what are the advantages and disadvantages of doing so?
Are you recruiting for a Market Intelligence Manager? Are you finding it tough to find someone suitable with the necessary skills or experience? Or maybe you are interested in outsourcing the role but unsure where to start. We ask why outsource Market Intelligence and the advantages and disadvantages of doing so.
Why Outsource Market Intelligence, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of doing so?
If either scenario looks familiar, hopefully, this article may help you.
In-house or outsource?
You may be considering the in-house option to undertake Market Intelligence. Should you recruit for your team? Or use the already busy and inexperienced marketing assistants? Or go the whole way and outsource everything to an agency? Here are a few common key pointers.
Never put all your eggs in one basket
We argue that you can never outsource everything because we can’t make your own decisions. Market Intelligence agencies can offer an opinion and should be able to suggest options based on what they’ve found.
Outsourcing disadvantages
When outsourcing fails, it’s usually attributed to expectation and criteria mismatch. Careful thought with clear documented objectives, timescales and budgets.
1. Risk of losing data
You may have to share some data with your outsourcing partner, and much of the data could be confidential. So, it’s best to first get your chosen service provider to look externally. Bring insight and verification into the investigative process. From there, building trust and a shared understanding and progress.
2. Loss of control
Hand over any activity to an external team, and you lose a certain amount of control. Anything goes wrong, and it’s out of your hands. Similarly, terrible service, exaggerated capabilities, and poor communication must also be considered.
What is Market Intelligence?
Market intelligence is the finding, sorting and critical analysis of information. To make sense of what’s happening and why. Predict what’s going to happen and give the options to help you control the outcome. Competitive intelligence offers certainty, competitive advantage, insight, growth & security.
Within the world of market intelligence, there are many super providers. Several quality platforms help you create insight. Yet, like most industries, some would ‘sell their granny to make a buck’. Sadly, many happily provide you with utter garbage, so be cautious.
However, the majority of Market Intelligence agencies are excellent. Yet, as we have experienced when we tried to outsource our collecting requirements, eight times out of ten global providers gave us basic Google cut and paste. No matter how cheap or expensive they were.
And it’s the worst thing to find. You think you have found a great partner, and they deliver the work a day before the deadline. Then you open the document, and your heart sinks—big promises, slapdash results, and a very late night.
Established market intelligence companies also proclaim that AI helps them be the best. Here is a recent quote from a former employee of one of them. “I worked for them for two years, and there was nothing AI or intelligent about them.”
3. The cost
Be very aware of what you are being charged for. Many established firms are very used to trading off their brand. No matter whom you are talking with, ensure a complete work schedule, timelines, and reporting criteria are agreed upon. Then, look at that and make a balanced commercial judgement on whether the cost seems great value.
What are the advantages of outsourcing?
If you select the right Market Intelligence partner, the advantages are endless. With the right team in your corner, you will get the insight to grow and make the right decisions.
1. Save money
For the cost of a junior staff member, it’s possible to get a retained Market Intelligence solution to support your needs.
2. Save time
It’s not just money. Think of all your marketing, sales or Intelligence team wasting time and expertise dealing with less strategic things. Outsourcing helps release your people back to what they do best.
3. Cut back on risk
The right Market Intelligence company will be an expert in the required skill sets. Engaging this expertise cost mitigates risk, reduces mistakes and delivers better results.
4. Improving efficiency
Delegating difficult-to-control activities to consultancies enables you to be more versatile. And free up your resources to do other productive things.
5. Less experience to blind you
One of the most significant issues is that a company desires a market intelligence professional with expertise in the market sector that is relevant to the business. Our view is that this is disadvantageous, which may well mean that the recruit may know all the shortcuts in knowledge.
Be well-versed in the industry parlance and see how the industry works in practice. This can lead to vulnerabilities in their lack of more comprehensive insights and techniques. A possible exception to this could be in the Life Sciences. This is not because of any lack of market intelligence skills and capability but the willingness of a medical professional to look beyond the prefix of a name.
