Global Desktop Research Databases

The Catalog of Research Databases is a global resource which lists critical business databases in countries that are free to search. You can search the directory by region of the world; by country; or by “type” of the resource, eg. directory, legal, intellectual property etc. I find this especially helpful when I am researching a country that I don’t know much about, as it gives me a head start in finding some reliable first options for that vital bit of information.

A Go-to for Researchers and Journalists

Although very-US-centric, Journalist’s Resource has a wealth of research that has a great deal of relevance that could be used to stimulate understanding and further context on the New Zealand experience. For example, research on the physical, financial and health consequences of losing your home in the United States is governed by a different legal jurisdiction but the effects of such a loss are likely to be felt the same globally.

Survey on Private Companies

Enterprise Surveys contains data from face-to-face interviews with top managers and business owners in over 130,000 companies in 135 economies, covering countries in Asia, Eastern Europe, South America and Africa. The survey is produced by The World Bank so you know you're in safe hands. The range of topics include access to finance, levels of corruption, infrastructure, crime, competition, and business performance. You can even make graphs with the survey data easily. Disappointingly, nothing on New Zealand, but it's a great resource for information on smaller nations, or where information published in English is hard to locate.

Need Social, Cultural or Economic Data?

Our World in Data consists of 3,035 charts covering 297 topics. These can be easily browsed or searched and are fantastically presented with reputable data. Business researchers will find all they need as the website has topics as diverse as agriculture, corruption, environmental change and technology. There's also lots of insight on the effects of Covid-19 globally. Highly recommended!

Home is Where the Hub is

Homes have become classrooms, gyms, workplaces and bakeries. Sadly, despite multiple attempts, a 'fail' at making a sourdough starter for my family, though! People want to support their community financially with their purchasing plus there's safety by buying local - fewer hands and distance involved in the logistics. Some will always want to be in an office, but working from home and the ability to work when you wish gives a level of flexibility that will be hard to give back. There's also comment that there will be a push back to disposable products such as consumers will want 'clean before green' for a little while. And who hasn't noticed how much cleaner the air was without the rush hour commute? Now that we've experienced how nice it was, clean air activism is expected to be much more on the consumer minds. Businesses will need to reassure consumers that they are mindful of how life has changed and want to protect their customers well being.

The Rise of the Robot

Euromonitor has noted that AI and voice-controlled technology like Amazon's Alexa has helped relieve people's anxiety about touching surfaces in the era of COVID 19. This ability to offer non-contact assistance is a major plus by consumers, and companies who use this technology will find that customers are very alert to any contactless or distancing measures that will keep them safe and reduce anxiety.

Time for a Post COVID 19 Makeover

China Skinny has noted that Chinese consumers went straight to their hairdressers and beauty as soon as lockdown restrictions were relaxed. They wanted to make themselves look good again, and feel some degree of normality. With make-up, lipstick sales have dropped, but the spend on mascara, eyeliners and eye shadows have increased due to women wearing face masks in public. Chinese consumers are also much more relaxed about the use of big data and AI as they have seen how it used to help contain COVID 19. Beauty brands are now moving into the 'beauty tech' space to exploit this and market more strategically.

Free Academic Research

Most academic research articles are behind a paywall. I am a believer in that you pay for what you get, and that the value of this pay-per-view research is justified. Sometimes there’s nothing else to fill that desk research void in search of an answer. CORE (https://core.ac.uk/) harvests and aggregates over 176 million open access research articles from tens of thousands of journals from over 9,847 data repositories and providers around the world. A useful filter search screen allows you drill down to find the free research you need. It has good coverage for business and the sciences in particular, so provides a cost-effective way of collecting research.

Country Business Guides

Full of must-have data, these how-to-do business guides prepared by NZ Trade and Enterprise are perfect for understanding how other countries work in terms of doing business. There’s also tips on culture, and practical matters too like time zones, flying etc. Countries covered are: Australia; Brazil, Canada, Chile, China (in four regional segments) Colombia; Egypt; Fiji; France; Germany; Hong Kong; India; Indonesia; Iran; Italy; Japan; Korea; Malaysia; Mexico, Myanmar; Netherlands; Peru; Philippines; Poland; Qatar; Romania; Saudi Arabia; Singapore; Spain; Sri Lanka; Thailand; Turkey; UAE; UK; USA; and Vietnam. A separate report covers several key countries in Africa.

Top Companies That Invest in R&D

Finding R&D spend can be problematic as often this cost centre can be hidden on a balance sheet or be spread amongst a range of subsidiaries. This website (https://www.ideatovalue.com/inno/nickskillicorn/2019/08/top-1000-companies-that-spend-the-most-on-research-development-charts-and-analysis/) will allow you (with the provision of your email address) the ability to also locate R&D investment by country and industry.

A Picture Really is Worth a Thousand Words

Clients are often interested in how many retail outlets or warehouses that a competitor has and their location. Looking at a competitor’s physical site on Google Streetview via Google Maps gives you a lot of extra information rather than just a one-dimensional description of the size of a warehouse, for example. You can see how close it is to other transport hubs and motorway connections, how modern it is, what other businesses are nearby, and what sort of demographic is close to the location — super useful context to give to a client.

