Was sind die effektivsten Methoden, um Marktinformationen zu sammeln?

Talking to experts is the best way to gather market intelligence, e.g. 1. In supplier chain, talking to suppliers is one of best ways to get market understanding 2. Management consultants leverage external expert agencies to gather market information 3. Primary sources of information, e.g. market reports etc is one of prime ways Net net, if one of able to get in touch with 2-4 right experts, that’s pretty good to have a good perspective on anything

The best focus of any efforts to gather intelligence is the customer. I’ve found it most valuable to ask prospective customers at all levels to do interviews. People are almost always willing to share their thoughts, insights, and what keeps them up at night. I’ve also found it best to focus on active listening and avoiding the temptation to sell. Pivoting to selling can be seen as a betrayal of the stated intent for the interview. Ideally, customer interviews aren’t a one-time exercise, but part of an ongoing plan to listen to customers and understand how their needs are evolving. These interviews often act a catalyst for discussions about strategy, which can help in being seen as a strategic partner, rather than simply a vendor.

In my experience, when aiming to penetrate a new market segment, defining specific questions and metrics beforehand greatly shaped our research direction. For instance, focusing on consumer preferences and the competitive landscape helped align our data collection with our goals. While I agree on the importance of well-defined objectives, flexibility is also key. In a previous project, our initial goal was to launch a product, but thorough market intelligence revealed a more lucrative niche within an existing market segment. Adapting our strategy based on newfound insights led to a more successful product launch.

Not knowing your objectives is similar to getting in your car and not knowing where you are heading. Do you really want to drive randomly all over the place, waste a lot of time and gas, in hopes you might find the right location? Versus, doing a little work upfront to find an address to put in your GPS...

Difficult to say because it depends on the use to which you intend to put the market intelligence. That said marketing intelligence can be collected in brick and mortar as well as digital formats. In brick and mortar formats, organisational personnel in client facing roles like salespeople are excellent sources of market intelligence collected intentionally from focused discussions with clients or inadvertent intelligence from routine servicing of clients. Market intelligence can also be gathered by using AI tools to trawl competitor digital spaces (websites, social media platforms etc) and other relevant platforms to generate large data sets that is subjected to machine learning analysis to generate refined insights for decision making!

Completely agree! Making the most of the information you obtain requires having a specific goal in mind before beginning any market research. It assists you in concentrating your efforts, ranking your sources, and guaranteeing that the knowledge you acquire is applicable. Without specific objectives, it's simple to get caught in a sea of data and missing out on important insights.

In my opinion, when you are establishing an objective, you should only focus on the problem statement. What information is needed, and how it is going to be utilized, can only be achieved when you have a clear objective in place. Hence "how you will use the information" can be kept for the later stages. Also, to define clear Objectives, the pre-requisite should be the long term strategy which clearly states the roadmap. The components of the strategy then can be broken down into achievable objectives, with clear timelines. Without having any strategy in place, the objectives may not reflect the right direction.

I try not to rely 100% on the advice of experts. If it is for a product launch or market penetration, I want my team to visit or work closely with the market agencies. Our objectives for doing this is to clearly identify the following: 1. Demand for the products and major market supplier 2. Current producer/supplier market tactics and approach 3. Top 5 leading suppliers or producers 4. Alternatives available to consumer and price mix 5. Strategies for market penetration and measurement 6. What drives demand for product and pointers for satisfaction. It is critical that we understand this and create actionable strategies for implementation and measurements for success

Poke some people on LinkedIn, in the hope they'll give up their valuable time and expertise to earn a few LI brownie points. [Some extra words to pad out to 125 chars]

When gathering market intelligence you need to leverage the resources that are available to you through both formal and informal means. Formally you may employ the use of market research, however the power of informally speaking with your sales team, customers and stakeholders in your supply chain should not be underestimated.

