– Name
– Breed
– Sex
– Date of birth/age
– Coat
– Distinguishing marks
Desk (market) research is a great way to get an overview of your industry and the attitudes of your target market. It can help you verify the information and understand your competition.
However, it’s important to remember that desk research is only a starting point on your journey to creating a product people will love . But fear not! After thorough desk research, you are already well on your way to success!
Now is the time to extend your knowledge by conducting a competitor analysis to see how you stack up against the competition. The next step will be gathering all of your knowledge in a clear and concise way by using Lean Canvas.
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Ewelina Lech
I research and write about fintech, digital health, & AI. With every piece of content, my goals are to transform complex topics into clear, actionable insights that everyone can understand. Especially excited about Gen Z-oriented tech (since I'm Gen Z myself, rel).
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Desk research methodology is a method of collecting and analyzing information from available secondary sources, such as documents, reports, academic publications and other materials available online or in libraries. The purpose of desk research is to gain a broader perspective on the problem or issue under study, as well as to supplement or confirm knowledge on the topic. Desk research is particularly useful for research on historical events or processes and theoretical studies.
Methods for implementing desk research include various ways to collect and analyze available market information without conducting face-to-face surveys with users. Here are some example methods: Analysis of available industry reports and publications: you can collect data from available industry reports and publications, such as market reports, industry analysis, scientific reports, etc. Analysis of statistical data: you can use available statistical data, such as demographic data, sales data, labor market data, etc. Review of websites and industry portals: you can collect data from various websites and industry portals, such as those of manufacturers, distributors, industry organizations, etc. Analysis of newspaper articles: you can analyze newspaper articles posted in newspapers, magazines and the Internet to gain information about the market and its trends. Internet search: you can search for market information using search engines such as Google to gain a wide range of available information. Social media data analysis: you can collect and analyze data from social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., to gain information about users’ opinions and preferences.
The methods for carrying out desk research are as follows: Searching databases: Various databases, such as industry, statistical or scientific databases, can be used to find the information needed. Reviewing documents and reports: You can also review various types of documents and reports, such as financial reports, market statistics or industry reports, to obtain information on an issue of interest. Analyzing data from the Internet: You can also use various sources available on the Internet, such as websites, online forums and social media to find the information you need. Literature research: You can also conduct literature research, that is, you can analyze the available scientific literature and review articles from scientific journals or books in the field. Data analysis from other sources: You can also use data available from other sources, such as data files from government offices or institutions or data collected by other companies or organizations.
Our company Fieldstat specializes in Desk Research. We provide top-notch services and our teams are professionally qualified. We do market research, product quality research, competitive research, consumer research, social media research, technology research and much more. We have a wealth of tools and knowledge to meet our clients’ needs and deliver the best results. If you are looking for someone to help you gather and interpret information, please contact us.
Desk research is commissioned by various individuals or institutions that need information on a particular issue or market. Examples of people or institutions that may commission desk research: Companies: Many companies commission desk research to learn about the market situation, customer needs and preferences, competition or industry trends. Non-profit organizations: Non-profit organizations, such as foundations or associations, often commission desk research to obtain information on a particular field or social problem. Government institutions: Government institutions, such as ministries or offices, may also commission desk research to obtain information on various issues, such as to develop public policy. Individuals: Individuals can also commission desk research, such as if they want to learn about the market for services or products in order to make purchasing or investment decisions.
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How to conduct effective desk-top research?
This article is for any university student about to embark on writing essays or completing dissertations and projects for the first time. I have also run workshops introducing these methods and they do seem to be overwhelmingly useful even to more experienced researchers. This article is also intended to help dissertation supervisors who may want to produce a ‘mini-systematic review’ for an undergraduate or postgraduate research project. This provides a robust methodology for the students to follow and is a much more rewarding and exacting project than a mere literature review. It will also satisfy requirements of those professional bodies who look for an element of ‘data analysis’ within the project.
So, let us embark on an interesting and hopefully informative journey about how to carry out effective desk-top research.
Introducing the systematic review
The word “ systematic ” in relation to a review involves the use of precise methods to gather and assess the results of research publications that (most importantly) minimises bias within the process. The result should be a robust and reliable assimilation of evidence in order to reach a reliable conclusion. Medical systematic reviews are conducted and published through the Cochrane Library named after Archie Cochrane a Scottish doctor who established the idea of evidence-based medicine. Why do I mention systematic reviews in relation to desk-top research? Well – if you understand the premise and approaches of a systematic review and apply them to your essays, coursework and dissertations, then you will be undertaking a high quality piece of work (or suggesting a high quality assignment if you are setting the work). The steps highlighted below would also provide you with a methodology and the basis of a methods section for a dissertation.
Figure 1 illustrates the systematic approach. The details on the left hand side are the minimum approach that could be undertaken in an essay or piece of desk-top research. For more in-depth undergraduate projects, and certainly for full systematic reviews, the details on the right hand side would need to be fully understood and reported.
Full systematic reviews can be conducted on any subject, not just medical ones. I have written ones on education subjects – and here too, they are useful to pool knowledge about best practice, or to evaluate new innovations in teaching for example. In education, often the methods are more relaxed as generally education papers do not meet the high quality standards of medical papers and their research designs. This is often due to not being able to randomise groups of students / learners due to the constraints of timetabling and classrooms. This isn’t the entire story though, as generally there is a feeling that much medical research and education research is simply not conducted as well as it could be .
