A Primer to Market Intelligence Systems

What is Market Intelligence Systems?

Market intelligence systems are a type of system that gathers market information very systematically it also processed this information in order to transform the information into actionable intelligence for management in order to make marketing decisions. Let the points below help you understand this better.

1. Market Intelligence Systems is much more than gathering market information for a particular business. In fact, it gathers the information of the entire external system that is required to support the most important management decisions of pricing, products, priorities of investments and also about entering into a joint venture with any other company.
2. Market Intelligence Systems is not only about a system that is completely computer-based it is a full system that involves human efforts and human brains to processes and interprets the entire process of information into market intelligence systems efficiently.
3. There is only one condition to this process that is this process needs to be followed systematically because only by monitoring the system or the market or the key external factors and incorporation of an unequal scrap of data regularly will be able to provide management a feasible long-term Market Intelligence systems base to work and calculate on.

Why is Market Intelligence Systems Important?

As the customer base increases the company’s marketing management need much more than just market research. Marketing intelligence information is very important and very reliable data for the management of any company. This Marketing intelligence data helps them make wise and very important decisions. It helps management to recognize, predict, analyze, resolve and also prevent any problem only if apt, relevant and trustable data is provided. It is also extremely important as it gives every trained marketing manager to make on purpose lasting efforts to help them analyze the issue and employ this very important reliable information that is related to the market, their business from both internal as well as external factors.

The market and its environment have been changing rapidly, hence the companies need to adopt strategies that suit these market changes for which they require market intelligence systems and appropriate information. The changes in the market are dynamic as everything has been changing lately and mind you the changes are on an accelerating speed. These changes can be anything like the national or the international market, the needs and the requirements of the consumer, competition is it a price competition or a nonprice competition. As businesses expand to national or international markets the managers keep requiring more and more data and the data needs to come to then quickly. Because competition increases the buyers in the market have more options this makes them more selective about what they want. The market intelligence systems company has to keep changing the data and the style of applying market intelligence systems to sell their products. They need to very effectively choose their branding, differentiation in their products, they need to advertise smartly, promote their sales and for all of this they need is the marking tools to be very effective.

Managers today face a problem in the change and complexity that evolves from the company’s interaction with the tumultuous external environment of marketing. Well, the managers today need to be accustomed to these extremely sensitive and continuous changes in the market. Each and every employee of the company needs to gain a very good understanding of the internal and the external atmosphere. This alertness and cleverness of the market are very important for the organization and its employees. This is simply because the company depends on the inputs of resources and the outputs of its services. Remember every successful company in the market takes an inside and an outside view of their business and its performance.

Summarizing it further the market intelligence systems information received daily, of course necessary information which is gathered by market researchers to analyze it specifically for accurate and absolutely confident decision making in order to determine the opportunities available in the market it also helps in determining market penetration strategies, developing market matrices and also to determine when can the business enter foreign business or global business. It also resolves the intelligence that is required, accumulates this information by searching the environment or the market and also hands the information to the market managers who require it. All this is done with the help of different software; the data comes from the web analytics, business intelligence, sales data and also data from the call centers.

Different companies define the types of market intelligence systems in different ways. As types of market intelligence platforms differ with the type of industry. Some companies and industries use market intelligence analyst base their external data, some use it bases the internal data, some use the social media monitoring, some use the business intelligence and some prefer using the competitive intelligence. However, the conclusion is that market intelligence system depends on industry to industry or on the company to company.

How to gather and improve market intelligence systems?

Gathering marketing intelligence is tact as it needs to be done very carefully for only relevant information needs to be used by the market intelligence analyst of the company to come to a realistic conclusion.

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Let’s see how you can gather information

1. Put your sales team to use

One simple way is using the front face of your company. The sales team of your company is the people facing the customers, facing the customers is facing the market indirectly. Your team can get the required information from the customers. If you have a team that has been facing the market or going out in the market you can get relevant information easily, this information or data can be of your competitors, the business and the industry. Accumulate the data for your marketing managers to help them work better.

