Quarterly Market Intelligence Report: A Decision Record

A quarterly market intelligence report should be a dated decision record, not a news summary. For each question that matters to a Western manufacturer's India plan, record the evidence date, source owner, assumption affected, decision, trigger for reopening that decision, and archive location. Keep source wording separate from management judgement. If nothing changed, say so. If evidence changed but the decision did not, record why. The reporting period creates a checkpoint, but it does not make the cadence suitable for every company. Management should choose the cadence around the decision and its triggers. For the full report structure, use the market intelligence report template.

What should a quarterly market intelligence report contain?

It should explain what management knew, what changed, and what it decided. The record below uses only fields that serve that purpose.

Field	What to record	Review question
Question	The market question tied to the India decision	Would an answer change or confirm the decision?
Evidence date	The date attached to the source or the date the evidence was checked	Can the reader tell which reporting period the evidence belongs to?
Source owner	The organisation responsible for the source	Is the owner named beside the evidence?
Changed assumption	The prior assumption affected by the evidence, or "none"	Is the change stated without rewriting the source?
Decision	The choice management made after reviewing the evidence	Does the record distinguish the decision from the evidence?
Trigger	The condition that would reopen the decision	Can the next reviewer recognise that condition?
Archive	The location of the report and cited evidence	Can another reviewer recover the period's record?

This table is the spine of the report. Supporting pages can explain demand, competition, access, and economics, but each page should return to the question and decision. The annotated market intelligence report example shows how to keep evidence, inference, implication, and action separate.

How to write an intelligence report?

Write from the decision backward. Start with the questions that could change the India plan. Then attach evidence to each question and preserve the distinction between what the source says and what management decides.

Use this writing sequence:

1. Write the decision that the report must support.
2. List the questions that could change or confirm that decision.
3. Add the evidence date and source owner beside every item used.
4. State which assumption changed, or write "none."
5. Record the decision without presenting it as source wording.
6. Name the trigger that would reopen the decision.
7. Archive the report with the evidence cited in it.

Draft the short decision summary after these records are complete. This prevents the summary from becoming a confident narrative that the evidence file cannot reproduce.

What are the four main components of market intelligence?

For this site's report template, the four evidence domains are demand, competition, access, and economics. They are an editorial structure, not a universal industry standard. The full definitions appear in the market intelligence report contents guide.

• Demand asks who may buy, for which use, and in which defined segment.
• Competition asks which alternatives address the same need and how they reach the market.
• Access asks what must be checked before the manufacturer can sell and deliver, including any product-specific regulatory question.
• Economics asks whether the proposed route supports the business case under the assumptions recorded in the report.

Do not let these components become four disconnected updates. Each one must answer a named question, identify the assumption it affects, and return to the same decision record.

Can you give me an example of market intelligence?

Consider an illustrative manufacturer reviewing an India market-entry decision. Its report does not claim that the market changed. It asks whether new evidence changes the assumption behind the current decision.

The record might read as follows:

Question	Evidence date	Source owner	Changed assumption	Decision	Trigger	Archive
Does the current evidence change the selected route for India?	[Date checked]	[Named publisher or authority]	[Prior assumption, or "none"]	[Retain, revise, pause, or reopen the decision]	[Condition that reopens it]	[Record and evidence location]

The brackets matter. They stop an illustrative row from looking like completed research. A real report replaces every bracket with retrieved evidence and a management decision. The buyer-side sample checklist explains how to inspect that chain in a provider's work.

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How to conduct market intelligence?

Conduct the review as a controlled update to the prior decision record. Do not begin with a folder of news links. Begin with the previous questions, assumptions, decisions, and triggers.

For each question:

• Check whether the cited evidence has a visible date and source owner.
• Record new evidence without turning its wording into an unsupported conclusion.
• Compare the evidence with the recorded assumption.
• Mark the assumption as changed or unchanged.
• Record the decision taken after the review.
• Set the condition that would reopen the decision.
• Archive the current record and cited evidence.

If a product-certification question enters the report, keep the statement at the level of the official source. The Bureau of Indian Standards page is titled "Product Certification Overview" and links to "Products under Compulsory Certification" (BIS). That overview does not, by itself, answer whether a specific product is in scope (BIS). Keep applicability as an open question until the required product-specific review is complete.

What are the best tools for market intelligence?

The useful tool is the one that answers a named question and leaves evidence another reviewer can recover. Choose tools by source owner, date visibility, retrievability, and fit with the question. A popular tool that does not fit the question belongs outside the decision record.

Use a short tool check before accepting evidence:

• Does the tool identify the source owner?
• Does the retrieved item carry a publication date, period, or access date?
• Can the item be archived with the report?
• Does it answer the stated question without requiring an unsupported claim?
• Can the next reviewer repeat the retrieval or locate the same source?

For public context, World Bank Open Data describes its offer as "free and open access to global development data" (World Bank Open Data). UN Comtrade Plus can be used for a recorded merchandise-trade query (UN Comtrade Plus). The U.S. International Trade Administration says its Country Commercial Guides report on market conditions, opportunities, regulations, and business customs and are prepared by U.S. government professionals (ITA Country Commercial Guides). Each source still needs a dated record and a question it is allowed to answer.

What are the best 3 market intelligence tools on the market today?

There is no universal top three for every market-intelligence decision. For the public-source layer of an India entry record, a narrow starting set is:

1. World Bank Open Data for the global development data the source publishes.
2. UN Comtrade Plus for a saved merchandise-trade query with its recorded classification and period.
3. BIS Product Certification Overview for opening a product-certification question without claiming product applicability.

This is a source set, not a complete decision system. Put the retrieved evidence into the same record as the question, changed assumption, decision, trigger, and archive location. Do not let a tool's output become the decision by default.

How should the quarterly record be archived?

Archive the report as a dated snapshot of the decision and the evidence cited in it. The next report should be able to recover the prior question, evidence date, source owner, assumption, decision, and trigger without relying on the previous author's memory.

Before closing the record, check that:

• every material item names its source owner and evidence date;
• every changed assumption points to the evidence that changed it;
• every unchanged decision states the reviewed trigger;
• every decision remains distinct from source wording;
• the report and cited evidence share a recoverable archive location.

The archive is what turns separate reports into a decision history. It shows whether the evidence changed, whether the assumption changed, and whether management changed the decision.

Keep each reporting period as its own dated record. Do not overwrite the previous decision when an assumption changes. In the new record, name the prior question, identify the new evidence date and source owner, and state which assumption changed. Then record the current decision and trigger. Connect both records through their archive locations. This decision trace lets the next reviewer follow the change without treating the latest wording as the only version.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a quarterly cadence right for every market-intelligence report?

No. In this article, quarterly describes the reporting period, not a universal operating rule. Choose the cadence around the decision and the triggers that would reopen it.

What if no assumption changed during the reporting period?

Write "none" in the changed-assumption field, record the evidence reviewed, and preserve the current decision and trigger. Do not manufacture change to make the report appear eventful.

Can the report be built in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint?

Yes. Use the format that preserves the question, evidence date, source owner, changed assumption, decision, trigger, and archive path. A document can carry the narrative, a spreadsheet can hold the record, and slides can support the decision discussion.

What is the closing test for the report?

Take one decision and trace it backward to the changed or unchanged assumption, the dated evidence, the source owner, and the original question. Then identify the trigger and recover the archived evidence. If the chain breaks, the record is incomplete.

Written by Loïc Guyon (Tileo), an operator with ten years moving critical technologies and operations between countries.

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