Why do B2B companies struggle to find Market Intelligence?

As a company operating in a B2C environment, life is easy.

More explicitly, acquiring the right market information is easy.Countless reports filled with rich consumer insights are available at your fingertips. These reports, which cover topics like market size, consumer profiles, competitors, and trends, are easily accessible through sales and marketing professionals.With the right approach, available information can also be directly translated into clear insights on a strategic level. In the boardroom, market intelligence serves as a reliable sparring partner, setting the direction for strategic actions.

Unfortunately, the opposite is the case for B2B companies.

Their markets can often feel like a massive black box filled with blindspots. Also, the majority of leading market research companies focus on producing market reports for B2C companies, because the required data is significantly more convenient to obtain and more widely available. Besides, B2C companies are more willing to invest in market intelligence reports, due to the better overall quality of the data and insights.

However, possessing the right intelligence is also vital for B2B players, especially in the fast changing and dynamic business environment they are operating in. Having access to information about market size, competitors, and industry trends can make the difference between staying on top of your league or to be disrupted.

Existing market reports for B2B companies are difficult to put to direct action, as they are extremely standardized and frequently based on extrapolations of historical figures. Aside from the inaccuracies, these reports, in general, only provide you with insights about the past, whereas trustworthy market intelligence also helps you to be proactive instead of reactive, with respect to the near future.

Another issue with these reports is the phenomena of ‘information overload’. Decision makers drown in huge market research reports filled with endless pie charts and tables. By the time they reach page 299, any actionable insight is definitely lost, and the reader is left behind frustrated.

Sounds familiar?

Luckily, there are several methods through which professionals in a B2B environment can start creating their own customized market intelligence.

Today’s world offers one enormous advantage; the availability of rich and infinite open-source intelligence: OSINT.Endless bits and pieces of information are available on the open web; hidden in databases, social media content, trade journals and news articles. Connecting all the pieces of the puzzle in a smart way leads to better understanding of your market.

Another method of creating tailor-made market intelligence is through(predictive)modelling. Key factor is defining which variables affect the topic you want to clarify. Take for example market sizing. Some variables might be less obvious than others. Illustrative for B2B companies is that they often act as a shackle in the middle of a value chain. Also, Business-to-business products and their applications are more multifaceted compared with their business-to-consumer counterparts. It can be necessary to count back from endvolumes of a product and combine this with market characteristics to estimate the market size of a specific commodity.

The illustrations mentioned above are just two plain examples of techniques that can be valuable. Obviously, many more methods and tools are available. The trick is in finding the right combination of methods and tools.As well as in-depth understanding of how to determine validity.

However, the bottom line remains unchanged: by combining outcomes of different techniques proper market intelligence can be gathered, even in a B2B environment. Aside, it is important to periodically update your data and insights with new figures and trends. Check and double check your data model with industry experts and internal sources.

By building market intelligence in a systematic and continuous way, insight in your market keeps increasing and the black B2B box can be whitened step-by-step.