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Market Research & Competitive Intelligence Terminology Overview

From the Business Intelligence Glossary by Vernon Prior

Market intelligence concerns the attitudes, opinions, behavior, and needs of individuals and organizations within the context of their economic, environmental, social, and everyday activities.

Competitive intelligence is a systematic and ethical programme for gathering, analysing, and managing any combination of Data, Information, and Knowledge concerning the Business environment in which a company operates that, when acted upon, will confer a significant Competitive advantage or enable sound decisions to be made.  Its primary role is Strategic early warning.

Competitor intelligence is a subdivision of Business intelligence that concerns the current and proposed business activities of competitors.

Business intelligence is now widely accepted as being concerned with Information technology solutions for transforming the output from large Data collections into Intelligence; usually through the integration of sales, marketing, servicing, and support activities.  Also loosely referred to as Customer relationship management, it covers such activities as Data mining and Enterprise reporting, and the associated software.  Those involved in business intelligence tend to regard it as one aspect of Knowledge management.  Systems based on such software were formerly known as Executive information systems.

Overview of intelligence definitions, click here…

Competitive intelligence is the process by which organizations gather and use information about products, customers, and competitors, for their short term and long term planning.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitive_intelligence)