Systematic principles – we should all use them!
A full systematic review is a serious piece of research and I like to teach the principles to my university students wherever possible because it provides them with a basis for doing high quality literature reviews, essays and dissertations. In fact I believe that anyone conducting research should know these principles. How many times do we hear that people are just using a Google Search or even Scholar, and they think it is research? The mainstay for any professional research must be the use of peer-reviewed and edited articles, and Scholar will not provide a robust enough search of these, and will also retrieve non-peer-reviewed reports and documents. Interesting as background reading certainly, but not for citation within a professional piece of work.
1) Setting the research question
The formulation of a precise research question is the starting point for any research and can be quite tricky. In medicine the PICO framework is used to define the various elements – population, intervention, comparison and outcome measure. For example I might be interested whether probiotics help people with diarrhoea.
Population – patients with diarrhoea Intervention – probiotics Comparison – no treatment Outcome – alleviation of diarrhoeal symptoms
So a question might be,
In patients with diarrhoea, do probiotics compared to no treatment, alleviate symptoms?
A PICO based question is the starting point of any dissertation student of mine, although not all the categories may apply. Once the question is set, the search strategy evolves and we can start generating keywords around the question categories.
But let’s take an education example. I’m interested in free online learning in the form of massive online open courses – MOOCs and the student experience.
P = learners I = MOOCs C = face to face/ traditional learning O = student experience
The question might be,
Do MOOCs enhance the experience of learners compared to traditional methods?
2) Deciding where to search?
A systematic review will aim to find ALL the articles in the world! This means not just using electronic databases, but hand searching books and journals, and contacting experts for unpublished or ongoing research. This can be quite a time intensive process. Today, the process is greatly helped by being able to save your searches within electronic databases, so once established (e.g. you might run a search at the start of your student project), you can simply run it again at the end to check for recent articles. Be pragmatic with the time you have – you might not be able to search everywhere, and the school of thought is that actually a good search of electronic databases will retrieve you the majority of articles these days, although do take care if you are particularly interested in more historic ones that may not be digitised.
So, where you decide to search will depend on what your organisation or local library has access to. Web of Knowledge and Medline are the mainstays of my research – which is both medical and educational. For my review on MOOCs I also used SCOPUS, IEEE and others. These cover both conference proceedings and workshop proceedings alongside published articles (original research, literature reviews, comments, opinions, letters etc).
3) Building up keyword lists for searching
From our PICO categories, we can start building up lists of keywords on similar themes.
P = learners, students, users I = MOOCs, xMOOC, cMOOC, massive online open course, free course C = face to face teaching, traditional teaching O = student experience, learning gain, knowledge gain
The next step is building up these words further. This is where I recommend using Wikipedia . It is a great keyword generator. I will also run some searches at this point to find relevant studies and look at their keywords to add to the list. If you were carrying out a full systematic review to publish, you would spend some time building up your keywords and then testing the results to ensure you were retrieving relevant articles. This iterative process might go on for some time, although for shorter-time scale projects such as undergraduate work, this may not be desirable.
4) Getting the keywords organised using Boolean logic
In some research I recently conducted looking at massive online open courses – MOOCs – I used six online databases to search, and used Boolean notation for searching with my keyword lists. There is a nice explanation of the use of Boolean logic on Ithaca College Library website. This in its simplest form uses the words (inputed in capitals – AND, OR, NOT) to combine keywords in order to expand and cross-reference your search accordingly. The Figure 2 summarises this approach.
You can also truncate words to search for all the variants of word endings using an asterisk *
e.g. MOOC MOOCs we can search for MOOC* e.g. Massive or massively we can search for massiv*
If searching phrases these need to be in quotations otherwise the individual words will be searched for separately and return thousands of results.
e.g. “massiv* online open cours*”
I’ve referred to the use of Boolean notation in another blog article – “ Seek and ye shall find ” complete with webcasts and instructions. This is following very simple principles and those expert in searching and forming Boolean instruction will be more complex than this. Here are some of the more commonly used ‘operators’ or instructions within the notation.
# means search OR – this will link together keywords and is used to broaden a search AND – this will cross-reference two searches (and not expand the search as you might suspect) NOT – this will exclude terms from the search
Going back to our question whether probiotics are effective for patients with diarrhoea, we could just haphazardly search for the keywords as shown below in Figure 3. However, as shown by the numbers, you will retrieve vast numbers of records and your search will not be specifically addressing your question.
The use of Boolean notation can be illustrated by the formation of a Venn diagram which shows the principles of combining the three separate searches using the word ‘AND’. The ‘OR’ term will enable you to expand out your searches such as for probiotics and lactobacillus. You may also search for humans and adults as a focus, and also the disease of interest. By using the ‘AND’ term you are cross-referencing the three searches to find those papers in the centre of the Venn diagram (Figure 4) – you can see a more manageable number of 1312 papers. These of course can be further limited perhaps by searching just for clinical trials.
5) Running the search and being organised!
Organisation is key and many online databases can set up accounts to save your searches (Medline is great for this) or export your outputs to a reference manager. I prefer to sometimes run the search, save the results as a ‘txt’ file and input into Microsoft Excel for analysis. The analysis steps might be important in a systematic review where you have pre-set what your research question is and your criteria for including studies. You can therefore use a new Excel sheet for each step in the analysis to maintain a good record of your process.