The big risk I see here is one that is true of all research and analytics. Everyone's lens is calibrated to prove or disprove a particular point of view. That is why it is so important to get the same information from multiple sources, ensuring that the underlying quantitative elements are accurate, and that the qualitative elements make sense, ensuring that the data is fit for purpose. Blindly correlating data leads to opaqueness and unreliable conclusions, regardless of how precise and rigorous the data collection has been. Whether it is for market research or any other analytical endeavor, curation of the right information in the right context is key.

I would especially emphasize the value of interviews and Mystery Shopping. In the interviews, it is worth paying particular attention to how well the general level of services and operations in the field being studied satisfies the customers. In my own investigations, I have often encountered a situation where the level of operation of an entire industry is clearly weaker than that of many other industries. In this way, even easy profits can be found, e.g. in improving the service. Mystery shopping is a particularly effective model for finding out the consumer's point of view. Here, too, there have been situations where the market leader in his field has noticed that the store's salespeople prefer to recommend a competitor's product.

I agree that qualitative interviews are very valuable. They help provide the "why", whereas quantitative often can just give you the "what". Industry expert interviews not only are great for obtaining information directly from the experts, but I also like to have discussions to get a greater insight into the secondary information I have also found. It provides a deeper perspective and can help confirm the findings.

Combining both quantitative and qualitive methods is really powerful. It's even more so when sequenced. For example, using quantitative sources to create focus points and findings from data and then using qualitive methods (such as interviews) to get into the why or how behind those findings or getting what they (the findings) could mean in the future? Getting reactions, quotes from people in interviews of what quantitative surveys and research find really helps to humanise and contextualise and bring to life those findings....

In my experience, an under appreciated best practice is to be particularly cautious to coming to a conclusion on anything important and with medium to high uncertainty until you’ve gotten consistent conclusions from three different, independent reliable sources. Don’t rely on that one major study, no matter how large and well done. This doesn’t always mean slowing down and waiting, it often means accelerate identifying your key questions and looking for additional reliable and diverse insight sources early.

I agree, but soft perception based information such as what you would garner from street chats, social media and other platforms hold a lot of market and pre and post market information that’s incredibly valuable. Many AI based techniques can help you make meaning out of such data.

Using a mix of sources is obviously imperative to a "fair test" to ensure protection from any bias in terms of quantative research. I would also encourage people to try to understand any bias encountered when receiving more qualitative information. To understand both the extreme views and the numbers will help you to utilise the intelligence you use to influence your team/ project/ business in a positive way, with full view of the types of perception you may have to battle with. If you can confidently state your case using both quantative and qualitative information from a variety of sources - you are much more likely to achieve your outcome with less blockers.

When it comes to gathering intelligence there is no single source which gives you full information, if you get full information from some source then there is no new intelligence, just implementation. So, there are many sources. Best is talking to the force which has gone through similar situations, to gather what should and should not be working. Then searching the material to reinforce the findings. Then going back to experts to analyze the potential of success and failure and improving the failure points.

Market intelligence is a tool that helps companies focus on serving the demands of their target markets, and understand their competitors and the business environment. The following steps are useful to achieve the desired results: 1. Set a goal 2. Define your metrics 3. Conduct a comprehensive research 4. Obtain and examine data 5. Use results to take appropriate and immediate actions.

Qualitative Methods: Social Listening - what are people talking about in Slack Channels, Communities, and Forums. Observation - Seeing users (if possible) and how are they using the product. Finding proxy indicators of consumer preferences

En mi experiencia práctica, la mejor forma de poner en marcha un sistema de vigilancia e inteligencia competitiva es retarte a implantar punto por punto la norma UNE 166006. Te permite tener un enfoque estratégico, orientado a resultados como la innovación, la I+D, la colaboración, etc.

With market research companies, it has been a shortcut in my industry when I needed market intelligence. Now with artificial intelligence it can be more interesting gathering this information. The better question is, what AI tool is the best in the market right now? I would be interested in what others are using in this arena nowadays.

