Market Intelligence – A lot has been said about its fundamentals, the hits and misses of it, and whether or not your business needs it or not. Strong arguments have been made, both for and against market intelligence, in boardroom meetings and on media. After all, it is one of the, if not the most trending buzzwords among the business fraternity in recent times. With so much buzz surrounding a topic, there’s bound to be conversations, articles and discussions around it.
We have been part of many such discussions ourselves. So, we thought we would break down market intelligence in the simplest way possible, to resolve the enigma that market intelligence is and maybe have a look at some of the hottest trends you must follow to stay updated and make the most of it for your business.
So, let’s get started?
What Is Market Intelligence?
Simply put, market intelligence essentially is the process of collecting, analyzing and extracting insights from all the data that is available and relevant to your business to derive actionable insights on your competitors, your customers and the market. In an ideal ‘Business-as-Usual’ world, it was relatively easy to ride the wave of success that was brought to you by your legacy systems, processes, and technologies. Sadly, that world is no longer relevant today. Businesses have grown leaps and bounds in recent years due to the unfortunate circumstances brought upon us by the pandemic. And those, who could not cope with the pace of business transformation, paid a hefty price.
Market intelligence protects you from being left-behind. It provides answers to all your business questions that can keep your business afloat and help you stay ahead of your competition. As modern businesses evolve and become more data-driven, they need strategies to help them make insight-driven decisions. Hence, market intelligence.
While market intelligence does have a ring of a buzzword, it has been around for quite some time now. In different forms, however. So, here are some of the popular methods of gathering business intelligence we all would’ve come across at some point:
- Customer surveys, interviews
- Focus group studies
- Market research
- Web analytics
- Social media monitoring
- Competitive intelligence
- Competitor analysis
We all have had our fair share of experience with market intelligence and as the business world has evolved, so has market intelligence. And it will continue to grow as we see new and innovative ways of doing business come to foray. Keeping that in mind, we take a closer look at some of the hottest market intelligence trends that you as a business leader or a marketer must follow to stay atop of your game.
The Rise of Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
just long enough to not, be considered an alien term. For a long time, businesses have been using or experimenting with RPA to streamline repetitive processes and save costs. It has resulted in an exponential rise in RPA adoption and use cases. In fact, as per Statista, the RPA market will grow by 53% in 2022 — rising from $2 billion in 2021 to $3.17 billion this year.
With the growth of Robotic Process Automation, there has been a significant rise in its use cases as well. Some of the organizational benefits that RPA offers include:
- Increase in efficiency
- Streamlined scalability
- Reduced Turnaround Time (TAT)
- Enhanced security and compliance
- Improved analytics and insights
- Improved customer experience
It’s worth mentioning that automation is not something you associate with only large organizations or conglomerates; even the small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) across industries are showing a keen inclination towards RPA. From customer support to marketing to finance and accounting, you will see RPA being implemented in some form or shape.
With time, more and more businesses will start harnessing the power of automation to improve their business operations while bringing down the costs.
Natural Language Processing (NLP) Becomes Natural
With automation, businesses have now found a way to set in motion many of their processes that otherwise would have needed human intervention. Natural Language Processing (NLP) has the tool to take it one step further.
The significant advancements in NLP capabilities allow business owners to open their platforms to their users and make them accessible to as many users as possible. The improvement in NLP will enable access to advanced data analytics programs even for someone who is not highly tech-savvy or doesn’t know how to code.
Modern augmented analytics will allow data queries in natural language with spoken words or written words as input for marketers and business leaders. While the adoption is still comparatively slower, analysts believe that the capabilities of NLP tools will catch up to their full potential faster than expected. And when it happens, you would want to be there to make the most of it.
Social Listening
Social listening tools are aplenty in the market. They have been around for quite a sometime now. But with the rise of the Metaverse, social listening has become one of the hottest market intelligence trends. With Metaverse, you can now leverage social listening to reach your customers in more ways.
The most significant advantage of social listening is that it allows you to draw real-time analytics by monitoring the social engagement metrics for your customers or just leveraging the power of social listening. It will also enable tracking the positive or negative brand mentions across all social media channels and the most frequently used terms or phrases your customers have used to reach you. All of this will allow businesses to stay on top of the social media and design their campaigns or customer engagement models accordingly.
Monitoring Adjacent Markets
Seldom do you expect your market research, nay market intelligence, to include trends and insights from an adjacent or an entirely new market altogether? However, the recent pandemic outbreak changed that. It showed us the significance of a business’s ability to pivot quickly, something you can’t do without a proper understanding of adjacent marketing.
In a global catastrophic event such as a pandemic or an Avenger-level threat where your customers can no longer afford your product, it’s always wise to tweak your offering to meet the need of the niche audience. This is why it is highly advised to squeeze in some budget and time to learn about the customers in your adjacent market. This will make it easier for you to enter a new market or, in worst case scenario save your business.
To Sum Things Up
Markets and Market Intelligence trends will keep evolving, thanks to the ever-changing behavior of modern customers. Only businesses with agility or a resourceful partner to help them stay afloat in this volatile business environment will not only survive but also thrive. At Datamatics Business Solutions, we have 100+ resources who constantly scan the market for the latest trends, changes, and technologies to build the most comprehensive market intelligence reports for our clients with actionable insights to help them make complex business decisions. If you’d like to explore our market intelligence capabilities and solutions for your business, feel free to reach out to us at: [email protected]Â
