The value of market intelligence in a rapidly evolving business world


The value of market intelligence in a rapidly evolving business world

The value of market intelligence in a rapidly evolving business world

The value of market intelligence in a rapidly evolving business world


At CONTEXT our mission is to help firms in the IT channel make the right decisions about their business. We've been offering comprehensive market intelligence to our clients for over three decades, so it was good to see the value of what we do highlighted by a new Financial Times report based on in-depth interviews with 547 subscribers to the paper.

Although it's good to see 64% of global boards single out market intelligence as a high priority, capability gaps in many organisations could undermine the value they can drive from it. This is where CONTEXT can help.

Companies want insight into competitor data and intelligence

Market intelligence is crucial: it shines a light on evolving customer demands, helping organisations better position themselves for differentiation and growth. It's encouraging to note from the report that the C-level gets this and that, as a result, 40% of firms are planning to increase their budget for market intelligence over the next 12 months.

The report also showed that research from industry analysts was overwhelmingly recognised to be the most effective source of market intelligence for strategic decision-making - 51% of respondents thought so whereas the next place source, "news/opinion/data from global media outlets", was ranked most effective by only 33%. What's more, the type of intelligence that CONTEXT provides - competitor data and intelligence - was the area where most respondents (44%) felt they still lacked crucial insight.

Room for improvement
The report revealed several other areas where organisations are still struggling to gain value from their market intelligence efforts. These included:

  • Sharing real-time data across the organisation: just 25% said they thought it was easy to rapidly share competitor information.
  • Expanding their intelligence into adjacent sectors such as supply chains.
  • Finding new sources of market intelligence: some 42% said they struggle with this.
  • Mapping market intelligence onto business strategies: over a third (35%) claimed they had difficulty aligning the two.
  • Interpreting data to drive effective decision-making: 65% said this is a bigger challenge than data overload.

The power of data in the IT industry

The good news is that CONTEXT can help IT channel customers overcome many of the challenges outlined in this report. We provide high-quality, insight-led data from across the entire IT supply chain, from supplier to end customer. This allows organisations to develop deep insight into the performance of their products, benchmark against the competition in real time, and, ultimately, make the right intelligence-led decisions for their business.

As the FT report reveals, many organisations still have a way to go before they're maximising the use of market intelligence to drive business success. If you're looking to overhaul your strategy, the best place to start is by understanding what market intelligence you're currently using, how you're using it, and what's missing so you can then decide what external expertise to bring in. It's important to have an engaged C-suite taking a lead and working out where to prioritise future investment.

Once you've worked through these processes, we're ready and waiting to engage with you at senior level and discuss how CONTEXT can empower your business to achieve more.

By AS


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