2. Channel partners can help

Channel partners are nothing but your business partners and they do work for your company as well as the other companies. Your channel partners can give you a better feedback on the improvement of your products and services. Your sales team might not be as interested in your business as much as your channel partner will be because your business also serves as their livelihood. They can help you with the improvement of the company strategies. These channel partners are the company’s internal customers you need to take feedback from them and also keep them motivated so that they are loyal to the company.

3. Competitors and their channel partners will be of great help

Marketing and product managers need to not only keep a track on their channel partners and their sales team they also need to keep an eye on their competitors, their channel partners, and their techniques or their new products. In order to make sure that the organization performs well or sells its products well the organization its product and marketing managers need to be smart and need to be competitive in management. Designing effective products and marketing them smartly is very essential.

4. Catch hold of a good market research agency

If you do not want your employees to get involved in the market research and want them to focus on their jobs you can employ a good market research agency. These agencies hire professionals who are experienced in market research and market intelligence systems. They can accumulate relevant data and other information required by the company and the organization. This data then needs to only be analyzed by the managers to come to a productive conclusion.

5. The in a way – the social media marketing

Social media is one of the most convenient ways of marketing your products these days. The importance has increased because most people today especially the youth of every country have access to the technology. You can maximize this opportunity to market online these days as the marketing is very effective. So if you can market online so can you accumulate data online? Market research can be done online as well with the help of social media. Yes, you can use the latest form of marketing and accumulating data. Use the technology as it will defiantly help in accumulating relevant information.

6. Create an advisory panel for your customers

You can create an advisory panel for your customers; this idea is a little old yet very helpful even today. You want to know how to improve yourself, you need to know what is it that your customers want; it is simple to hear it from the horse moth itself. With the help of the customer panel you can ask the customer what they like the most, what is it that is relevant to them, what more do they expect, how can you get better, what is it that they do not like at all, what is it that the company needs to do to improve the products and services, etc. Collect relevant questions that you think can help you in getting better and improving your market intelligence techniques and technology.

Now let’s see how we can also improve existing marketing intelligence

1. Training and motivating your sales team

Your sales team is the best source and the best way to gather information for the company, like I said they are the front face of the company, they have access to the customers, the market, the competitors and the channel partners. Keep your sales team motivated and trained in gathering relevant information.

2. Train and motivate your channel partners

Like discussed earlier, your channel partners are the better source of providing information and data for your organization’s products and services. All you need to do is keep them trained in collecting data from your consumers. You also need to keep them motivated so that they provide you with more and more market information. The companies also hire the specialist who can help the company is collecting information and data to help the managers make smart decisions.

3. Be aware of your competitors

Competitive intelligence plays a very important role in helping you analyze your position in the market. With the help of your company data, your consumer’s feedback and competitive intelligence the managers that are both the marketing managers and the product managers of the company can take important decision related to the organization’s progress and growth. This can improve your market intelligence tools & techniques.

4. Customer advisory panels

Collecting market and customer information is easy if you create customer advisory panels. Create a questioner and put it up on the websites, on the social media and also create leaflets to hand the same out to your customers. Collect necessary information and use this information to better your market intelligence tools & techniques.

5. Use government data resource

The government of every country publishes a number of data that includes the information of the population of the country, the agriculture, the trends, the demographic distinctiveness, etc. the organizations can make use of this data in order to take appropriate decisions.

6. Increase online research and marketing

Everything today is done online. You can do everything online, research, collect data, create customer panel online, collect information online and also market your products online. The internet and of all, social media plays a huge role in modern marketing intelligence. Internet and social media both are the best ways of improving your market intelligence platforms research.

Conclusion

If there were market intelligence platforms vs market research, Market intelligence platforms are much more than market research. It is market intelligence platforms data and market intelligence systems information that is not just important for the marketing team of the organization it is much more than that. The entire organization can utilize this information to transform it into actionable intelligence. This system gathers information of both internal as well as external environment this helps the management take crucial decisions easily and effectively. The implication of market intelligence platforms affects every decision of the organization. This process has only one condition and that is it needs to be followed very systematically and it’s monitoring needs to be done on a daily bases.

Recommended Articles

Here are some articles that will help you to get more detail about the Market Intelligence systems so just go through the link.

1. 10 Step to Successful of Marketing Research
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