QL2 Adds Market Intelligence Services To Online Platform

QL2 Software, which distributes market intelligence to subscribers through its Website, has introduced four additional services to assist marketers in determining product and price mix, competitive positioning, and consumer opinions and preferences.

In addition, the new services, launched this week, feature a dashboard for customizable pre-defined reporting, data visualization and graphing. The new features include:

- PriceTrack, which gathers competitive product pricing and promotional information from a wide variety of public data sources; - ProductMix, which queries Websites and online catalogs and product listings to capture for retailers how competitors are categorizing, displaying and presenting product offerings to consumers; - MarketSpace, which acts as an "early warning" system by capturing and organizing news, Website information, regulatory and other market data. Marketing executives can use the information for decisions related to branding, product positioning, and competitive response; - And MarketVoice, which collects and organizes user-generated content on blogs, message boards, forums and product reviews, in order to give marketers information on public opinion on products or issues.

QL2 claims that more than 250 companies in 38 countries are using its services, including seven of the top 10 airlines globally and three of the top five pharmaceutical firms. Others served by QL2 include retail, consumer products, and information services companies.

QL2 collects 500 million data points from 5,000 unique sources on the Web, using 5 million customer- and industry-specific agents. The latest services are available now. Pricing depends on the mix of services and the volume of intelligence.

James Kobielus, analyst for Current Analysis, said QL2 is moving from an aggregation, filtering, and delivery site for diverse data feeds to a provider of tailored, on-demand data services for analytics-driven, verticalized corporate performance management. "Existing QL2 customers should consider subscribing to the new on-demand market-intelligence service packages if they have the associated decision-support requirements in branding, product positioning, revenue optimization, and other areas," Kobielus said in a research note.

QL2, a small, low-visibility pure-play, competes against business intelligence market leader Business Objects, and Web 2.0-focused startup StrikeIron in the emerging niche for real-time, BI-ready market-intelligence services, Kobielus said. "QL2 is innovating by packaging its subscription services, and hosted analytics, for specific horizontal and vertical decision points, a strategic decision that will help it better target specific users within enterprise and small-to-midsized business accounts."