IDC's Market Intelligence Advisory Practice Identifies Adobe, AT&T, and IBM as Best Practitioners in Market Intelligence Portal Strategies

Business Wire, Sept 2, 2008

IDC Provides Executive-Level Insight Into What Makes the Technology Industry's Best-in-Class Market Intelligence Professionals Successful

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. -- IDC's Market Intelligence Advisory Practice today released a new study: Market Intelligence Advisory Best Practice Series: MI Portals That Provide On-Demand Intelligence. The report, based upon interviews with market intelligence (MI) executives at leading technology firms and portal vendors, provides insights and case studies on the management of MI portals and their increasing importance within technology firms.

Laura Curtis, director of the IDC Market Intelligence Advisory Practice, noted, "Market intelligence executives should transition their market intelligence portal into a core strategic product for delivering information on demand to all functional areas of the organization. In so doing, the MI function will optimize their role as a strategic partner within the organization, delivering targeted information when needed and packaged for key constituents, including senior executives, sales, marketing and product teams."

Curtis continued, "Today, MI executives are facing a more complex competitive environment in which solutions selling, bundling, channel dynamics, and global competition requires more rigorous and complex market and competitive analysis. These challenges demand that MI and their teams engage in more in-depth strategic assessments at an accelerated pace. In order to strategically position the MI team as internal consultants to senior decision makers, the MI portal must be optimized to service many constituents with precise and tailored content to ensure they are meeting the requirements of the whole company"

IDC finds that the new generation of MI portals will be enriched with Web 2.0 technologies to move the MI portal from a simple self-service model to a dynamic Web tool. The future state-of-the-art MI portal will engage users more collaboratively and more frequently. IDC's new report includes case studies and examples on how to build an advanced MI portal with both push and pull techniques such as RSS feeds, Wikis, video casting, Webcasts, and podcast enhancements. Additional information on optimizing SEO techniques, user interface development, and marketing and evangelizing the portal internally are also discussed.

The more tactical elements of accomplishing these objectives are provided in the new report, Market Intelligence Advisory Best Practice Series: MI Portals That Provide On-Demand Intelligence (Doc #213532). The report includes executive-level insight as well as case studies based upon interviews with the market intelligence executives of Adobe, AT&T, and IBM.

To purchase this document or to inquire about becoming a client of IDC's Market Intelligence Advisory Service, call IDC's Sales hotline at 508-988-7988 or email sales@idc.com.

About IDC

IDC is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. IDC helps business executives, IT professionals, and the investment community make fact-based decisions on business strategy and technology purchases. More than 1,000 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. For more than 44 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and events company. You can learn more about IDC by visiting www.idc.com.

About IDC's Market Intelligence Advisory Practice

The Market Intelligence Advisory Practice provides IT marketing executives with the industry's most respected Market intelligence benchmarks, research-based advice, and peer-networking, to strengthen planning, operational, and market-execution decisions.

The Market Intelligence Advisory Practice is a part of IDC's Executive Advisory Group which provides Sales, Marketing and Market Intelligence executives with critical insights and research-based information to plan investments, prepare operations, mobilize resources, and measure results. Members also access the collective knowledge of peer-level managers to gain the insights of fellow practitioners.