Using right tools is vital for effective market intelligence. It involves selecting platforms, software & techniques aligning with your goals & data sources. Tools like online surveys gather direct consumer insights. Frameworks help in market segmentation & competitive assessment. SWOT analysis evaluates internal strengths & weaknesses against market dynamics. Porter's Five Forces provides industry attractiveness & competitive landscape insights. PESTEL analysis explores external influences like political & economic factors. Market segmentation categorizes customers with similar traits. Market sizing estimates demand & revenue potential. Monitoring market trends is key to spotting shifts in customer preferences or technology advancements.

6 What else is to consider: Market Intelligence is a complex subject and there are different approaches to select strategies to gather market intelligence depending on the field, like B2C e.g. in cosmetics sales or e.g. B2G or B2B in infrastructure projects. Both latent an manifest interests of influential actors as the systemic structures have to be vetted carefully. Literature and studies as well as consultation with experts, experiments and trials are important but can't guarantee you a success as actors are opportunistic and manipulative. Securing influence and control over resources and people is as important as efficiency and effectiveness in strategic management. The focus shouldn't be on functional aspects only.

Primary Research surveys or focus groups can be an excellent way to get market intelligence. Sometimes, based on your product, your customers can also be your employees who can be a good source of market intelligence.

Getting the right mix of people engaged for the purpose of the project is key (or at least thoughtfully qualifying them if you can’t tell before they’re recruited….). are you testing the size and potential of a product and need a broader view of the market? Or are you testing the ability to deliver sufficient product in a minimum viable product launch with high need, realistic early adopters. It takes diligence to define the purpose, right audiences and then to. E able to get those audiences engaged. With busy schedules, be thoughtful on taking the steps to get the right people engaged at the right time.

Use the largest source of data you can find. Export, scrape, scan - make it machine-readable. Formulate the questions you are trying to answer. Translate questions into formulas / queries. Then let a machine read it. You can identify the most relevant 100 companies out of 10,000 by just finding 2-5 attributes that meaningfully distinguish them. Could be company size, could be technology used, could be anything. The combination of filters and perspectives cuts the number of targets I then analyze myself by a huge factor and down to a manageable workload. Of course, garbage in garbage out applies here. Do some checks on the source data to gauge validity. This approach does not automate your analysis but picks likely targets for you.

Whilst platforms, software, apps and frameworks are great tools; gathering market intelligence is not an obvious task. These tools provide general/ bigger picture insights which is useful, but for gathering unpublished data, one needs to leave the desk and be streetwise. Establishing relationships with workers on the ground such as stock-packers, factory floor workers, drivers, farm-workers, service men, etc yields unpublished qualitative and quantitate insights (in an ethical manner).

Leveraging predictive analytics, sentiment analysis, can provide valuable market intelligence for anticipating future developments. 1. Predictive Analytics: - Data-driven Forecasting: Predictive analytics uses historical data and statistical algorithms to make predictions about future trends. This can help in forecasting market demand, identifying potential customer behavior, and anticipating industry shifts. 2. Sentiment Analysis: - Customer Perception: Analyzing sentiment from customer reviews, social media, and other sources can provide insights into how the market perceives your product or industry. Positive sentiment can indicate potential opportunities, while negative sentiment may highlight areas for improvement

"In a flash, businesses can face impact” Market intelligence gathering is an ongoing process, demanding constant confirmation for accuracy. Imagine launching a product in a swiftly changing market without revisiting initial analysis. Competitors offer new solutions, consumer preferences evolve, and industry trends shift. Regular validation ensures your understanding of the market is current and aligned with the dynamic business environment. Stay abreast of emerging technologies. Ultimately, regular confirmation of market data empowers businesses to make educated decisions, adapt strategies, and proactively respond to changes, ensuring long-term success.

Gathering market insights is indeed not a one-time activity but an ongoing process. It's akin to keeping your finger on the pulse of the market, constantly staying attuned to changes, trends, and shifts that could affect your clients. Customer feedback is invaluable. Regularly interacting with customers, either through surveys, social media, or direct communication, can provide fresh and relevant insights.

