WHAT WE DO
market intelligence
WHAT WE DO
MARKET INTELLIGENCE
Market intelligence bridges the gap between traditional market research, business intelligence and strategy. It allows you to predict the outcomes of your strategy with greater accuracy. Make sure you have all the intel you need to make the best decisions.
Key market intel elements
- Market Analysis / Validation
- Current State Analysis
- Open Source Intelligence
- Primary Research
- Market Scan
- Competitive Scan
- Market Sizing
- Market Segmentation
Market Validation
A full Market Analysis or Validation is a formally structured Market Intelligence project that includes some or all of the following information about a product or service in the market:
- Determine if there is a need for our product or service. Identify if there is a viable market
- Find who needs this product or service and why
- Determine how much of our product or service do they need – calculate the total addressable market
- Discover what would stop someone from purchasing our product or service
- Identify who are the competitors for this product or service
- Pinpoint what are the most viable markets for the product or service as we’ve envisioned it
A Market Assessment or Validation makes the business case for:
- A new product or service
- Entering a new market with an existing product or service
- Introducing a market-facing public sector solution to a population
This Market Intelligence product feeds into all of the strategies and plans that would bring these solutions to market.
Any organization that wants to launch a product or service into a market where the demand and therefore the viability of the solution is unproven. For example, if a Lottery Authority wanted to offer a new gaming product to attract millennials into state-sponsored gaming, a Market Assessment would help them determine the financial viability of such an option.
Another example would be an Indigenous community who needs a Market Assessment to insert into a business case in order to secure grant funding for a piece of community infrastructure. The funding body wants to see that the community has done their due diligence on the opportunity and that it will create jobs and economic benefits for that community. A Market Assessment provides that due diligence.
In other cases, we are helping organizations narrow down a range of options to those which have the most market potential before a significant amount of funding is invested in any one option. We worked with an NRC-IRAP client in 2018 who had already spent $1 million on patents and prototypes before doing a Market Assessment. The Market Assessment determined that their primary market was not viable. That $1 million in capital investment was largely wasted. CTRS was able to find other markets that were more viable but these markets required a new set of intellectual property and prototype development.
MArket Scan
A Market Scan is a high-level PESTLE (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental) and competitive analysis on all of the product and service categories that are core to an organization. Market Scans are typically done annually or quarterly to ensure that the market intelligence is fresh. Higher tier markets scans typically include some deep dives on specific topics identified by the client in addition to the general PESTLE and competitive analysis.
A good market scan provides a common frame of reference for every decision maker in the organization when they are evaluating strategies and programs. The market scan provides context by which to judge the viability of specific tactics, strategies and ideas. The existence of an up-to-date Market Scan saves any department doing a strategic planning exercise significant time getting all of the program participants on the same page early in the process. The Market Scan provides an independent assessment of the current state of the operating environment.
In an organization with a functioning Market Intelligence practice, Market Scans are important to have from the executive level down to the management level. It should be a common frame of reference for every employee in the organization engaging in marketing, strategic planning, or program evaluation.
