Market intelligence is information about a company's markets, specifically collected and analyzed to make informed and confident decisions in areas such as market opportunities, market entry strategies, and market development.
Business intelligence refers to the skills, processes, technologies, and practices used to support decision-making. Business intelligence generally aims to support decision-making for better business practices and can therefore be defined as a decision support system.
Market intelligence involves gathering data from a company's external environment, whereas the business intelligence process relies primarily on internally recorded events such as sales, shipments, and purchases. The goal of incorporating market information or intelligence into the business intelligence process is to provide decision-makers with a more "complete picture" of ongoing corporate performance under specific market conditions.