Connect the dots and create market insights

Starting from information, which in the case of market intelligence is in principle qualitative assessments on the market on customers, competitors, technologies, etc.. In the awareness of necessity to transform data into knowledge and give rise to conclusions that are as closer to the truth the more of quality is the effort that tends to unite these points.

Often clients tells us that they know the market and asks us what we can add more.

It's true….

... .. entrepreneurs and management know the context in the sense that while living their specific industry they continuously receive input from market stakeholders ... from distributors, headcount, suppliers, competitors, the industrial unions and association, etc.

The company has a lot of information, but must nevertheless be helped in the connections, in creating networks between this information thus creating a real asset from knowledge.

Intelligence is Augmented Knowledge!

So I like to compare intelligence to Augmented Reality, to an extra layer that overlaps the company that points at several goals:

• to find the missing information on the market and competitors
• to remove uncertainties from an information point of view, transforming them into certainties
• to create connections between information, internal and external to the company
• to create market insights
• to stimulate the entrepreneur to transform his intuitions into concrete actions in light of what has been learned on the markets

Entrepreneur or management, depending on who is the interlocutor, are part of the opening and closing of the intelligence circle. The first information on the market, more or less embryonic, belongs to the company and the conclusions that emerge from storytelling on the market are defined together with the company. The market conclusions or insights emerge in fact through a facilitation path based on the reading and interpretation of the market. A path of facilitation that comes from the outside because the external point of view is neutral, objective, free from prejudices, cognitive bias.

Intelligence facilitates entrepreneurs and management to evaluate the company in light of the market and not the market itself! 

The conclusions of an intelligence project are therefore the insights, that is, not the discovery of something on the market but the emergence of aspects of the company, not obvious or conscious until then, in the light of the market. It is extremely relevant to underline this element because this is where the value of making intelligence compared to traditional market research lies.

In fact, if we simply looked at and understood the external context, we would have an important effort in the face of a partial result. By only doing market analysis, consideration would be lacking on the company that today does not operate in a market context, but must create a completely peculiar and differentiating market niche and leadership within this niche.

Finally guidelines come in the picture because the path is not complete if we do not draw strategic development actions starting from intelligence activities or if we do not take into account market insights in our strategic planning.