How to find relevant information.Fifth session.

ProblemHow to find the relevant information for your business plan?

Learning objectives 
1) Why and when should a startup company gather secondary versus primary data to validate the business case?

2)What secondary data do you need for your business idea?
3) How to gather secondary data for your business idea? List the links to your relevant sources of secondary data.

Keywords

Marketing research
Scientific discovery methods applied to marketing decision making. It generally comprises of (1) Market research: identification of a specific market and measurement of its size and other characteristics. (2) Product research: identification of a need or want and the characteristic of the good or service that will satisfy it. (3) Consumer research: identification of the preferences, motivations, and buying behavior of the targeted customer. Information for marketing research is collected from direct observation of the consumers (such as in retail stores), mail surveys, telephone or face-to-face interviews, and from published sources (such as demographic data).
businessdictionary)

Market research
Market research is the process of assessing the viability of a new good or service through research conducted directly with the consumer which allows a company to discover the target market and record opinions and other input from consumers regarding interest in the product. Market research may be conducted by the company itself or by a third-party company that specializes in the market research field. Test subjects are usually compensated with product samples and/or paid a small stipend for their time.
(investopedia)Secondary data and primary data have a major difference in purpose of information. Thus, primary data was collected or created for a specific task particularly to benefit current work, while secondary could also be used to specific tasks in work, but was collected previously or for another puprose originally.  

Customer insight could be defined as “a deep truth about the customer, based on their behaviour, experiences, beliefs, needs or desires that is relevant to the tasks or issue and rings bells with target people” (Government Communications Network’s Engage Programme).

1) Why and when should a startup company gather secondary versus primary data to validate the business case?

To successfully launch his business idea, an enterpreneur should take into account many different external factors in his Microevironment, as well as in Macroenvironment. Internal factors, which could be crucial to future start up, is also a group demanding precise attention.

Kotler suggests us four steps of building Marketing research process:
-Define the problem and research objectives. 
-Develop the research plan for collecting information 
-Research plan implementation. 
-Interprete and report findings

Primary data provide qualitative data. It means it gives information on subjective quality-related features like look, feel, taste, lightness, heaviness, etc., of any object or phenomenon under research or inquiry.
On the contrary, secondary data, provide quantitative data. In other words, it gives information about an object or event in a numerical, statistical and tabulated form like in percentages, lists, tables, etc.

Source: G.Akrani

2)What secondary data do you need for your business idea?
Every research starts with "Secondary data" , sometimes it is called “desk research” (because it can be done from behind a desk), this technique involves research and analysis of existing research and data. 


Talking about when a company should start gathering data and what specific secondary data do we need, I always refer to a common sense of importance to success of operations.

Firstly, we need to asure, that our business idea could be prolific in current macroeconomics, in social, technological and economical situation.
Secondly, we need to verify if there would be a demand for our product\service
We have to begin with a question "Why people are going to pay money for a particular product or a service?" What is an existing problem, sufficient enough to be paid for its resolve? 
"When a person or organisation decides to buy or use a service, it is triggered by an underlying need or need arousal."
(Source: Lovelock C., Wirtz, J. & Chew, P. 2012, Essentials of Services Marketing, p.37)  
And, at third place we have to find all information which allows us to calculate your future business process and find out, if there could be a margin for you, as a business owner.
The collection of secondary data is from internal and external published sources.
Internal sources of secondary data could be:
-Company's accounts,
-Sales figures,
-Reports and records,
-Promotional campaigns' data,
-Customers' feedback,
-Cost information,
-Marketing activities, so on.
External sources of secondary data include:
-Data published by country's central, state and local governments,
-Data even published by foreign governments,
-Publications released by international organizations (like the IMF, WHO, ILO, UNO, WWF, etc.) and their subsidiary bodies,
-Reports prepared by various commissions and other appointed committees,
-Results of research work published by research institutions, universities, subject scholars, economists, etc.,
-Books, newspapers, and magazines,
-Reports and journals of trade unions, industries, and business associations,
-Information released by a central bank, stock exchanges, etc.,
-Public libraries,
-Archives, Directories, Databases, and Indexes,
-Old historical records,
-Online websites, blogs, and forums.  (Gaurav Akrani)



3) How to gather secondary data for your business idea? List the links to your relevant sources of secondary data.
We already have an existing business in Logistic Automatisation software, so I would share some ways, how I gather information.
One of the best ways to find information to fill a report with is to create this information. The most reliable method in customer development, accordingly to Steve Blank is to interview your customer.
To Identify customer needs, determine functional requirements, concept development

and analysing of competitive products may be used Kano model. 
1)For example, in our business, I use mainly information about customer's expectations and demands directly by phone call.
2) We have a wide practice of surveys, which main goal is to find out, why our registered client did not proceed to commit a purchase and started using our service.

3) To be able negotiate and be informed about current situation on market, I also track information about our competitors.
Here is,for example, the list of our competitors.
http://veeroute.com/
http://www.antor.ru/en/index.php
http://maxoptra.com/
http://tms.abmcloud.com/
http://ant-logistics.com/
http://www.1cbit.ru/1csoft/bit-upravlenie-transportnoy-logistikoy/

http://logist1c.ru/

Sources:
- Kotler, P. & Armstrong, G. 2016. Principles of Marketing. Sixteen edition, Global edition. Pearson Education.
- Lovelock, C. Wirtz, J.& Chew, P. 2012. Essentials of Services Marketing. London: Prentice Hall.
- Wood, M. B. 2014. The marketing plan A handbook / Marian Burk Wood/ Fifth Edition. Pearson Prentice Hall, Cop. Upper Saddle River.
-http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/market-research.asp#ixzz4Lf662HB3
-http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/marketing-research.html

-https://nottinghaminsight.org.uk/insight/key-datasets/customer/what-is-customer-insight.aspx
http://www.mymarketresearchmethods.com/primary-secondary-market-research-difference/
http://kalyan-city.blogspot.fi/2014/12/difference-between-primary-and_1.html