Marketing intelligence: origins and future development

Marketing Intelligence (MI) is the ability to understand, analyze, and assess the internal and external environment related to company’s customers, competitors, markets, and industry to enhance the strategic decision process. MI is generated by both systematic methods of marketing research and the use of information systems. The importance of marketing information is particularly apparent as the economy continues to emphasize services as a major source of value. Even in industries that are primarily manufacturing in nature, the information content of the final product is rapidly increasing. MI transforms information into competitive advantage. MI is not only the process of collecting, analyzing and distributing information but also a driver of strategy and success in the market place. While MI provides a continuous flow of information about very diverse marketing events that might affect the company’s competitive position, information systems are concerned with managing the flow of data from many different sources. In the paper the concept of MI is analyzed in the context of the inductional marketing, the marketing approach to which MI refers. The configuration of a marketing information system is illustrated together with the sources from which information is derived and the instruments, that are used in the data collection and organization process, especially those more technologically advanced.