If you are completing a full systematic review, you will wish to refine your search in an iterative manner. That is, you will look at your search results to see if they are retrieving relevant articles, and refine the keywords and Boolean strategy if necessary to produce a more precise result. This step can in my experience take far more time than you might realise. The benefit is, once the search is right, you can save it and use it to update your coursework / project or review in the future.
6) What are study inclusion and exclusion criteria? (Could be optional depending on type of project or research)
For an undergraduate project you may not wish to be so stringent to think about what types of studies you wish to include or exclude. If you are completing a literature review, you may want just to provide an overall evaluation of everything that you have found. If you are being more systematic and wish to generate data for your project, you can follow the steps undertaken by a full systematic review, and record the numbers of studies you include and exclude at each phase. The beauty of this within a project or piece of research is that you are generating legitimate research data that can be displayed in a number of established figures and formats as illustrated below in Figure 5. Here, the results of a literature search and numbers of studies that are excluded during the process are shown.
Some excellent details on how to report systematic review results can be found not he following website, describing the PRISMA statements – preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta analyses .
In my studies of ‘education’, I set the entry gate quite wide so not to restrict the numbers of studies based on their design and quality. You will need to decide your inclusion and exclusion criteria at the start when you are writing your research proposal, or planning your essay. If you did wish to consider excluding types of articles, you might for example be doing a medical review and may well wish to only include randomised controlled trials. You might be researching an area of biomedical science and wish only to include animal investigations. If you are interested in systematic reviews in education specifically, this is a subject of development and debate the present time (e.g. Bennett 2005).
When you are analysing the results of your searches you will often soon spot ‘duplicate studies’. You will almost certainly find the same study on a number of databases, so you can use the ‘sort’ function to scan your lists of authors and remove duplicates. Studies can be duplicated in more subtle ways, for example an author might publish an abstract of data in a national journal, and then present the data at international conference. These are strictly duplicate studies because they contain the same data. The duplicate will need to be removed as shown in Figure 5.
7) Data collection and analysis
If you are intending to follow a systematic approach you will need to construct a series of spreadsheets to gather and organise your results. If you are completing a full systematic review you will establish the layout of a data extraction table prior to starting the review. This would include items such as author name, date of publication, methodology, outcome measures, and a host of other details. Again, the Cochrane organisation has further details on data extraction .
Sorting your search results and applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria does take time, but ultimately it will give you the good results you are looking for. In a full-scale systematic review a number of authors would do these steps independently to ensure the process is accurate and to avoid bias introduced by personal choices and preferences. A third author can help discuss any areas of conflict or indecision. Filtering of the papers generally occurs in two phases:
Phase 1 of filtering. You can quickly filter your results often by just looking at the titles and author names to identify duplicates. You may need to review the abstracts at this point to ensure they match your inclusion criteria. Anything that is unclear will need to be checked by reviewing the full paper.
Phase 2 of selecting and filtering. If your inclusion criteria is looking for a specific methodology – e.g. randomised controlled trial, or specific subset of articles – e.g. animal studies, if you cannot glean this information from the abstract you will need the full paper to review.
So you might go through a phase of ordering full papers, and again use a reference manager of file system on your computer to organise yourself. I generally obtain the full paper for every article as I go along.
8) Qualitative versus quantitive analysis
For a full systematic review, if you have identified enough studies you can then extract data for pooling in a meta-analysis to provide quantitative data. As part of a review it is also good practice to provide a brief ‘narrative’ of the papers identified, and also to summarise your results in table form. The extent to which you do all of this will depend on the numbers of papers retrieved, and for the purposes of ‘containing’ an undergraduate project within 5000 words which is often the limit, you may need to restrict the textual explanations of the papers.
Providing the ‘narrative’ is often the part that students struggle to do within project result sections, therefore it is worth gaining a deeper understanding of the approaches and styles that can be undertaken. Popay et al in 2006 wrote a report on narrative synthesis that may be a starting point.
9) Finishing off and identifying themes and conclusions
If you have adhered to your question, keywords and inclusion / exclusion criteria, you should end up with a corpus (body of literature) directly relevant to your question. Depending on the volume of papers retrieved you may be able to look for sub-themes and organise your discussion around these. For example, searching for probiotics and diarrhoeal disease may reveal areas of research focusing on children as opposed to adults for example. The research may focus on different types of bacteria or blends of bacteria. A systematic approach is a great way of organising your research from start to finish!
Bennett, J., Fred Lubben , Sylvia Hogarth & Bob Campbell (2005). Systematic reviews of research in science education: rigour or rigidity?, International Journal of Science Education, 27:4, 387-406.
Cochrane Library (2014). About Cochrane Systematic Reviews and Protocols. Available: http://www.thecochranelibrary.com/view/0/AboutCochraneSystematicReviews.html
Popay, J., Roberts, H., Sowden, A., Petticrew, M., Arai, L., Rodgers, M., … & Duffy, S. (2006). Guidance on the conduct of narrative synthesis in systematic reviews. A product from the ESRC methods programme. Version, 1.
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There is no point reinventing a wheel and there are many metaphorical wheels available to the market researcher. The expert desk researcher can quickly and inexpensively dig out data from a wide variety of sources to answer many of the questions that have already been asked.
