Market & Competitive Intelligence Quality
Market & Competitive Intelligence quality determines success or failure of market reactions based on that intelligence. Moreover if business intelligence content lacks quality in either delivery or substance or both, chances are that the entire intelligence effort loses internal acceptance and individuals start bypassing centralized systems and processes.
In order to maximize quality it is of vital importance to first and foremost consider intelligence user feedback as the most important base for all intelligence output goals. Teaming up with market researchers and business analysts as well as select groups of strong intelligence users, maybe even forming a virtual network of intelligence experts, would provide such a base organizationally.
The very requests in terms of content and accessibility, usability need to guide the resulting quality. It is of equal importance to regularly reality-check the perceived value by intelligence users and adjust accordingly.
Over time most credible intelligence sources and most reliable resources and tools should stick out as preferred pillars of the intelligence program. Exchange with external intelligence communities and intelligence expert networks, maybe even competitors and associations could provide further ideas and approaches to increase market and competitive quality.
Field testing and professionally utilizing business intelligence has helped some companies to even create intelligence products that are offered to clients and partners. Some even went as far as to establish secondary business lines selling their intelligence.
In order to let the market & competitive intelligence do the acceptance work internally these additional points are crucial:
- Understand the context of any intelligence output: What will it be used for? How will it be used?
- Manage expectations and keep promises: Consult the customer regarding availability of information and the associated time and resource consumption
- Create and maintain an intelligence network with coordinators in different countries and business areas
- Include regional and business area specific INTERNAL input in intelligence products, where applicable
- Make contribution easy: Templates and tools where needed, plus a little hand when deploying
- Link people’s intelligence contribution to personal performance assessment if agreed by management and HR department
- Where estimates and assumptions have been made, verify or assess their reliability, indicate source and validation
- Ensure a 2-way flow of information: Having asked for contribution, share the results (distribute through the intelligence tool)
- Ask for feedback and show the impact of that feedback so this source never dries up
- Overall: Commit to legal and ethical standards and make sure the organization knows about these standards and why everyone ought to commit