Continual vigilance in monitoring market dynamics is imperative for adaptability in the dynamic business milieu. Sustained customer engagement, facilitated through methodologies such as surveys and direct communication, serves as an invaluable fount of real-time insights.

In validating and updating findings for a client seeking IT services cost reduction, I employ a streamlined approach. Let me try to explain with a real example: In the course of one of my cost reduction plans for a Client, feedback sessions revealed a current provider offering a new cost-effective package. Benchmarking analysis showed a shift in industry standards towards certain technologies, and trade association insights highlighted emerging trends. Aha. In response, I recommended negotiating with the existing provider for the new package and exploring partnerships with vendors embracing industry shifts. This agile approach ensures the cost optimization strategy aligns with evolving IT services dynamics while maximizing savings.

Keep a continuously learning mindset. Think about what part of the market changes quickly vs. what part changes slowly. Think about fundamental shifts or trends vs. "flash in the pan" events. Think about how you want to deploy your resources most effectively.

In my experience, today's dynamic information landscape, speed is paramount, and networking and fieldwork play a crucial role. "When it's in the news, you're already late," whether in the field or over coffee, proactively chasing leads and trends is essential for swift data updates. For example, consider a tech company's stock surge post-product launch; within minutes, the financial landscape transforms. I recommend a biannual (or even thrice-annual) proactive approach, crafting two macro reports yearly with quarterly follow-ups. The digital era facilitates this rhythm through webinars and podcasts, ensuring data remains anticipatory for strategic decision-making in a landscape where timely information is paramount.

At Walmart Bestprice B2B ecom ( now Flipkart wholesale), the entire profitability and sales volume was a function of pricing on key SKUs. Since the data collection was all offline there was scope for manipulation by the sales manager or the category manager both of whom had opposing goals of gross sales and net margin %. So we needed to ensure a completely independent function which itself was then audited by an independent QC team.

In my approach to market intelligence, I start with external sources like industry reports and market trends for a broad understanding. Then, I seek personalized insights from friends, customers, and industry experts for nuanced feedback on product fit and preferences. This combination of broad and specific insights forms my comprehensive market strategy.

Es un ciclo constante donde se define dónde estoy, para dónde voy y que debo hacer. Subido en este ciclo se van definiendo los momentos y oportunidades así como los riesgos y las contingencias a considerar.

Keep your market info up-to-date—it's not a one-time thing. Check and confirm regularly to make sure it's accurate and relevant. Use different sources or methods, and try out experiments if you can. Also, stay current by tracking changes in your market and getting feedback from customers or experts. This ongoing process helps avoid mistakes or relying on outdated info, keeping your decisions on point.

Collecting / updating information on a regular basis and in a consistent way is key It is important that you validate and update the information at least once per year as they can be outdated soon. Follow a scheme, but also validate whether the scheme is still up-to-date or needs to be updated. A hand-picked collection of sources should be defined (e.g., analysts, universities, maybe niche players or expert interviews). Make sure that the quantity of data is manageable (it needs to be updated on a yearly basis) and the quality leads to relevant insights (yes, there is so many interesting information available, but do you need all of them?).

When communicating market intelligence findings, don't write it like a mystery novel with a "big reveal" at the end. Have an executive summary that highlights all the critical findings (and why they matter), up front. The details behind those findings can come later. The first step is to explain the results. If the audience isn't interested in the results, they will not want to waste time on the details.

Without action, knowledge is useless. Consider the case if you see an avalanche approachibg you. This is knowledge. Without action (moving away from the avalanche) the knowledge has no value. Similarly in any business situation where you learn new all the time.

Invite your customer to speak out the result of the market intelligence study to all contributors to say thank you . A way to hand over the work to the one that you expect to produce outcomes with it.

Leverage the power of story telling in sharing your results; often with the story supported later by the data rather than leading with the data and then telling the story. This is nuanced to your audience, definitely use numbers early with the numbers driven client, but appreciate many are not as numbers first as you might assume.