So, why do we spend so much on primary research? The reason, very often, is because we don’t know how to locate the information. Or it may be information that is not in quite the shape we require and it escapes our notice that with a little bit of reworking, it could be very useful. It could be dated and we need something more current. Sometimes, desk research seems too easy. A big decision surely needs a lot of money spending on it and merits an original piece of research? It is not so. Information that is in the public domain has at least been subjected to the test of public scrutiny. This is not to say that it will definitely be correct, but it could have been challenged and that may in itself help the researcher judge its accuracy.
I once ran a training course which in the first instance was called simply “desk research”. There were very few takers. It seems such a boring subject. When the course was renamed, “how to get information for next to nothing” it became over-subscribed and has been run many times. Desk research is information that costs next to nothing. It sits underneath our noses. It can easily be carried out by the do-it-yourself researcher. Moreover, for the ‘do your own’ researcher, it is a very practical tool – in most cases he or she is not at any disadvantage compared to the resources of a professional agency. A couple of days of research have a very big yield and the benefits of spending much more time searching quickly diminish.
Desk research is a term that is used loosely and it generally refers to the collection of secondary data or that which has already been collected. To most people it suggests published reports and statistics and these are certainly important sources. In the context of this chapter the term is widened to include all sources of information that do not involve a field survey and, in addition to the more traditional sources, this could include speaking to someone at a trade association or carrying out an interview with an expert.
Until the advent of the Internet and on-line databases, access to libraries was the only important resource needed to carry out desk research. Despite the marvels of the information highway, some data are easier to access from hard copy and off the library shelves. The researcher should acquaint him or herself with the nearest commercial library.
All major cities have at least one good municipal or university library and few researchers will be more than an hour’s travel from such a resource. From time to time the reference books in the main body of the library will be useful but for the most part, it is the commercial section which is of greatest interest.
There are also some important national libraries open to a desk researcher including a range of services from the British Library([1]) and two important government resources: the Central Statistical Office ([2]) and the DTI Export Marketing Information Centre ([3]), a major source of international market research. There are also very many specialist libraries run by industry bodies and others; these can best be located through ASLIB ([4]).
Before exploring some of the popular sources of information to market researchers, it is worth pointing out that there are some useful “sources of sources”. These range from inexpensive books such as How to Find Information – Business : A Guide to Searching in Published Sources (How to Find Series) by Nigel Spencer (available from amazon.com) through to the much more expensive Croner’s A-Z of Business Information Sources or Croner’s European Business Information Sources (www.croner.cch.co.uk) ([5]). Croner’s A-Z lists some of the best Web sources and the European guide provides a starting point for gathering information from European countries. Both are also available on CD-ROM.
There are also other general guides which can be used to track down sources of data including those covering published research, the press, directories and statistics; examples of all of these have been mentioned above. For international markets there are comparable ‘sources of sources’ including European Directory of Marketing Information Sources ([6]) and Directory of International Sources of Business Information ([7]). Some or all of these ‘sources of sources’ will be found in a good library together with other indexes, eg Research Index which lists articles published in the press. The library’s own cataloguing and indexing systems also provide a means of systematically searching out data. With experience, sources likely to be relevant to a particular field will become familiar and provide short cuts, although a full search technique is also recommended.
Encyclopedias are useful storehouses of information for the market researcher, either to check out a technical issue or to obtain a closer definition of the subject and its associated terminology. Encyclopedia Britannica (www.britannica.com) has become universally accessible (including recently launched mobile and tablet applications) for browsing alphabetically, by subject, or for a quick word search.
The United States has led the field in the collection and dissemination of business information for many years. The Central Intelligence Agency use their expertise on our behalf to bring together basic intelligence which began as the National Intelligence Survey and is now an online Factbook that can be very easily examined country by country (www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/). The whole database can be downloaded, though this requires either considerable patience or a broad bandwidth connection. Virtually every country in the world is covered. The Factfile gives geographical statistics of countries, the demographic breakdown of their population, economic overviews (in some detail), transportation, government, and maps galore.
Another means of locating data sources is through direct contact with organisations and individuals who have knowledge of a particular field. Trade associations and the publishers of information are examples. This sort of approach strays outside desk research in the strictest sense. However, a two-way traffic between sources (which identify potential contacts) and expert interviewing (to identify sources) is a means of getting the most value at little extra cost (possibly at a saving if sources are identified more efficiently).
You could also try FIND/SVP ([8]) which has a Quick Consulting and Research Service that aims to answer questions on markets through a fixed-fee retainer system and deliver the results by phone, fax and e-mail at a quite modest cost.
The Internet has revolutionised the way in which people search for information; its constant evolution means that real-time as well as archived data are now readily and publicly available.
For market researchers, the Internet has two important sources of information:
Given the tens of billions of web pages that are publicly available on the Internet, the problem is not the volume of information as much as finding the tiny bit that you need in this enormous ocean. Fortunately for researchers, search engine intelligence has advanced exponentially over the last five years, saving time and (for the most part) leading users towards the necessary information source(s).
In this massive sea of information it may be difficult to find what we require because:
A search strategy with a suitable arrangement of words may well hit the bull’s eye and locate the information that is being sought. When typing in the search string, it may be helpful to use double quotations to enclose the phrase so that “world health organisation” will only deliver references to those three words in that combination. Though the vast majority of search engines are now intuitive enough to recognise well-known phrases, companies, organisations and other common search strings, use of the quotation marks references is particularly useful when looking for a report or product name. Restricting the search to certain file formats can help when looking for reports. For example, entering filetype:pdf before the search term will produce a search result limited to PDF files.
