What Good Market Intelligence Actually Looks Like (With Examples)
Updated: Sep 27
Good market intelligence (MI) changes a specific decision before the money is committed. Here are nine CTRS projects where it did, from a $100 million reactor upgrade to a startup pitching investors, each with the decision on the table, what the evidence showed, and what happened next.
The definition of market intelligence, and how it differs from market research and competitive intelligence, lives in The Ultimate Guide to Market Intelligence. This post is the practical companion: four tests that separate intelligence from information, nine examples, and a three-question check you can run on the work your organization already has.
Who this is for: Leaders and strategists who want to see what MI looks like in practice, either to judge the work they already receive or to scope the first piece they commission.
Key Takeaways
Good market intelligence starts from a decision someone has to make, not from a topic someone is curious about.
In several of the examples below, the most valuable output was a question the client had not known to ask.
Market intelligence often delivers an uncomfortable finding, and acting on it takes more leadership strength than commissioning it.
Good MI combines desk research with interviews or surveys, because neither source type is complete on its own.
Intelligence that arrives after the decision, or never reaches the person making it, has no practical value.
A three-question self-assessment shows whether your current work is intelligence or still information.
Four Tests Separate Market Intelligence From Information
Market intelligence passes four tests that plain information does not, and each example later in this post shows at least one of them at work.
Tied to a decision. "Tell us what is happening in our industry" produces a data dump. "Should we enter the mid-market segment this year, and what would need to be true for it to work?" tells the researcher what to look for and tells leadership what the answer is for.
Built from more than one kind of signal. Desk research shows scale and trends. Interviews and surveys show motive and nuance. MI that relies on one source type misses whatever that source cannot see.
Interpreted. "Competitor X launched a new product" is information. "Competitor X launched a product aimed at your fastest-growing segment, priced to get ahead of an upcoming regulatory change, and here are three ways to respond" is intelligence.
Delivered in time, to the right people. A 40-page report emailed to a distribution list and filed away changes nothing. The same findings, brought into the meeting where the decision is made, can change everything.
Nine Market Intelligence Examples Show Evidence Changing Real Decisions
The nine examples below come from CTRS work already published, either as case studies or in earlier posts on this blog. Several of the case studies carry "market research" in their titles. What makes them market intelligence is that each one was built to inform a specific choice.
Example | The decision | What the market intelligence showed |
Nuclear energy company | Spend $100 million on a reactor upgrade for a new market | A definitive answer on demand before committing |
Canadian rebar company | How leadership understood its competitive position | Imports were about 30% of the rebar used in Canada |
Business model from Asia | How to enter a major Canadian market | The mall foot traffic assumption did not hold |
KXI Wildertec | Which of four industries to pursue | Market sizing for investors, and one industry that was not a fit |
7 Leagues | How to show investors the market was real | Demand for fish leather exceeds current supply |
Wakefield | Which of three markets to pursue | A primary and secondary market, plus positioning and pricing insight |
Nestworks | Whether a new concept was ready to launch | Market size, willingness to pay, and one of the biggest barriers to launch |
BlackBean Industrial Marketing | What products to develop for the US market | What potential US buyers said they needed |
International and US Biochar Initiatives | Who to trust with the industry's reference figures | Figures all three partner organizations now cite |
A $100 Million Reactor Upgrade Got A Definitive Demand Answer Before The Commitment
A nuclear energy company in Eastern Canada was considering a $100 million upgrade to one of its reactors to produce radioisotopes for a new class of cancer drugs, a market it knew nothing about. Over six or seven months, we mapped the entire radiopharmaceutical ecosystem, talking to pharmaceutical companies and feedstock producers. The company got a definitive answer on demand before it committed. It made the upgrade, and the reactor now produces materials that go into life-saving treatments (full story in Building Strategy With Market Intelligence).
A Rebar Company Learned Its Market Share Left Out About 30% Of The Market
A Canadian rebar company had been reporting its market share based only on domestic production, without accounting for imports. Imports turned out to be about 30% of the rebar used in Canada, mostly on the West Coast. The real numbers reshaped how leadership understood the company's competitive position, and they weren't easy to hear, because years of numbers reported up the chain had been wrong. Sometimes good market intelligence is a correct finding that is hard to accept.
An Expansion Into Canada Rested On An Assumption About Mall Traffic That Did Not Hold
A company was extending a business model that had worked in Asia into a major Canadian market. The extension rested on an assumption nobody had questioned: that Canadian mall foot traffic would behave the way it did in China. The discovery conversation before the work was scoped surfaced that assumption, and testing showed it did not hold. The finding gave the company the chance to pivot and build a much better go-to-market plan, as described in Who Owns Market Intelligence In Your Organization?
KXI Wildertec Found That One Promising Industry Was Not A Fit
KXI Wildertec developed truck suspension technology that carries workers from the road to off-road job sites, and it had four priority industries in mind. Its CMO described the market as "a niche inside of a niche." CTRS started with desk research to size each industry, then used in-depth interviews to test interest and pricing. The biggest insight was that one of the industries KXI had considered a good prospect was not a fit, and the interviews showed why. KXI also came away with a market sizing (TAM, SAM, SOM) to share with investors and validation of the product before investing more in the prototype. See the KXI Wildertec case study.
7 Leagues Turned Founder Conversations Into Evidence Investors Could Check
7 Leagues, a startup making leather from fish skin, needed investment to scale production. The founder had already held discovery calls with leather goods manufacturers, and CTRS used secondary research to find the statistics and hard data behind what those calls suggested. The market assessment verified the fish leather market and showed that demand exceeds current supply. 7 Leagues carried the key numbers into its investor pitch deck (7 Leagues case study).
