Intelligence gathering and dissemination in hypercompetitive markets

In increasingly turbulent product markets, firms that seek a competitive advantage must learn about new product opportunities as quickly as they emerge. In addition, the market intelligence processes most useful to a firm depend on its competitive strategy, i.e., whether it chooses to lead its industry as a new product innovator or compete by imitating and improving upon competitors' new products. Effective market intelligence processes facilitate these learning and new product development objectives.;This dissertation examines the joint effect of market turbulence and a firm's competitive strategy on the design of its market intelligence processes. Market turbulence is measured as the rate of new product introduction in a firm's product markets. Competitive strategy is assessed as the degree to which a firm competes by launching products that represent discontinuous product innovation. The dependent variables center on intelligence acquisition and dissemination within the firm. The specific variables include the usefulness of various sources of market intelligence; the use of tracking studies; the breadth of the firm's market intelligence needs; the use of the market as a forum for market research; the relative use of various analysis methods; the nature of the relationships between the client and its intelligence suppliers; and the effect on internal operations.;The findings show that market turbulence has a greater effect on a firm's market intelligence processes than does competitive strategy. Market turbulence and competitive strategy have different effects on the usefulness of various sources of market intelligence and the range and type of market research services it needs. Market turbulence is positively related to testing new products with lead customers, and the use of complex statistical analyses compared to "quicker" forms, such as crosstabs. Market turbulence is also related to R & D having greater influence on market research activities than the market research department has on R & D activities.;125 firms in consumer goods and industrial firms responded to this survey. In addition, a preliminary survey of 73 professional market research firms contributed insights to this study.