Thinking laterally is certainly the first principle of desk research using the Internet. Common terms will usually lead to thousands of hits but irrelevant results. Where possible, use a phrase (in quotation marks) or proper name to narrow the search and therefore retrieve a smaller number of more relevant results. If too many results are generated, it is easy to refine the word string.
More often the search will start a trail that follows the links between related sites. The searcher must learn to surf from one site to another, book-marking those that are useful for downloading or copying into a work file. Here it is worth emphasising that a crucial rule of desk research is always to note the reference of the data. Referenced data allows the credibility to be judged and it facilitates re-examination.
In comparison to the freely available information on the Internet, searching online report databases is more costly and typically could cost between £5,000 to £10,000 per year to a serious user. This is because the databases house collections of valuable reports, which, even though available on a page-by-page basis, still have a hefty price tag.
The major benefit of any sort of online database is the speed of locating material using key word searching to match what is available to what is sought. This is particularly of benefit in searching press files (manually looking through the last few months’ issues of even one paper is a daunting task).
There are an increasing number of web sites that offer archive material to researchers without having to sign up though there usually is a fee for the report or part of it. The table of contents is available free and there are many synopses of reports, which may be sufficient for those requiring just an overview. The charges made for bought-in reports and similar sources range from the nominal to levels comparable to commissioning ad hoc research. Most fall within the £500 to £5,000 bracket.
A good source of market research data, offering full or part reports is www.marketresearch.com which allows access to a collection of over 300,000 publications from over 700 research firms.
One of the best general databases of commercial and financial news is ft.com – the Financial Times’ web site.
Researchers need company data for competitor benchmarking, sourcing suppliers or building profiles of customers and potential customers. As recently as ten years ago, company literature was a mainstay of such searches. Such literature was prepared for the public domain and sent readily on request. Today company web sites are brimming with useful information. They contain product and service information, data sheets, company histories, press releases, and often financial background. The information is nearly always more extensive and current than printed brochures and it is available in an instant.
Financial data on companies is available in the UK from Companies House (www.companieshouse.gov.uk) ([9]). Companies House’s WebSales offers the searchable Company Names and Address Index free of charge which enables the searcher to look up information on more than 2.5 million companies. Smaller companies file only limited information and this can reduce the value of company accounts in niche markets. Searching for a company can be carried out using its name or its unique company registration number.
Details that can be obtained free from Companies House online include:
In addition to the free basic company details, certain company documents and reports can be purchased for very modest sums by credit card and delivered electronically. These include scanned image documents of the latest company accounts, annual returns, current appointments and outstanding mortgages.
Another source of company and financial data is Hoovers, a subsidiary of Dun & Bradstreet (www.hoovers.com), which offers information on over 65 million corporations worldwide.
The US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) requires all US public companies (except foreign companies and companies with less than $10 million in assets and 500 shareholders) to file registration statements, periodic reports, and other forms electronically, and anyone can access and download this information for free from its web site (www.sec.gov).
In most projects, the desk researcher will seek ‘hard’ statistical data and sooner or later this will point towards a government source. These cover most areas of business and social life.
In the UK, The National Statistics website (www.statistics.gov.uk) contains a vast range of official UK statistics and information about statistics, which can be accessed and downloaded free. The site allows searching by themes such as agriculture/fishing/forestry, commerce, energy, industry, education, crime and justice, the labour market, the population, etc.
The Annual Abstract Of Statistics ([10]) is an easy way into the major series of statistics and is available in hard copy from Her Majesty’s Stationery Office – HMSO. There is also a free catalogue of the main publications from the same government bookshop, which is well worth picking up. However, the bible is the Guide to Official Statistics ([11]), a substantial volume that is regularly revised.
One of the cornerstones of the government’s statistical service and a massive source of data for market researchers (see Market Research Society, 1993) is the decennial Census of Population (the most recent one was carried out in 2011. Marketeers use census output for segmentation by demographics and survey planning (e.g. setting quota samples). The census is also the basis of geodemographic analysis systems.
The UK government is not, of course, unique in providing a statistical service. Governments of most developed countries provide as good or better data covering their own territories – the USA for example is very well documented. A visit to US Department Of Commerce site on www.doc.com offers a treasure trove of information from industry sector statistics to economic analysis to demographic data, and research publications. There is a good search engine to help navigate through this very large site.
There are also international bodies collecting and publishing statistics. For the EU the office responsible is Eurostat ([12]). Two other major publishers are the UN ([13]) and the OECD ([14]).
Every trade, no matter how obscure, nearly always has some collective body to represent its interests (and also usually spawns several trade publications – see below). To meet members’ needs, and for PR purposes, most of these bodies publish or can make available (sometimes to members only) considerable information about their industry. The organisation and sophistication of these bodies and the volume of the information offered varies enormously. Some do no more than publish an annual report, whilst others are the recognised source of detailed industry statistics (e.g. the SMMT ([15]) for the motor vehicle industry). There are various directories of these organisations (e.g. Directory of British Associations ([16])) and a researcher should not only seek out publications of relevant bodies but also contact them directly; information, which is not published, may be obtained in this way.
