By Orlaith Finnegan

The survey canvassed the opinions of market and competitive intelligence professionals in 21 countries. Some of the key findings are commented below.

The Rise of Social Media

The survey clearly establishes that social media plays a vital role in helping intelligence departments to track information relating to competitors, industry developments and consumer trends. Almost 80% of respondents use social media for gathering intelligence insights. Twitter and LinkedIn are overtaking Facebook and Google+ as popular sources of information. The widespread use of social media monitoring points to a massive shift towards digital research methods as a way of improving time and cost efficiencies.

Impact of the Financial Crisis

The survey reveals that the financial crisis has had a muted effect on the Market Intelligence industry. 84.2% of respondents said the economic situation had not caused their intelligence team to be downsized. However, hiring targets have been adjusted. Three quarters of respondents will not be expanding their team in 2012. While acknowledging those companies that have been adversely affected by staff cuts, the overall trend remains positive. One third of companies surveyed have a Market intelligence budget of more than $250K. It’s clear that if businesses retain a strong intelligence department they will be better positioned to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by the crisis to ensure greater success into the future.

Intelligence Tools

Almost half (46.6%) of companies surveyed use an integrated platform of research and intelligence and yet more than 60% of these companies are currently in the process of planning intelligence projects. As CI departments face the challenge of a hiring freeze we’re likely to see an increase in the adoption of automated tools to help meet productivity targets.

See more on the survey on the link: http://www.digimind.com/landing/State_Of_Market_Intelligence_2012.

About the author

Orlaith Finnegan is PR for Digimind.

Digimind

Twitter: @digimindci