Intelligence Requirements Identification
In identifying market intelligence needs and competitive intelligence requirements, all requestors and intelligence users need to collaborate very closely. The intelligence enablers and producers have to listen and act upon the expressed business concerns and information gaps. The business value as perceived by the end customer has to be the center of any of such discussions.
There are several ways of identifying Market & Competitive Intelligence Requirements.
Individual interviews of market intelligence users should be one of the most excessively used method as it not only extracts knowledge about real world needs but creates awareness and buy-in for the intelligence effort.
Online survey or e-mail questionnaires can be helpful as well, combined with automated valuation and result generation efficiency can be increased dramatically as compared to the rather manual individual interview process.
Major intelligence consultants might provide broad overviews of their client’s intelligence requirements too. Also, existing industry reports, market studies, end article and consumer reports can serve as role models as they should address most obvious and most important user requirements.
In order to prioritize and weigh the final selection of strong intelligence requirements the gathered package of intelligence needs should be condensed and communicated back to the intelligence user community. If asked to add their view of real benefits for each of the covered intelligence requirement the sense for a mutual language among the intelligence stakeholders can be assured as well as the right focus in producing and establishing the much needed intelligence.
Market and competitive intelligence might find different final requirements across the user groups. Management might request abstracts of major industry areas and market potentials as well as opportunity area overviews while sales staff and marketers would need much more detail in terms of current market developments and customer environment.