Understanding the Essence and Practice of Business Research
February 23 2018, By Ubazue Nzubechukwu Onyeka
Research is done most times to critically examine a body of knowledge for a specific purpose. Business researches are not left out of this periscope. They determine to a great extent the progress and or failure of any business enterprise. Many businesses across the world spend a lot of money trying to remain relevant in the eyes of their clients and also in gaining new ones. These monies are spent doing qualitative research into these things that significantly affect how a business grows.
Carrying out a business research shows that your company or establishment is expanding in trying to reach a great number of customer base and fulfil more business opportunities. So now you might be wondering how you go about doing a business research, or what benefits are there in doing a business research because arguably your business is doing pretty fine. Let’s start with one thought at a time, shall we?
How do you do a business research?
A business research is carried out within the sphere of the business environment which means all of the internal and external factors that affect how the company functions; these include employees, customers, management, supply and demand and business regulations.
Depending on your budget, you can conduct the research in a variety of ways. You can use online surveys which will give you a quick, easy-to-understand data. Websites such as SurveyMonkey, Google forms, and Typeforms can let you administer short surveys for free, SurveyMonkey and Typeforms will charge a fee for more expansive surveys. A telephone survey can be done to interact with the current customers, this lets you spend more time and solicit open-ended questions.
In cases where you aren’t expert at conducting research or don’t have the staff to perform this type of work, you can consider hiring a research firm to assist you. They can give you a list of options, allowing you to increase your research effort as your budget allows. These research firms have access to large business customer databases, phone numbers , and various email programs that you might not be able to obtain by yourself, helping you gather data you otherwise couldn’t, essentially they would go the extra mile and deliver projections and likely prediction using market analysis that are related to your business system. I would often recommend using a research firm for a business research as they are not biased and have advanced knowledge of the business systems and models.
However business research should be within your fiscal budget with the primary aim of improved methods, system and returns. Now we can discuss why you should practice doing a business research, I am going to be make a list of 7 key reasons why you should conduct a business research.
- To develop new, effective and efficient strategies.
- To know customer behavior pattern and target new potential customer.
- To examine business problems and proffer solutions.
- To set realistic targets for your business.
- To identify new business opportunities.
- To analyze the competition
- To reduce risk and loss significantly.
These 7 reasons do not completely express the grand benefits of doing a business research at every opportune time of your business year. The time duration for a business research is primarily yours to select but it is advisable to run a business research at the end/ beginning of the business year and the middle of the business year to evaluate if your business is still on track to hit those business goals.
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