Introduction
The right sort of intelligent marketing is essential for the growth of your company. A manager’s job is to decide which market intelligence to use to make a company successful. Since rapid technological changes are inevitable, you need to keep up with the growing demand and extreme prices.
However, not all intelligent marketing is equal; while some ways might benefit your company, some might not prove to be so successful. So let us look at some characteristics of procurement market intelligence.
Characteristics
There are six characteristics that you should determine before making any decision. Let’s look at them.
1. Objective
Decisions that are biased or inaccurate should not be considered useful data to use for your company. You need to take information from reliable sources; otherwise, this might even potentially damage your company. Choose independent intelligence that is not biased towards any organization and provides an overview in an unbiased way.
2. Specific
Specific questions have more value than unspecific questions. Since managers have some extremely to-the-point questions, it is beneficial for your company rather than having a piece of general information.
3. Robust
Category managers require robust and reliable information. This will help if the information is drawn from multiple sources rather than just one specific supplier. So try to take data from different sites at once to gain more knowledge to help your company grow.
4. Current
Since the market varies, it is not acceptable to base your decisions on last month’s or even last year’s information. This might damage your stakeholders’ procurement stability, causing damage to your company.
5. Meaningful
Intelligence that is adequately presented might be misinterpreted and might take the stakeholders to decide which decision to make and what to do. Managers must introduce intelligence so that it is meaningful and compelling for everyone who reads it.
6. Contextual
Intelligence should be contextualized and not something that makes more noise for your business. Ensure that only essential information is distilled from all other information that is not so important for your company. This will support goals and risk management, and excel in the category.
Sourcing Market Intelligence
If your source market intelligence, your company has internal or external options, let’s look at some of them below:
Internal
Supplier Information
Internal stakeholders and suppliers are excellent sources to gather information from. They will give specific knowledge about products, categories, and factors that affect the supply chain. However, use this information with other sources and do not just rely on one source.
Desk Research
Since the internet provides an easy source to gather information from, many managers opt for this way. However, since the internet’s information is generalized, it might not answer your specific query. However, it is a good source when starting managers who rely heavily on such research often fail to provide reliable information.
Internal Intelligence
You can also create a specific team in your company solely for intelligence. However, finding the skills you need for this particular task is hard, and you might also have to invest heavily to create a team for your company.
External
Three broad types of procurement market intelligence are used; let us look at them below:
1. Custom Intelligence
This type of intelligence often uses a mixture of evidence based on the specific question based on the company’s internal and external information.
2. Syndicated Intelligence
It is conducted and funded by a market firm that can deliver reliable and high-quality information based on market trends. However, since it is generalized, the data produced are for a larger audience, making it a less reliable source.
3. Hybrid Intelligence
This is a new way of market intelligence and has gained a lot of popularity recently. It is a mixture of custom intelligence and syndicated intelligence. This will help you look into both worlds, providing you with data that is market-based and readily available. It also can conduct in-depth research if there’s a specific question that needs to be answered.
Conclusion
Intelligent market procurement is becoming increasingly popular and has gained a lot of audiences. With the ever-changing technology, this has become a must to dive deeper into the type of market trends that are going on. Managers now prefer using this method to increase sales and be confident about their products.
Many companies have already started using this method, and many companies are expected to turn to this method to use it for their marketing strategies for the next two to three years.
