The Handbook of Market Intelligence: Understand, Compete and Grow in Global Markets, 2nd Edition

Chapter 16How to Develop an Existing Market Intelligence Program for Greater Impact

A few months had passed since Mark’s conference presentation. It had been well received especially among those who were in a similar situation as Mark himself was when starting his MI development efforts. Mark had even been contacted afterwards by a couple of peers in other companies that wanted to share views with him about particular situations and how to tackle them. Mark was happy to share his thinking – one of his goals in participating in the conference had been to expand his network outside his own company, and his presentation had served well to that end.

Speaking of networking, in the conference Mark had also come across the opportunity to join a group of companies conducting facilitated benchmarking around their intelligence programs. The primary goal of the benchmarking project was to share best practices and help each other in their shared aspiration to not get stuck with an “average MI program” status, but to move forward and take their Market Intelligence programs towards the highest global standards. In practice, the participants in the benchmarking project wanted to increase the impact, the very value of their Market Intelligence programs to the organization.

BENCHMARKING MARKET INTELLIGENCE FOR GLOBAL BEST PRACTICES

Mark felt he could use some external advice on how he himself could go from here, pursuing the goal of “impact”; hence he joined the benchmarking group. Equally ...