Completely wrong
After all, you want to work with market intelligence professionals who are highly trained and capable of collecting and analysing intelligence. For example, if you are in the aircraft building business, your design engineers would oversee the planes’ construction, not your in-house lawyer. Likewise, asking a design engineer to sign off on a multi-billion pound contract’s legal terms and conditions is probably unwise.
Essentially, you would not benefit from a Market Intelligence professional who already has the answers; the real value is finding and verifying the answers. That way, you will receive objective and impartial insight and not be blindsided by lack of experience, office politics, self-interest, and subjective analysis.
6. Reality check
Outsourcing allows a company like ours to use the skills we are trained to provide. It provides appropriate reality checks and gives a ‘wood for the trees’ insight, showing you exactly where you are doing and then understanding where you are going.
7. Ask the questions
An outsourced Market Intelligence function can ask awkward questions. The ones you want to know but do not want to be seen to ask. Searching for insight whilst giving total immunity to you, so the risk is mitigated.
8. Avoid the panic and fads
Bring much-needed Intelligence insight into your board room and your broader organisation. A partner supports you by providing impartial viewpoints of your ever-changing marketplace. Market Intelligence professionals should never be yes men. And in so doing, it gives you a clear and truthful sustainable competitive advantage. Communicate to your board that intelligence is not about jumping on the latest fad. Or merely copying a competitor.
9. Learn from an Intelligence Professional
Using an Intelligence professional with considerable experience and knowledge is an excellent way for your team to learn tradecraft. Ask your provider how they found the information and the analysis they used. Not to judge but to learn and develop your own teams.
When to outsource?
Now is the time to consider it. Exploring the option will help you become more aware of its advantages.
Things to consider when looking at Market Intelligence if:-
- You have a project with a tight deadline with no one to do it.
- Skills are not available.
- When asking questions to people outside your company who could expose you
- When looking for information, it’s obvious who wants it.
- You failed to get anything out of Intelligence before.
- All you have is basic research and unspecified assumptions.
- You want to know what’s really going on.
- You need to make decisions based on something evidenced and verified.
The right partner
Outsourcing market intelligence has to be a benefit. Your company will have lots of information, perhaps too much. Your sales teams, for instance, should be part of the full, real-time Market Intelligence process.
A professional service partner will want to work with you, and they will want to collate all relevant internal knowledge and tell you what’s really going on. It is also about understanding what your board needs to take your organisation to the next level. And how it can effectively neutralise potential problems along the way. And, of course, identify and maximise previously unforeseen opportunities.
Don’t make the mistake
Then, there is the mistake of buying an expensive research report. Or access the latest information database from a company you have heard of. You know, the ones with the perfect brand name on the front. The trouble is that counterparts in Korea and Bristol have also purchased the same report. And no doubt, each one is sitting on a shelf. And the information within the report is not up to date, and because it’s based on someone else’s questions, they never seem to hit the right spot.
OK, so what about Market Intelligence monitoring software? Perhaps you have signed up for something similar that does not work for you. So you give it to someone to use, and nothing happens. There is no magic Intelligence button.
Most Market Intelligence software still requires extensive work to get the most out of your investment. Still, a Market Intelligence consultancy can collate the information and create Intelligence for you.
We love what we do
Our passion is Market Intelligence, and its values and advantages drive us to never walk past a problem or a challenge. We are committed to doing our clients’ best wherever and however they need us.
The advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing Market Intelligence
If you are recruiting for a Market Intelligence Manager, you may find it tough. Or maybe you are interested in outsourcing the role but unsure where to start. In this article, we asked why outsource Market Intelligence and the advantages and disadvantages of doing so.
We are Octopus. The Global People-Powered Competitive Intelligence Agency.
Outsmart your competition. Make the unknown known. Octopus helps you gain clarity in complex markets. With clients and tentacles around the world, we deliver sharp, actionable competitive intelligence through a blend of deep primary (HUMINT) and secondary research. If you’re looking to make smarter decisions, beat the competition, and reduce uncertainty, we’re the partner you want on your side.
