At InfoAmericas, we define business intelligence as a strategic level of analysis built on a combination of three intelligence-gathering skill sets: i) market research—understanding the needs and wants of a company’s actual and potential customers; ii) competitive intelligence—understanding and predicting the strategic and tactical threats and weaknesses of a company’s competitors; and iii) understanding and forecasting the business environment (regulatory, economic, political) in which a company operates.

If executed well, those three areas of intelligence-gathering provide the necessary tools with which to build a well-targeted, low risk market or business strategy.