in a company and something that is needed for a Market Intelligence team that aspires to be on an advanced or world class level.
Sometimes it makes sense to also make contribution to Market Intelligence as part of people’s personal scorecard evaluation.“
4. Market intelligence programs often don’t seem to get the credit they deserve. Do you have any explanations for that?
Hirvensalo: “More often than not, this boils down to internal marketing, or the lack of it. People cannot give credit to something that they are not aware of. However, it’s best to first make sure it is not due to mediocre deliverables that do not meet the decision-makers’ needs!
In addition to that, Market Intelligence is only a part of the decision making process, albeit an important one. It is often difficult to distinguish the importance of Market Intelligence from the contribution of others. But sometimes, it is also rather straightforward.
We have many examples in the Handbook of Market Intelligence that proves the value of Market Intelligence and where organizations have been able to calculate the revenues and the profit from a Market Intelligence project.”
5. Can you give some examples of how market intelligence can be a source of competitive advantage?
Hedin: “No one has a crystal ball to the future. Companies with great Market Intelligence programs are often prepared for a range of alternative future scenarios, and can hence adjust their operations swiftly when something happens, while their peers without good Market Intelligence may still be absorbing the first shock.
This is one of the fundamental advantages of great Market Intelligence; the ones who have done their homework will in all likelihood be more successful in the long run than their more opportunistic peers. Better and quicker identification of business opportunities and risks is the most profound advantage of Market Intelligence.
At one of our GIA Conferences, a technology company presented how intelligence can be a source of competitive advantage with two cases. In the first case, the company wanted to understand the priorities of the US Federal Government $787 billion funding program to promote growth in all parts of the economy after the economic downturn in 2008. The information would be used to align resources to identify new opportunities as a result. The Market Intelligence team identified billions in addressable opportunities, of which $2.6 billion has been realized today. In the second case, the same company was looking to expand the client base and grow revenue beyond the existing core groups. Its Market Intelligence team developed a targeted segmentation to orchestrate incremental shifts of marketing investments away from base clients in favor of marketing touches to high potential new clients. The result was very rewarding. One program alone generated $41million in revenue. These examples show how Market Intelligence can be a source of competitive advantage by identifying and executing on new business opportunities.”
6. How can I advise someone who has more industry expertise than me?
Hedin: “A Market Intelligence Director can take different approaches in such a situation.
One is to focus on areas where management does not have real expertise. New markets, new customer segments or new technologies and megatrends might be examples of areas where management might not have expert knowledge.
Another approach is to help management further develop corporate knowledge by being the process facilitator. This can take the form of facilitated workshops focusing on future scenarios, competitive issues, trends, etc. In this case, it is the joint knowledge of the workshop team that counts and not the knowledge of an individual Market Intelligence director or analyst. A good case comes from Statoil in the Handbook of Market Intelligence. They use management consultants and investment banking experts to review and comment on some of the most strategic reports that are produced by the Market Intelligence team.
But over time, the Market Intelligence team obviously needs to develop industry expertise to be a viable partner to top management. This more consultative or advisory relationship is most visible for companies with Market Intelligence programs on advanced or world class level. More basic Market Intelligence programs tend to provide basic research support that fills in the gaps in management’s knowledge. In an expert panel discussion on market intelligence deliverables at the 2011 GIA Conference in Amsterdam, Gary Whitehurst, Corporate Competitive & Technical Intelligence Manager EMEA from Procter & Gamble, said that companies may face issues that executives are not comfortable with confronting. Such issues could be the very ones that market intelligence teams need to focus on and to advise management on possible solutions.
We have many cases where our clients outsource parts of their intelligence activities to GIA so that our industry experts can provide everything from daily news monitoring, to weekly, quarterly and annual reports that are part of the Market Intelligence deliverables of the company.“
7. What should I focus on first, when developing the market intelligence capabilities within my organization?
Hedin: “There is no one correct route to success, however it’s often helpful to kick start the Market Intelligence program by addressing some of the most pressing issues first, that way earning recognition and ensuring that your internal customers get engaged in the activity from the beginning.
In the Handbook of Market Intelligence, we have a case on Vopak that shows how the intelligence program was built around strategic topics that were the core part of the company’s future strategy. But you need to make sure that the Market Intelligence program does not become an ad-hoc research and analysis program. Over time, the Market Intelligence program also needs to manage continuous monitoring of identified key topics in order to proactively identify business opportunities and threats that management has not identified.