Wakefield Narrowed Three Candidate Markets To A Primary And A Secondary Market
Wakefield Agency, a boutique storytelling agency, wanted to scale and had identified three possible markets, and picking the wrong one would have cost it significant time and money. CTRS combined a PESTLE analysis, a market scan, and competitive intelligence with primary research among past and prospective clients. The team also secret shopped competitors, including requesting quotes, to see how they pitched and priced. Wakefield came away with a primary and secondary market, positioning and messaging guidance, and lead lists of clients and channel partners (Wakefield case study).
Nestworks Discovered Many Of Its Customers Did Not Know What Coworking Was
Nestworks planned a family-friendly coworking and childminding space in Metro Vancouver and needed to validate the market first. CTRS combined a market scan, a PESTLE analysis, competitive analysis, financial modelling, and a survey that gauged interest and acceptable prices. The work gave Nestworks an estimate of potential customers and the size of the market available to it. It also surfaced one of the biggest barriers: much of the target audience did not know what coworking was. With CTRS's help, Nestworks went on to launch a three-month pilot in Metro Vancouver (Nestworks case study).
A BlackBean Client Heard From US Buyers Before Designing Products
BlackBean Industrial Marketing had a heavy equipment client planning to develop products for the US market, and the client wanted to hear from potential buyers directly. The audience was hard to reach: CTRS contacted 1,500 people to find interview participants and spoke in depth with over a dozen of them. The findings validated the opportunities and set out clear next steps. They also gave BlackBean and its client a clear view of market positioning, key competitors, and customer demand (BlackBean case study).
The International And US Biochar Initiatives Now Share One Set Of Industry Figures
The International Biochar Initiative (IBI) and the US Biochar Initiative (USBI) came back to CTRS for their 2025 Global Biochar Market Report, working with the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at Oxford. The report's figures are cited by carbon market regulators, funders, and investors, so the choice of research partner was a credibility decision. CTRS fielded the survey in English, Chinese, and Spanish and collected more than 930 responses from 50 countries. The figures are now the numbers all three organizations cite and the ones their carbon market partners reference (Biochar case study).
The Question Came Before The Research In Almost Every Example
Most of the examples above started from a decision with money attached: an upgrade, a market entry, a product line, a pitch to investors. None started from "tell us about our industry." The rebar and biochar work started from a different need, a picture of the market that leadership, or a whole industry, could rely on.
In several examples, the most useful output was a question the client had not known to ask. The mall traffic assumption, the coworking awareness gap, and the KXI industry that was not a fit all came out of the work, not the brief. Good market intelligence narrows the uncertainty you knew about and exposes the uncertainty you didn't.
The rebar example shows the harder half. Commissioning market intelligence is easy. Acting on a finding that contradicts years of internal reporting takes leadership strength, and it is far easier to do as a team than to put on one person's shoulders.
Three Common Deliverables Look Like Market Intelligence But Are Not
Three deliverables are regularly mistaken for market intelligence, and all three fail the same tests.
A slide deck of market size numbers with no "so what." Accurate figures with no connection to a decision get presented once and sit on a shared drive.
A competitor tracking spreadsheet. Tracking records what happened. Intelligence explains what it means and what to consider doing about it.
A purchased off-the-shelf report. Third-party reports are useful inputs, but without interpretation for your position they are a reading assignment, not insight.
When leadership stops valuing MI, one common reason is that it never received any. It received information and saw no decision change.
Three Questions Show Whether Your Current Work Qualifies As Market Intelligence
Apply these three questions to any piece of market intelligence your organization has produced or bought in the last year.
Is it connected to a specific decision? If the work is not tied to a choice someone is facing, it is research. Research has value, but it is a different job.
Does it include interpretation, not just data? If the output is numbers and facts with no "so what," the interpretation is either happening informally in individual leaders' heads or not happening at all.
Did it reach the right people at the right time? If it arrived after the decision, went to people who could not act on it, or sits unread in a folder, it may as well not exist.
A "no" or "not sure" on any question shows where the gap is. The gap is rarely the amount of data. It is the interpretation and delivery that turn information into intelligence.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an example of market intelligence?
An example of market intelligence is CTRS's work for a nuclear energy company weighing a $100 million reactor upgrade to supply a market it knew nothing about. Six or seven months of mapping the radiopharmaceutical ecosystem gave the company a definitive answer on demand before it committed the money. The work was tied to one decision, drew on several sources, and reached leadership before the commitment.
What is the difference between market monitoring and market intelligence?
Market monitoring collects signals: competitor launches, price changes, new hires, regulatory news. Market intelligence interprets those signals against a specific decision and says what to consider doing about them. Monitoring is an input to intelligence, not a replacement for it.
How do I know if what we have is intelligence or just information?
Ask whether the output answers "so what?" and "what should we consider doing?" for a decision your organization faces. If it does not, it is information. The three-question self-assessment above gives a fuller check.
Do we need a dedicated market intelligence function to get this right?
No. A defined set of decision questions, one person responsible for interpreting what comes in, and a regular slot in leadership meetings will get most organizations started. Market Intelligence Is Easier to Start Than Most Leaders Think sizes that first step.
Work with CTRS
CTRS has turned market questions into evidence leadership teams can act on since 2003, from single-market assessments to industry-wide reports. If a decision is coming up and you are not sure the evidence behind it would hold up, contact CTRS to scope what good market intelligence would look like for it. More examples are in CTRS case studies.
About the author: Aaron Cruikshank is President of CTRS Market Intelligence. Since 2003, he and CTRS have supported more than 1,000 projects for growing SMEs, major brands and public-sector organizations, from market assessments to decision support. His background includes an Associate Vice President role at Ipsos. Aaron also speaks on market intelligence at conferences, on podcasts and in company workshops. More about Aaron · aaroncruikshank.com
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