Trade Show IntelligenceIntroductionMany organizations offering products and services in their respective markets are involved in the practice of collecting data and information about their rivals or competitors. This practice is common at trade shows and other similar exhibition events. Trade shows offer a rich source of actionable information and most organizations know this and therefore; their participation is crucial to adapt to their environment and keep pace with their market (Calof, 2004). The purpose of this article is to discuss trade shows by focusing on how more actionable information can be gleaned from trade shows to enable better decision making and adaptation to changing environments. First, a brief description of trade shows and trade show intelligence is provided, followed by the benefits and problems of trading, and finally; Recommendations are provided on how to form an appropriate team for information collection and analysis. What is meant by trade fair intelligence? Bonoma describes trade shows as a marketing tool whereby organizations and vendors are invited to participate to showcase their products and services in an exhibition setting (Bonoma, 1983). They are events organized exclusively for marketing and information sharing purposes, where competitors and partners are in direct contact with each other. As mentioned in the last paragraph, organizations actively collect information about their respective strategies and operations. This allows them to identify trends and predict changes in their environments in order to become flexible and remain operational (Calof, 2004; Cherry & Gardner, 2002). Trade shows are important for this reason, they provide organizations “…the best opportunity to collect……half of paper……trainings from trade shows (Calof, 2004). Once the trade show is over and the information has been collected, it will be time to return to the office and analyze the results. Follow-up can be done on reports formed; agents can use these relationships to collect more data in the future. Since these agents will be actively involved in CI even after the fair; these relationships formed can be beneficial to them. Conclusion To conclude, trade show intelligence is a sub-concept of competitive intelligence that allows organizations to use actionable information to change their position in the market, maintain it, or make strategic decisions. Collecting data and bringing it back to the organization for analysis requires a dedicated CI team composed of CI agents who understand the full context of information needs arising from key intelligence topics.
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