Processing Market Data into Insight and Competitive Advantage Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Monday, February 1, 2010 at 22:08, in Labels: dissertation, knowledge management, market insight, marketing

I'm currently constructing a possible foundation for my master's dissertation. I've noticed how helpful to the idea creation process it is when people ask you what you are about, and you try to explain the idea in a concise, understandable way. Thus I'll be writing a little about my plans here as well, to gather my thoughts.

I'm generally interested in how, where and by whom market information is gathered, analysed, disseminated and finally utilized as Market Insight in private organizations. By "market" I mean both customer-related data, competitor intelligence and PESTLE (political, economic, social, technologic, legal, environmental)-related data all combined. These actions, gathering, dissemination etc. can be labeled as a data-to-value process - here raw data is made sense of and translated into something of value - Insight of the external world that assists the organization in reaching its business goals and beyond. Some academics even call this Insight a strategic asset.

It would obviously be too massive a dissertation to try to envelope and discuss the entire issue of Market Insight creation and utilization. After all, the maximum length of a dissertation paper in Cranfield University SOM is merely 16,000 words. Therefore I've narrowed my focus down to the management issues of creating Market Insight. In my sights is the measurement of the data-to-value process. How do companies measure how they go about with the market insight creation and utilization process, and how are the results, the outputs and value of the process, measured?

As it seems, there is a great amount of academic literature covering years of practical experience that focuses on knowledge management and customer insight. There are lovely books and articles describing the data-to-value process and how companies should control theirs. But none I've come across offer valid frameworks or metrics for measuring the process and its outputs. I'm a Druckerian in a sense that I believe what you can't measure, you can't manage. And what you're not measuring, you're dismissing, and I believe not listening to the outside world is not something a respectable company cannot sidetrack. Of course, I'm not allegating the majority of companies of lacking market understanding, but as a Manager, I'd be keen to make sure my organization would be both as aware of its environment and well-equipped to utilize that awareness as possible.

During the coming Spring I'll be writing a lot more on the issue of Market Insight. I think it's a valuable one which strategists, marketers, line managers and even entrepreneurs can enjoy as useful - after all, the final purpose of Insight is to create competitive advantage and foster those market breaking ideas..

My best of luck to all my fellow MSc. students in Cranfield who are beginning their dissertation projects!