In my approach, I view market intelligence as a continuous process essential for understanding evolving market needs. The critical final step is effectively communicating and implementing insights. This involves clear, concise presentations to stakeholders, highlighting key findings and actionable recommendations. Aligning strategies with these insights and monitoring their impact is vital. This ongoing adaptation enhances competitive advantage and growth, showcasing the value of staying attuned to market dynamics.

In my experience, less is more, simple is better than complex. Explain the process of arriving at the “simple” insights. And outline actions requested to each stakeholder groups.

This one takes work. It's taken almost a lifetime not to aim for perfection, but good enough. By the time you reach perfection, the moment will be gone. Formulate a POV grounded in research. Use data to refine your POV and share what you know. Keep doing this until you and the world has iterated enough to find new and interesting insights. In order to collaborate you must realize that you don't have all the answers...a lot of people do. Share your thoughts with them and watch the magic happen.

First, define the research scope based on what the team knows and doesn’t know. Clearly explain the research objectives and information gaps to the team. Then, facilitate workshops with business teams (product, marketing, sales) to exchange ideas and refine research strategies. Employ multiple methods, including primary and secondary research and existing industry data, integrating these for comprehensive analysis. Use agile methodologies to adapt to changes and avoid confusion. Success hinges on close collaboration between research and business teams; isolated approaches are less effective.

After gathering intel, the key is to share and act on it. Tell your team or clients what you found, focusing on the main points and recommendations. Then, make sure your actions align with these insights. Keep an eye on the results to show the value of your market intelligence, boosting your competitive edge and growth.

Need to always triangulate the information obtained to ensure it is valid. Whenever we are unsure, can find the median or average from those 3 data points

Nutzt auch Social Media als Quelle. Viele Informationen finden man nicht nur in klassischen Medien, sondern auch hier z.B. auf LinkedIn oder andere Plattformen. Demnächst also neben z.B. Google auch LinkedIn bemühen:-)

Talk to your clients. They represent the market/sector. Talk to more clients at different levels/scopes, responsibilities and influence. They give you the most direct, accurate and up-to-date insights that you will not able to get elsewhere. Of course, the prerequisite is that you already have had good relationships, trust and credibilty with your clients, and they know how you will use the info they give you upfront, in order to decide what to share with you. Also think of what you have to offer and make your conversations meaningful instead of purposeful.

92% of all professionals struggle to organize their information — this is the single most overlooked and misunderstood aspect of human behavior. In my soon to be released white paper- TQ THEORY - A Unifying Theory of Knowledge Work - we summarize the real reason why so many intelligence gathering initiatives fail.

Small and medium businesses often delegate the research process to less experienced team members or attempt to conduct the research themselves when they truly require external professionals. Don't be surprised by the results in these cases.

Another important approach is to leverage technology. With the advent of AI and machine learning, real-time analysis of consumer behavior, market trends, and competitive landscape has become feasible. Tools like Google Trends, social media listening tools, or even sophisticated AI algorithms can help you stay updated with the latest market movements.

Incorporate traditional methods like "pounding the pavement" alongside modern strategies for market intelligence. Leverage customer feedback obtained through informal meetings, surveys, focus groups, online reviews, and social media. Monitor competitors' products, pricing, and marketing efforts to identify opportunities for differentiation. Engage with your sales team for frontline insights into customer needs. Share gathered intelligence with your team for informed decision-making and strategic improvement.

The umbrella example highlights a key market intelligence insight: the importance of timing and understanding consumer needs. In winter, umbrellas may not sell due to low demand. However, the same umbrellas can be popular in sunny weather, especially if marketed as sun protection tools. This demonstrates the necessity of adapting to market conditions and recognizing diverse product applications. It's a prime example of how a product's success depends on aligning its marketing with current consumer needs and market trends, underlining the importance of flexibility and responsiveness in business strategy.

We've always found it interesting to see what other players in the market do. We don't want to be subversive so we get to understand their offerings by taking their services so we know what our gaps are...