J.J. LOH: Market & Industrial Research

A. GENERAL INFORMATION AND ISSUES
1. General Industry Search.

Tools: General search engines (e.g. Google, Alltheweb).
Objective: Understand Industry Jargon, keywords, articles, guides, issues, any associations (e.g. American Society of XYZ), authoritative sources, and the name(s) of the industries you are in.
Example search: "the food industry", "the cafe industry" (make sure you do phrase searching and don't forget that "foods" is different from "food")
Do not pay for anything but make note of important websites.
Become familiar with searching syntax like quotations and using AND OR
Note the source and date of all information
The best place to start is to find an Association of your industry.

2. Industry Overview

Tools: Library Databases, University Databases, Quasi-Free Business Databases (e.g. McKinsey Quarterly, Business 2.0, hoovers), Associations.
Objective: Get articles, research reports, and industry profiles (e.g. revenue, competitors, % of GDP), Get SIC and NAICS codes
Example search: Using relevant sources from step 1, do similar searches using that data as keywords (this process is called pearl building)
Do not pay for anything but make note of important websites

3. Industry Issue

Tools: Trade associations, industry publications, market research firms.
Objective: Industry issues, trends, outlooks, frequent terms
Example Search: Knowing your SIC code, do a search in valuationresources.com (a great starting point)
You have to use discretion because you can't buy every report
Just ID the important reports to buy

4. Is it Enough?

All the Search Terms Identified?
What terms appear frequently in all the resources?
What are the frequently mentioned issues in the industry?
If the above questions are not full then go back to step 1
At this point you have not bought anything but you have ID'ed articles, and fee based documents

Time to research steps 1-4 (~1 hour)

B. GETTING THE ANSWERS
5. Database Research

Tools: ResearchLine, Factiva, Hoovers etc.
Objective: Using the keywords and terms, find articles and reports that answers the questions in step 4, ID the relevant articles and reports on specifics of your questions
Example Search: Search your Industry's name in Hoovers or your SIC in Researchline

C. DATA ANALYSIS
6. Notes on Articles

notes on any thing the article mentioned that answers the questions in step 4
notes on any holes in the search strategy in steps 1-5
go back to steps 1-5 to fill the holes
any information that was not apart of the questions but still useful (future research)
notes on possible biases and inconsistencies
notes on areas where primary research (you actually performing the experiment, and retrieve the data)
notes on any links between issues (e.g. high cost leads to low acceptance)

7. Final Report

J.J. LOH