Success Factors for Market Intelligence
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.
No matter how and why the request to build or improve a company’s intelligence effort came to life, a couple of factors need to be considered in order to ensure success.
All success starts with management acceptance, support by peers and superiors and the management of all stakeholders’ expectations. As a very first step the current situation in this regard needs to be clear. Taking notes early who demanded the effort, who was involved, the personal attitudes and interests as well as hidden agendas will delivers ammunition later in the process and provide a heat map of hot spots where more or less attention, caution or emphasis needs to be spent. People make all the difference in all decision processes, if people are not convinced or comfortable with a program or project, chances are they will fight or ignore it whenever it seems to be in the way or too troublesome for any other reason.
Key messages simplified and the crowd attracted with little gifts is a good strategy too. For example should an intelligence gathering effort always start with giveaways. If a sales force is equipped with new, fresh, valid intelligence in a more satisfying fashion as ever before, chances are they will open up to any request to make this intelligence flow even better.
Marketing management on the other hand might like the idea of tools and systems being budgeted by someone else so they only have to pay for the content they contract out or gather via intelligence streams and feeds.
Whenever intelligence systems and programs need to be installed, followed-through, improved or maintained, success always rides on two major pillars: simplicity and validity. If every step from project initiation to completion is easy and fun to grasp, with a clear value proposition that is recognizable and any intelligence output is highly valid and timely too, the intelligence program will only have supporters and can grow by itself.
