In the fast-paced world of Market and Competitive Intelligence, the foundation of success lies in the collection and organization of high-quality data. Without a reliable data source, organizations are left stumbling in the dark, unaware of valuable insights that could transform their products, services, and business strategies. With the data landscape constantly evolving, organizations face a critical choice: manual data collection or automated monitoring? Total Data Services can play a pivotal role in this decision, offering both manual and automated scraping services.
The Old Way: Manual Data Collection
What is Manual Data Collection?
Manual data collection involves competitive intelligence analysts scouring various sources, downloading datasets, and manually uploading files into their chosen intelligence platform. It could be as simple as visiting a website, downloading an Excel file, and sharing it within the team.
Surprisingly, many organizations still rely heavily on manual data collection. A recent survey, conducted in collaboration with Forrester Research, revealed that a staggering 94% of competitive intelligence professionals believed their organizations spent excessive time collecting data.
The New Frontier: Automated Monitoring
What is Automated Monitoring?
Automated monitoring is a cutting-edge approach that leverages software tools integrated with all necessary data sources. As new data appears in these sources, it seamlessly flows into the software platform, allowing competitive intelligence teams to automate their data collection processes.
Recent technological advancements have propelled automated monitoring platforms to new heights. Tools like Knowledge360Ⓡ can programmatically organize data, automatically categorizing it to help analysts identify crucial datasets for analysis.
Manual Data Collection vs. Automated Monitoring: The Verdict
While manual data collection has its merits in specific scenarios, it’s evident that automated monitoring reigns supreme in the realm of competitive intelligence data collection. Whenever feasible, automated monitoring should be the primary choice, with manual data collection reserved for exceptional cases like field intelligence from industry conferences or primary data from market research.
Attempting to manually gather data in the age of automation can severely hinder competitive intelligence efforts from the outset. Competitive intelligence analysts are valuable resources with an average annual salary of $82,000 in the U.S. Organizations should optimize their talents by allocating them to higher-value tasks rather than mundane data collection.
However, cost isn’t the only consideration. In terms of collecting and organizing vast datasets, automated monitoring tools consistently outperform human efforts. Advanced platforms, such as Knowledge360, utilize Natural Language Processing (NLP)-powered automated tagging to source and deliver real-time, relevant data. This ensures that competitive intelligence teams never overlook critical data points.
By embracing automated monitoring solutions, competitive intelligence teams can gain up to 45% more time for analysis—the true essence of competitive intelligence efforts. It’s no wonder that 81% of competitive intelligence teams in the life sciences industry plan to increase their investments in these tools over the next twelve months.
The choice between manual data collection and automated monitoring is clear: automation is the way forward. Organizations should capitalize on Total Data Services’ expertise in both manual and automated scraping services to unlock the full potential of their competitive intelligence endeavours. Don’t let your data collection methods hold you back—embrace automation and propel your competitive intelligence efforts to new heights.
