Business Research

Business research is an important skill for anyone involved in strategic planning for any profit or nonprofit entity. Effective research will provide information and data to allow executives to make informed decisions. Common focuses include competitive analysis, financial information, and consumer feedback, but areas of research can include anything relevant to the needs of the organization.

While searching and recording resources for later analysis, remember the following categories of information and questions:

  • the things you know (research can verify this category)
  • the things you don’t know (research answers these questions)
  • the things you don’t know you don’t know (research can sometimes reveal questions we haven’t thought to ask), and
  • the things that perhaps may be unknowable

The first two are solved by making the time to do adequate searches. The third involves being open to uncovering you or your organization’s blind spots and assumptions, and recognizing emerging industry trends or internal conflicts early enough to incorporate them into effective strategic planning. The fourth sometimes requires making an educated or statistically based prediction.

When conducting business research, you are often preparing to make an argument for some course of action. So, you want to be prepared for different lines of questions and criticism of your suggested course of action. In other words, your argument must be supported by facts from reputable sources. The standard regarding the reputation of sources for business research is very similar to that of academic research.