A number of specialist market research companies speculatively carry out studies, which are then sold as publications – albeit relatively expensive, measured against the price we are used to paying for more conventional reference books. However, compared to privately commissioned studies these are incredibly good value. Often referred to as multi-client reports, these publications cover every subject imaginable from A to Z. There are over 30,000 multi-client reports available and they can be located through several sources. Marketsearch ([17]) lists 20,000 published reports from 700 firms. The database can be searched in hard copy or from the company’s web site (www.marketsearch-dir.com). Another directory of published market research is Findex ([18]) from Euromonitor. This directory, also known as The Worldwide Directory of Market Research, Reports, Studies and Surveys provides details on 9,000 market reports.
The general, business and trade press are key sources for the desk researcher. As well as ‘news’, these sources include much background material, including special supplements on industries and markets. The general press includes the quality dailies and Sundays – The Times, Independent, Guardian, Telegraph, etc – and periodicals such as The Economist. Of the business press, The Financial Times ([19]) is a major reference source in its own right.
There are several press indexes (e.g. Research Index ([20])), but searching the general press is now better done on-line. Research Index has indexes of over 300 UK newspapers, trade journals and “popular” business periodicals. The two sections are arranged by company and industry. It is published every 2 weeks, so it is easy to find current information. Each entry gives the title/headline of the article, newspaper or periodical title and date, and page number. The industry section is cumulated quarterly. There is also a Web version of Research Index which covers the most recent 14 months (www.researchindex.co.uk).
In industrial markets the trade press is a very important source of market research information. Every industry and trade has regular journals which can be identified in publications such as BRAD ([21]) and Pims ([22]).
Directories are the staple diet of market researchers. They provide details of companies that either supply or consume goods and they are the usual source for preparing sample frames (list of companies or people to be interviewed). The directories may also provide a profile of a company, detailing its size by giving the number of employees, or whether it is an agent or producer.
One of the most comprehensive general directories is Yellow Pages (www.yell.co.uk) since every company in the UK with a telephone number is given a free entry. These directories form the most comprehensive listing of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Within the Yell Group, The Business Database supplies data on around 1.5 million UK businesses sourced from the free-line entries in the Yellow Pages printed directories. From its web site it is possible to run counts and download lists for sample frames.
Every country has its Yellow Pages on the Internet (www.gelbe-seiten.de, www.goudengids.nl, www.paginegialle.it, www.paginas-amarillas.es) from where it is possible to locate companies in the detailed product groupings used by the directory. For relatively modest sums, researchers can order lists of companies’ addresses and telephone numbers (in hard or soft copy) filtered by Standard Industrial Classification or NACE code, company size (number of employees) and geographical region.
Other general directories, which comprise larger companies than those in Yellow Pages, include Kompass ([23]) and Dun & Bradstreet’s Key British Enterprises ([24]). These sources can be found in almost any library, as well as being available online.
In addition to these general sources, most industries have their own specialised directories, which may have a better listing of suppliers and buyers. Specialised directories can be located through guides such as Current British Directories ([25]).
Sources such as those outlined above can be used to obtain data on the large majority of subjects likely to be covered in a market research project. These include those mentioned below.
The marketing environment
Markets do not exist in isolation and are shaped by environmental factors such as the state of the general economy, demographic trends, the legislative framework and various social factors. An understanding of these external factors is likely to be part of any full analysis of a market. The marketing environment is generally well documented and desk research (rather than primary research) is the only practical source available. The economy, demographics and key social variables are all well covered by the government’s statistical service and the many publications it produces. Other sources in this area include special reports (government and private), and press commentary.
Geodemographics
This is a subject in its own right with quite an extensive literature. Geodemographics is also a specialised commercial service with several UK companies (with opposite numbers in other countries) offering such data systems for marketing applications. Leventhal (1990) loosely defines geodemographics as “the classification of small areas according to the characteristics of their residents”. Leventhal also identifies two underlying principles:
UK geodemographics systems are all based on the output of the Census of Population (using the output data at the smallest geographical level – Census Enumeration Districts) and provide classifications based on a number of typologies as given in the table below.
Example of area classification (Pinpoint)
Source: Given in Leventhal (1990)
Although the geographical basis of the input data is Census Enumeration Districts, suppliers of geodemographic systems can provide area classifications to map grid references or postcodes and also complete files of individually classified households.
Applications of geodemographics include customer profiling (through correlation with sales records or via market research surveys) and customer targeting; having profiled customers in geodemographic terms they can be reached very effectively through finely targeted direct marketing. Geographical information systems (GIS) also use this geodemographic data for retail planning and site location by bringing together different information sources to measure overlap and gaps in the data. A simple example would be the overlaying of three databases – a map of main roads, a population database, and a database of car dealer showrooms – in order to see where there is potential (subject to land availability) for new dealer sites.
Geodemographics is now used extensively as an input in research survey sample planning (many large continuous surveys are planned and produce output on a geodemographic basis). Where marketing planning is based on geodemographics, there is an obvious need to have the neighbourhood classifications as a variable in the research data.
Market structure and size
The structure of most business and industrial markets can be fully analysed through desk research. Sources include the general and trade press, directories, company financial data, published reports, trade association output and government statistics. The latter source includes UK Markets (formerly Business Monitor) ([26]), which provides, for all industries, details of production, imports and exports with detailed product breakdowns on an annual basis. Government statistics such as UK Markets go back into long time series and provide a basis for historical and future trend analysis. This source or others may not provide market size estimates of the specific category of interest, but with ingenuity, reasonable approximations can usually be derived from top-down (making estimates from a wider classification which includes the one of interest) or bottom-up (aggregating sub classifications). The skill in this sort of work includes bringing together disparate pieces of data from separate sources, e.g. UK Markets plus press reports and company accounts analysis. A useful additional type of source to mention for market sizing and analysis is various compendiums such as Market Assessment of Top Markets ([27]) and Market Size Digest ([28]).