In the Handbook of Market Intelligence, we provide a framework for implementing and developing Market Intelligence from scratch. This starts with an intelligence audit and information needs analysis, as you can first create a Market Intelligence Strategy and a Market Intelligence project plan. This is all part of GIA’s World Class Market Intelligence Roadmap that many companies use as a practical and hands-on tool for implementing and developing intelligence. We have used the framework in hundreds of workshops in order to support our clients, and we can guarantee that it works in practice.”
8. How can I make sure that the goals of the Market Intelligence program are aligned with the goals of my organization?
Hirvensalo: “There’s only one way to find out: Talk to decision-makers and ask to hear about their intelligence needs. Spend time with this effort. Many Market Intelligence programs only achieve mediocre results because they deliver output that is not perfectly in line with what their decision-makers’ needs and expectations are.
A more ‘clinical’ approach can also be utilized in which you match the strategic goals of a company as stated in the strategy documentation with the objectives and activities of the Market Intelligence program. Some companies have a very strict and formal alignment process regarding these issues, whereas other companies seem to work more with an ad-hoc issues based approach.
Whichever approach is taken, it is important to map the company’s strategic objectives and ensure that the regular market monitoring activities cover them. This may sound obvious but is not always done.
It is also helpful to ensure that strategy, innovation and sales teams are involved in the co-creation of intelligence products, through the collection, analysis and/or conclusions through workshops, briefing sessions or report reviews.”
9. What is the fastest route to developing a world class Market Intelligence program?
Hirvensalo: “All organizations are different and so are their intelligence requirements. There’s no one correct “fast track” towards excellence in Market Intelligence, and it’s indeed questionable if one is even possible or desirable.
With sufficient resources, it should be relatively easy to set the program’s scope and implement high quality intelligence deliverables and tools. Building a lasting impact with Market Intelligence requires a committed and extensive intelligence organization that contributes to both the intelligence process and the end deliverables, and develops an intelligence culture. Orchestrating and solidifying something like that is inherently a time-consuming process, which needs to be accepted.
That being said, it’s wise to make sure there are no major bottlenecks in the process of taking the Market Intelligence program forward towards world class levels. For instance, top management should support the Market Intelligence efforts, the intelligence deliverables should truly match the company’s needs, and the intelligence team should actively promote its work through internal marketing.”
10. What are the three most typical and easy-to-fix problems in Market Intelligence programs?
Hedin: Firstly, one of the top three typical and easy-to-fix problems is an unclear purpose and focus of Market Intelligence program.
To address this, you first need to create a proper intelligence audit and information needs analysis. This will ensure that the purpose of Market Intelligence is aligned with the strategic objectives of the company and that the key business processes and key decision makers are receiving priority services when it comes to Market Intelligence. A clear Mission, Vision & Strategy document should be developed based on this.
One good example of projects that we work with clients at GIA on is the “Market Intelligence benchmarking Audit”. We benchmark companies across the Six Key Success Factors that we have identified and compare their present status with the status of industry peers, global averages and World Class Market Intelligence programs from our GIA Global Market Intelligence Surveys. This provides a sound foundation for the Market Intelligence program and it also identifies development steps for the Market Intelligence program. Interestingly enough, this is also a problem that many more seasoned Market Intelligence programs seem to face.
The second relatively easy-to-fix problem is a lack of awareness of a company Market Intelligence program internally. We covered this in some of our answers above. It is imperative to develop a marketing program for your Market Intelligence activities. This includes general marketing activities as well as branding of Market Intelligence deliverables. At the GIA Conference in New York in 2010, we had a very strong case from Johnson Controls. It showed in detail how the Market Intelligence team had worked to market individual Market Intelligence deliverables as well as how they were marketing the whole Market Intelligence program as such.
The third problem I would say is the lack of a uniform tool available for knowledge capture, information storage and intelligence sharing within the company. This means that people are unaware of the type of intelligence related information that actually exists within their organizations.
The solution is this is to implement a Market Intelligence software tool that provides access to needed information and that serves as the “single window” to the business environment. The Handbook of Market Intelligence features examples of how the GIA’s Intelligence Plaza® software provide a great support to management and experts within the organization. By having such a tool, the awareness of the Market Intelligence program is also improved. Since it is used daily, it affects the corporate culture in a positive way.”
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