If a decision-maker has a goal – such as a high number of event visitors, strong emotional employee loyalty to the company, or a high degree of successful product innovations – there is always a bundle of possible measures. But which of these potential measures should be pursued to achieve the goal, and with how much resource deployment? If data on past activity levels is available, it can be correlated with the degree of goal achievement using regression analysis. Significant relationships indicate the potential contribution of each measure to goal achievement. However, they do not inform which measures are absolutely necessary for goal achievement; i.e., whether the set goal remains unattainable without a minimal resource deployment in these measures. They also do not state what the minimally necessary deployment is, and from what level further deployment no longer brings us closer to the set goal.

For clients in areas such as customer relationship management, employee satisfaction and retention, or increasing brand value, IMARK Market Intelligence therefore employs Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA). For example, NCA provides information on whether and to what minimum extent customer visits or social media posts are necessary for achieving set goals like customer loyalty, and at what level increased efforts become inefficient. This information provides decision-makers with precise guidance on how to optimally manage their resource deployment.