Suppliers and brands
Data on suppliers and brands can be thought of as an extension of the sort of market structure analysis considered above and may include profiles of major suppliers and their brands, marketing methods and advertising tactics, and factors making for success. The press (including trade journals), directories, company accounts and published reports are all potentially useful sources. So is advertising and trade literature (especially in technical markets), and such material can usually be collected free. One important area of information, which is usually outside the scope of desk research, is consumers’ attitudes to and satisfaction with suppliers. Generally this can only be obtained through primary research; although in some industries published reports may have relevant data.
Distribution and retailing
In most businesses, distributors are playing an increasing role as they provide a cost-effective means of supplying and servicing small (and sometimes not so small) accounts. Distribution structures can vary considerably with many tiers ranging from importers, through to main distributors, local dealers, etc. Sources that provide an analysis of these structures are much the same as those just discussed for primary suppliers. Consumer markets are generally retail markets and retailing generally is very well documented, including in the press and in published reports.
Desk research can provide detailed product information. As well as online data, trade publications in some markets compare products from alternative suppliers. Mail order catalogues are another source of product details. Product literature is often particularly relevant in technical markets and is a valuable source for analysing product features. Visits to exhibitions and trade fairs to collect this literature are an example of ‘near’ desk research, which can be used before moving into primary research. Pricing information may also be available from the sources just mentioned, although the difference between list prices and what is actually paid may reduce the value of such information.
Desk research is not usually thought to have a role in new product evaluation and certainly consumer reaction to a new product has to be established through primary research. However, the fate of other new launches can provide very useful information and can be accessed from the trade press and other sources.
International marketing
The low cost of desk research is even more evident in international marketing. In the UK there are libraries and online databases that are readily accessible and stacked with information on overseas markets. The different types of sources available and the range of topics are much the same as those in the UK. However, the consistency and comparability of data is often a problem. For the EU markets there are a number of pan-Europe sources including the output from Eurostat, which has already been mentioned. Two important and inexpensive sources of European data from Eurostat are Eurostat Yearbook 2011 (the statistical guide to Europe) and the Panorama Of European Business. Electronic copies of both are available online free of charge, whilst hard copies can also be purchased for a modest fee.
A plan is needed if the search for published data is to be efficient. A written plan is a big help, whether it is utilising library or online sources. Before visiting a library or logging-on, the information sought should be specified in some detail, although flexibility and some ingenuity are also needed (e.g. looking for relevant data under wider or narrower classifications and creatively making connections). Likely sources including ‘sources of sources’ can also be planned in advance, particularly as experience is gained.
The plan should also include a timetable. How long should be spent on that part of a project? This will depend on the breadth of the information sought, the type of data and the resources to be used. It is difficult to generalise. However, what can be said is that diminishing returns apply and after quite a short time, the extra information gained falls in proportion to the time spent searching.
Once found, data needs recording. The source of any data should always be recorded, so that its accuracy can be both evaluated and, if necessary, retraced. The sources should also be recorded, as they may need to be attributed. In long projects and repeat work, this will provide useful short cuts to the most valuable sources and ensure that the same blind alleys are avoided.
Information needs not only collecting but also evaluating. In part this is a matter of making judgements about its validity. We are often fooled into trusting data that is published. Once in black and white, we assume that it must be correct. The experienced researcher learns that market size figures that are published need to be cross-checked by two or three sources and frequently there are some serious anomalies.
All secondary data accessed through desk research was originally generated through primary research. Thorough validation requires going back to the source and understanding the methodology used: was it based on some sort of census, on a sample survey, on some crude formula using a ratio or merely on anecdotal evidence? Where possible two or more sources for the same data can be compared (although make sure that they are different). However, some sense of proportion has to be kept. It is simply not possible to thoroughly validate in such ways all the data and nor is it necessary to do so – as previously mentioned market researchers can work within quite wide bands of accuracy for practical purposes.
As well as validating the data, evaluation also includes its integration into a meaningful whole. Looking for linkages and patterns can and should be part of the process with initial material often pointing to other sources and subjects. That is why we stated earlier that although planning is needed in desk research, flexibility should be retained. Subsequent analysis and integration of data will be facilitated by good note and record keeping when the material is collected and, if this is voluminous, by reasonably organised filing.
Desk research can be very fruitful. However, it has its limits and it may only provide part of the information sought in a project. As previously suggested, where a mix of desk and primary research is likely to be required there is everything to be gained by carrying out desk research first and then filling the gaps through interviewing. In this way, the more expensive primary techniques are used only where essential.
One limit is its unpredictability. At least for the novice or where the subject area is unfamiliar, there can be no certainty of what it will yield and what gaps will remain. This is partly the reason why it is not a major service supplied by market research agencies. It would be difficult for an agency to quote for carrying out desk research, carry out the project and deliver a scant report at the end saying that despite a thorough search, nothing has been found. For this reason, it is mostly carried out in-house by internal researchers. At least a short exercise will involve only modest costs and may save on much more expensive fieldwork. Unlike an agency, a ‘do your own’ researcher can live with little to show for the desk research stage.
