Strategies for the Acquisition of Market Intelligence, and Implications for the Transferability of Information Inputs

The recent fast growth of producer services has led to an expanding literature on the contribution of high-order services to innovative and successful industries. Countless studies have shown that greater competitiveness is associated with the use of outside expertise and information in the form of technical and management services, and information about markets and user needs. The objectives of this paper are twofold. First, from the point of view of an industry, allinformation accessed for input into the innovation process is relevant, not just that acquired through market transactions with service suppliers. Defining market intelligence (MI) as the overall process of acquiring information about markets, this paper identifies seven types of MI-generating activities, involving both market transactions and informal networks, that provide essential information inputs to product innovation. Second, the existing literature suggests that information is best acquired when a firm is located in close proximity t...

[1]  R. D. Rosenberg.  Integrating strategy, industrial product innovation and marketing research , 1988 .

[2]  A. Parasuraman,et al.  Marketing/R&D Interaction in New Product Development: Implications for New Product Success Rates , 1990 .

[3]  I. Nonaka,et al.  The Knowledge Creating Company , 2008 .

[4]  D. Hitchens,et al.  Research Policy and Review 32. Producer Services and Regional Development: A Review of Some Major Conceptual Policy and Research Issues , 1990 .

[5]  C. Prahalad,et al.  Corporate imagination and expeditionary marketing. , 1991, Harvard business review.

[6]  J N Marshall.  Business-Service Activities in British Provincial Conurbations , 1983 .

[7]  M. Storper,et al.  Flexible Specialization and Regional Industrial Agglomerations: The Case of the U.S. Motion Picture Industry , 1987 .

[8]  C. Sabel,et al.  CHAPTER EIGHT. Italian Small Business Development: Lessons for U.S. Industrial Policy , 1981, American Industry in International Competition.

[9]  B. Zirger,et al.  A Model of New Product Development: An Empirical Test , 1990 .

[10]  Klaus Brockhoff,et al.  Competitor technology intelligence in German companies , 1991 .

[11]  W. Souder,et al.  An anlysis of the use of extrafunctional information by R&D and marketing personnel: Review and model☆ , 1990 .

[12]  Marketing—A Success Factor in Industrial Innovation , 1976 .

[13]  E. Malecki,et al.  Network Activities, Information and Competitiveness in Small Firms , 1993 .

[14]  Amy K. Glasmeier,et al.  Technological discontinuities and flexible production networks: The case of Switzerland and the world watch industry * , 1991 .

[15]  Product innovation and strategic patterns of firms in a diversified local economy the case of Bergamo , 1990 .

[16]  M. Storper.  The Limits to Globalization: Technology Districts and International Trade , 1992 .

[17]  R. Calantone,et al.  An Integrative Model of the New Product Development Process , 1988 .

[18]  E. Hippel.  Cooperation between Rivals: Informal Know-How Trading , 1987 .

[19]  Frieder Meyer-Krahmer,et al.  Innovation behaviour and regional indigenous potential , 1985 .

[20]  Roy Rothwell,et al.  Reindustrialization and Technology , 1985 .

[21]  Niles Hansen,et al.  Competition, trust, and reciprocity in the development of innovative regional milieux , 1992 .

[22]  Bernard J. Jaworski,et al.  Market orientation: The construct, research propositions, and managerial implications. , 1990 .

[23]  AnnaLee Saxenian,et al.  Regional Networks and the Resurgence of Silicon Valley , 1990 .

[24]  Philip D. Cooper,et al.  Unique aspects of marketing industrial services , 1988 .

[25]  D. Dougherty.  A PRACTICE-CENTERED MODEL OF ORGANIZATIONAL RENEWAL THROUGH PRODUCT INNOVATION , 1992 .

[26]  Ehud Zuscovitch,et al.  Networks and market creation , 1991 .

[27]  Meric S. Gertler,et al.  Implementing Advanced Manufacturing Technologies in Mature Industrial Regions: Towards a Social Model of Technology Production , 1993 .

[28]  Paul Israel,et al.  The Sources of Innovation , 1990 .

[29]  M. Porter.  The Competitive Advantage Of Nations , 1990 .

[30]  R. Cooper,et al.  Success factors in product innovation , 1987 .

[31]  New Product Development Among Small Toronto Manufacturers: Empirical Evidence on the Role of Technical Service Linkages , 1988 .

[32]  B. Rosenbloom,et al.  How foreign firms view their U.S. distributors , 1992 .

[33]  Margherita Russo,et al.  Technical change and the industrial district: The role of interfirm relations in the growth and transformation of ceramic tile production in Italy , 1985 .

[34]  William L. Moore,et al.  New product development practices of industrial marketers , 1987 .

[35]  Economic networks and selforganization , 1991 .

[36]  N. Thrift,et al.  Neo‐Marshallian Nodes in Global Networks* , 1992 .

[37]  J. H. Britton.  A policy perspective on incremental innovation in small and medium sized enterprises , 1989 .

[38]  M. Porter.  Competitive Advantage, Agglomeration Economies, and Regional Policy , 1996 .

[39]  M. Evans.  MARKETING INTELLIGENCE: SCANNING THE MARKETING ENVIRONMENT , 1988 .

[40]  David P. Angel,et al.  Restructuring for Innovation: The Remaking of the U.S. Semiconductor Industry. , 1994 .

[41]  Roger Calantone,et al.  An Integrative Model of the New Product Development Process: An Empirical Validation , 1988 .

[42]  R. More.  Timing of Market Research in New Industrial Product Situations , 1984 .

[43]  James R. Beniger.  The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society , 1986 .

[44]  S. Britton,et al.  The role of services in production , 1990 .

[45]  Ian Barclay,et al.  Success in New Product Development: The Lessons from the Past , 1990 .

[46]  William S. Peters,et al.  Principal Components and Factor Analysis , 1987 .

[47]  M. Poster,et al.  The mode of information , 1990 .

[48]  F. Johne,et al.  Success Factors in Product Innovation: A Selective Review of the Literature , 1988 .

[49]  A. Macpherson,et al.  Innovation, external technical linkages and small firm commercial performance: an empirical analysis from Western New York , 1992 .

[50]  Håkan Håkansson,et al.  Industrial technological development : a network approach , 1987 .

[51]  M. Porter,et al.  How Information Gives You Competitive Advantage , 1985 .

[52]  Bennett Harrison,et al.  Industrial Districts: Old Wine in New Bottles? , 1992 .

[53]  S. Appold,et al.  Agglomeration, Interorganizational Networks, and Competitive Performance in the U.S. Metalworking Sector , 1995 .

[54]  M. Best,et al.  The new competition : institutions of industrial restructuring , 1991 .

[55]  C. Freeman.  Networks of innovators: A synthesis of research issues , 1991 .

[56]  Allen J. Scott,et al.  The Role of Large Producers in Industrial Districts: A Case Study of High Technology Systems Houses in Southern California , 1992 .

[57]  Magnus Soderlund.  Business Intelligence in the Post‐modern Era , 1990 .