Successful implementation of intelligence units or tools depends on a series of factors that need to be considered crucial to implementation. Timely planning, transparency, involvement and commitment are key success factors to implement market and competitive intelligence.

Overwhelming the less advanced intelligence stakeholders or the colleagues with heavy capacity constraints can be as dangerous as lacking speed and progress potential and challange to dedicated staff.

Top of the stakeholders of any market intelligence unit, process or program are always the intelligence users. Marketers and sales staff who use market intelligence, competitive intelligence, business information, data and competitor profiles, studies and market reports to excel in their marketing and sales roles; these are the decision makers, the users that will eventually nurture or destroy an intelligence setup.

Any business goal should be defined to satisfy real requirements. Internal stakeholders or users, clients, customers of any service, tool or process such as market and competitive intelligence have requirements of their own as it comes to dealing with their own targets and tasks.

Comparing real market and competitive intelligence user requirements with the status quo of any operation or organization should provide a clear picture of the gaps that need to be filled. As intelligence needs change as rapidly and as surprisingly as the markets and industries do, a gap analysis should be conducted frequently.

Any intelligence delivery and content can only be as good as its sources. Outdated information or invalid intelligence content can not only harm the entire intelligence effort but even damage business value as these intelligence glitches might lead to misinterpretation and thus wrong decisions.

There is a fundamental difference in behavior of marketing managers and sales staff. Marketers are commonly used to be guided by programs, projects and processes that support their planning and strategic tasks. Sales staffers on the other hand, and rightfully so, tend to avoid tight structures and guidelines in order to remain flexible and creative in service of their customers.

Any process or system that is supposed to significantly influence the way of conducting business is poised to interrupt this very business function or activity if not working properly. So, for both, processes and systems a test run, or pilot in a smaller version and business environment would indicate readiness for total roll-out.

Ready to roll-out, the intelligence program implementation or any major upgrade of the market and competition intelligence effort takes the biggest and steepest hurdle of them all: acceptance in use! The slicker, the easier and the more efficient the roll-out, the bigger the chance for final acceptance.

Market and competitive intelligence tools and processes are products with a user group, mostly internal such as marketers and sales staffers. An internal user group, aka customers, needs to be made aware of this product or service through proper promotion as much as sellable products would be promoted in any external market place.