Some information is also in principle not available and with a little experience this is obvious from the start. Generally this includes most attitude-type data, especially where the subject of consumer attitudes is particular rather than general opinions – of your own and competitor companies, of a novel product, of a specific advert, etc.
Between desk research and conventional fieldwork there are some useful hybrid activities. These include simple observation as a means of data collection and ‘overview’ interviews, both techniques within the resources of any ‘do your own’ researcher.
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Desk research is a type of research that is based on the material published in reports and similar documents that are available in public libraries, websites, data obtained from surveys already carried out, etc. Some organizations also store data that can be used for research purposes. It is a research method that involves the use of existing data.
My list of go-to tools for desk research includes: Google Analytics & Search Console - your own site's performance and visitor stats. Similarweb Digital Research Intelligence - uncover market, industry & competitor trends across web, mobile, and apps. Tableau - data visualization for presenting your findings.
Examples of desk research methods include but are not limited to: Literature review. Analyze findings from various types of literature, including medical journals, studies, academic papers, books, articles, online publications, and government agencies. Competitor analysis.
The main difference between primary research and desk research is the source of data. Primary research uses data that is collected directly from the respondents or participants of the study. Desk research uses data that is collected by someone else for a different purpose. Another key difference is the cost and time involved.
Desk research can be defined as a type of market/product research, where you collect data at your desk (metaphorically speaking) from existing sources to get initial ideas about your research topic. Desk research or secondary research is an essential process from a business's point of view. After all, secondary data sources are such an easy ...
Desk research is a type of secondary research that reviews previous findings to gain a broad understanding of a domain. Learn how to approach desk research using a Venn diagram and various sources of information.
Access to reliable and relevant information is crucial for making informed decisions and staying ahead of the competition. This is where desk research, also known as secondary research or library research, proves to be an indispensable tool.. By harnessing existing sources of data, from published reports and academic papers to market studies and industry analyses, desk research empowers ...
Often the terms "desk research" and "literature review" are used interchangeably. However, they don't mean exactly the same thing. A literature review (also called "narrative review") is designed to gain more theoretical knowledge about a topic.. In desk research you collect existing research results or factual results in order to use them to explain a certain phenomenon.
Survey Research: Conduct surveys targeting specific user experience aspects. Surveys can gather quantitative data on user satisfaction, feature importance, and unmet needs. Interviews and Focus Groups: Conduct in-depth interviews or focus groups with users to gain qualitative insights. These methods allow a deeper understanding of user ...
This chapter concentrates on the collection of the material used in desk research. The analytical techniques will be dealt with in Chapter 11. Literature and internet searching. This is a very important part of nearly all research projects, yet it is something that is often dealt with superficially. No research project exists in isolation.
Desk research (secondary research or literature review) refers to gathering and analyzing existing data from various sources to inform design decisions for UX projects. It's usually the first step in a design project as it's cost-effective and informs where teams may need to dig deeper. This data can come from published materials, academic ...
Desk research is an essential part of any study, no matter the concept. Thanks to desk research, the researcher collects all available data to draw their own conclusions or support their research theory. It can be done using a number of source materials from books, reports, analyses, and entries.
Desk Research is a method that explores data from existing documents and previous research — secondary data — to gather information over a particular topic.
There's two types of research - primary and secondary. Primary research is when you actually go out and get first-hand data and gather information "in the wild". Secondary research, which includes desk research, is when you look at secondary data or data that's already available. So, instead of interviewing users or doing A/B testing ...
Desk Research - Methodology and Techniques. As depicted by name Desk Research is the research technique which is mainly acquired by sitting at a desk. Desk research is basically involved in collecting data from existing resources hence it is often considered a low cost technique as compared to field research, as the main cost is involved in ...
Fact check. Desk research is the quickest way to validate your assumptions and hypothesis. It helps you get a quick grasp about an industry, your competitors and even consumer behaviour and trends. You can even use desk research to build compelling arguments for your ideas easily without having to conduct full-blown focus group discussions.
DESK RESEARCH definition: 1. market research (= finding out what customers want) that can be done from a desk, for example…. Learn more.
Research is an integral part of the marketing of every business.The success of a business depends on the acceptability of the product.Research is used to understand the expectation of the target audience. The outcome of thorough research helps in developing a successful marketing plan.Research can be categorized into two broad categories, primary research and desk research or secondary research.
aim to test new ideas. Desk research often paves the way for primary research. Chose this approach when you: need a basic overview of a topic or industry; want to get a background knowledge and context; aim to study existing trends and statistics; want to compare different perspectives on the same topic;
Craft a research plan: Outline your search terms, target sources, and timeline. Structure ensures efficiency and avoids information overload. Seek reliable sources: Prioritize credible and unbiased data that matches your problem/question. The above-mentioned sources for desk research can make a great starting point.
EN. PL. ES. DE. Desk Research. Desk research methodology is a method of collecting and analyzing information from available secondary sources, such as documents, reports, academic publications and other materials available online or in libraries. The purpose of desk research is to gain a broader perspective on the problem or issue under study ...
Figure 1 illustrates the systematic approach. The details on the left hand side are the minimum approach that could be undertaken in an essay or piece of desk-top research. For more in-depth undergraduate projects, and certainly for full systematic reviews, the details on the right hand side would need to be fully understood and reported.
Resources. Until the advent of the Internet and on-line databases, access to libraries was the only important resource needed to carry out desk research. Despite the marvels of the information highway, some data are easier to access from hard copy and off the library shelves.