Our consultative approach

Today, Global Intelligence Alliance is a full service Market Intelligence house. Our roots however lie in combining intelligence process consulting with high quality content services for "making our customers' business more intelligent", our first slogan.

This intimate process knowledge, our consultative approach, is still built in to all our services, whether account management, daily market monitoring, analysis projects, intelligence workshops, or rolling out intelligence software. 

About Market Intelligence

Market Intelligence (MI, frequently also referred to as Competitive Intelligence or Business Intelligence) is a distinct discipline by which organizations systematically gather and process information about their external operating environment (such as customers, competition, trends, regulation, or geographic areas). The purpose of Market Intelligence is to facilitate accurate and confident decision making that’s based on carefully analyzed information about the external operating environment.

Benefits of systematic Market Intelligence

All organizations need timely and accurate information about their external operating environment in order to maintain a competitive edge in the marketplace. Given the supply and availability of information today however, sourcing and managing the flows of information in a coordinated and cost-effective manner has become an organizational challenge.

In an organization where Market Intelligence activities have been orchestrated carefully, decision-makers receive the right information at the right time, information costs are under control, and current awareness exists in the entire organization about the important developments in the operating environment. As a result, time is saved, threats can be avoided, and opportunities utilized swiftly for tangible business benefits. 

Organizing Market Intelligence activities

Organizationally, Market Intelligence may reside under a number of different functions. Business Development, Marketing or Strategic Planning are typical, but Market Intelligence may sometimes also be owned by the Finance department, Corporate Communications, or directly by the CEO.

Roughly speaking, there are two ways of organizing an MI operation:

• Hiring analysts in-house and purchasing information sources and software tools for them to work with,or
  
• outsourcing parts of the operation by purchasing software and content work as a packaged service solution. 

The extent to which the operation can be or has been outsourced depends on the company, but it makes sense to source internally for the final parts of the analysis process, along with the coordination of the entire MI operation.

Recent MI developments on a global scale

More detailed information about the current state of Market Intelligence in international companies can be obtained from the GIA White Paper "Global Market Intelligence Survey 2008". The White Paper uncovers linkages between organizational decision-making and Market Intelligence operations. Differences by industries and regions were measured along with key success factors of MI. Responses were collected from 439 participants on five continents, making the survey the most comprehensive study that has been conducted in area of Market Intelligence to date. The report is available for free downloading.