Enterprise Search: The Framework for Efficient Marketing Intelligence

The Need for More Efficient Market Intelligence

Decision-makers determine marketing decisions based upon intelligence: the combination of timely, credible information with human reasoning to infer an appropriate marketing response. However, the gathering of useful market intelligence is becoming increasingly more difficult — a direct consequence of the proliferation of news and business information from Web-accessible sources.

In a study conducted by industry analysts at IDC, only 21% of the respondents said they found the information they required 85% to 100% of the time¹. IDC also found that there is an opportunity cost of more than $15 million annually by not locating and retrieving accurate information².

The difficulty of accessing the most accurate market intelligence results in professionals and executives having a continuing unmet need to make decisions based upon a synthesis of the best information available — from sources both inside and outside their organization. An effective intelligence gathering solution must integrate multiple, disparate sources of information into a single, searchable domain.

Broadly speaking, the individuals and organizations involved in the ‘marketing intelligence process’ are marketing analysts, salespeople, and the decision makers they support. Characteristic of these groups are requirements for timely awareness of events external and internal to their organization, the ability to monitor specific areas of interest (markets, industries, companies, people, products/services, issues, activities, etc.), and an ability to conduct research of either a broad or detailed nature without incurring significant ancillary work or time delays.

Traditionally, user-involvement occurs sequentially, or occasionally in parallel, with the activities of gathering, analyzing, and communicating information to decision-makers, the ultimate consumers of the ‘marketing intelligence process’. Any single user may be involved in one or more of these three activities, or an organization might divide the activities among different groups to achieve gains in effectiveness, exactness, or efficiency.

Sound intelligence drives good decision-making. Once intelligence has been gathered, the next step in reducing uncertainty, evaluating available options, and making better decisions is to perform thorough, exacting analysis. Since intelligence can’t be measured solely by the amount of information available for consideration, analysis is critical to the ‘reduction of complexity’ that produces sounder inference. Sounder intelligence requires more exact analysis: systematic screening, interpretation, and characterization to pinpoint the ‘turning points’ that signal greater certainty, simplify complex choices, and accelerate the decision process.

In an intelligence setting, communication cannot be treated as a ‘one-way’ process flowing from analyst to decision-maker. The critical element of human reasoning and judgment in the intelligence process creates a ‘networked’ process, with ongoing communications occurring among a community of related participants. More efficient communication requires better support for ‘in-bound’ (capture, collect, and classify) and ‘out-bound’ (notice, validate, and notify) activities within the intelligence network.

Search-Based Marketing Intelligence Portals: The Game Changer

Today, a new breed of enterprise search solutions is emerging that allows organizations to find and act on any piece of information in any location. These specialized solutions are called search derivative applications (SDAs). SDAs are being developed by both vendors and progressive enterprises as a way to support and enhance existing business processes and, in some cases, enable new ones. These processes may be departmental (marketing, human resources, etc.), vertical (telecommunications, government, manufacturing, etc.) or application-specific (ERP, CRM, business intelligence, compliance).

SDAs can be deployed to create new and innovative solutions that solve very difficult business problems, such as market intelligence. Through the use of scalable enterprise search platform technology, marketing intelligence portals offer corporations the ability to integrate syndicated news feeds, third-party research, Web-published content, and confidential, internal information into a single, powerful ‘intelligence warehouse’. Results of such a warehouse include sophisticated content analysis components that save time and generate sounder intelligence.

Marketing intelligence portals will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the ‘intelligence gathering’ process. They will also:

Marketing intelligence portals can embed seamlessly into intranet, corporate portal, and other browser-based user interfaces, providing the greatest possible leverage from an investment in intelligence gathering and analysis.

The users of these marketing intelligence portals will experience numerous benefits from a greatly enhanced intelligence process, including:

A Marketer’s Dream Portal

Search derivative applications such as marketing intelligence portals will offer marketing analysts, knowledge workers, and decision makers the most efficient and streamlined tool for gathering, analyzing, and communicating marketing information from multiple, disparate sources. Ultimately, this will increase corporate productivity and the effectiveness of organizations.

In a world swamped with information, gathering, analyzing, and communicating ‘what’s important’ can be very time-consuming. Modern, effective intelligence systems using scalable enterprise search platform technology provide the ability to “find the right needle, in a stack of needles”.

Ali I. Riaz serves as Chief Operating Officer and CFO of Fast Search & Transfer™ (FAST™), a leading developer of enterprise search and real-time alerting technologies. Mr. Riaz previously served as the Vice-President, Strategy and Corporate Development since October 2000. Prior to joining FAST, Mr. Riaz held executive positions with Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), including Vice President for Finance and Administration for Europe, Middle East and Africa. Mr. Riaz has also held several management positions at Novartis Pharmaceuticals, including Head of Planning, Information and Control and Head of Global Marketing Controlling. Mr. Riaz holds an MBA degree from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California.

1. "Quantifying Enterprise Search," IDC, May 2002
2. "The High Cost of Not Finding Information," IDC, June 2003