What Christmas Shoppers Want

With the holiday season almost upon us, McKinsey has released an excellent synopsis of what consumers want when shopping this year. In short, personalise shopping offers, use an omnichannel promotion approach, and consider the challenge of shopping for others by consumers and give recommendations of what to buy earlier, rather than later in the shopping calendar.

Fastest Growing Types of Businesses

It's interesting to read what business offerings are the top 10 fastest growing in the USA right now. They include companies that offer a better sleep experience (mattresses), provide health services for older adults, give weight loss and self-confidence coaching, help deploy IT services in times of emergency, produce noodles made of veggies, and services for credit-challenged individuals. All clearly understand what the pain point is for a consumer and then provide an excellent solution to meet that unmet need.

Keywords for Consumer Preferences

Searching for research about consumer preferences and feeling frustrated that the right stuff isn't coming up?

Try using these keywords in your search such as...trends, choice, choose, demand, motivation, sentiment, outlook, forecast, attitudes, response, perception, habit, barrier, touchpoint, experience, behaviour, innovative, novel, review, and case study.

Don't forget to try American/English spellings, and the various permutations or suffixes on Google too. Note any keywords or jargon that are specific to the industry you are researching and incorporate those. There's nothing like finding that perfect piece of information you need to back up your research!

Export and Import Trade Data

Want more insights on exports and imports across the globe, but don’t want to read endless tables filled with teeny-tiny print? The Atlas of Economic Complexity is for you. The Atlas is a data visualisation tool developed by Harvard University’s Growth Lab. With data from 250 countries and territories, on 20 categories of goods, five types of service and over 6,000 products, you can dive deep into global trade data. A significant benefit of the Atlas is that the information is immediate and visual, although a little dated (2017) due to the data needing to be ‘harmonised’. Perfect for topline data though and it looks pretty! However, if you need help, please get in touch.

Cost of Products and Services

Do you have a product or service that you want to sell overseas? Do you need to compare how much things cost over there? It’s essential for the price to be in line with your target audience’s income and expectations, but also provide the level of profit you want. Establishing the average cost of a product in the market can help with this pricing metric. Here’s a tool by Deutsche Bank, that has the price of a cappuccino to the cost of a pair of Levi’s in 50 cities.

Find Import and Export Data

Locating import and export data is fundamental to understanding the size of a market and who the competitors are. This data is probably being used to scrutinise the effect of the current tariff war between the USA and China. Both want to be the number one industrial powerhouse, and wield power with the prestige and economic might that this brings.

Most countries structure their trade data using HS (Harmonised Tariff System) codes. These codes can be up to 10 digits, with the increase in numbers providing more specific product description. The best source for international trade flows is the United Nation’s Comtrade platform, which has 99% of global merchandise trade. The downside is that the data is for whole years only, so won’t reflect any recent change in business which can happen due to a change in tariffs for example. It also only has information to a six-digit level. Regional trade data information can be found by using the Eurostat International Trade Database or USITC which has American trade information. New Zealand trade data can be accessed from Stats NZ.

Just beware that one HS code can cover a myriad of different products, so the numbers can be a little opaque and give a wrong impression of a market. That’s when some ‘sense-making’ needs to happen, and this can be down by corroborating trade numbers with other data or conducting primary research.

Business Development Research

If you’re in sales or business development, and isn’t just about everyone in some form, then having market research which tracks change is crucial to compete. Industry statistics are part of that. If I’m researching a topic, say florists for example, I also search the industry name with words like… association, group, institute, industry, society, organisation, board, council and so on. These bodies often have free industry research on trends, or you can usually buy the information at a reasonable cost. The staff of these organisations are also helpful when you need to find out who the shakers and movers are, and then you can contact them for their insight on particular trends you have observed. Don’t forget that when you do this always ask them if there’s anyone else who they think would be good to talk to. Email us if need any help - we have a master list of who to talk to.

Tips for Buying Market Research Reports

There are a plethora of published market research reports out there, but some of these reports aren’t from credible publishers. Here are some red flags for me.

• I look at the pagination of the table of contents and noticed that there isn’t much content devoted to a topic or competitor. Basic I know, but if these aspects are the reason for buying the report, then maybe rethink things. For me, this lack of space often corresponds with just contact details supplied or very generic information. In this case, ask for a sample from the publisher to check the content. You can then appraise the sample to reassure yourself about the standard of English used as well. One sample I requested had such a low level of business English that it was intelligible.

• With markets like medical devices, for instance, there are many different configurations of what is counted or researched in terms of functionality or size. Another trap I have come across is when studying the markets of mechanical devices and how they are powered eg. electric, battery, petrol, or diesel. Researchers often don’t state exactly what they are counting and for what market segment it is meaningful to.

• Cookie cutter reports follow the same prescriptive outline - I can spot one of those a mile off. They are heavy on historical detail, the numbers are dated, and there’s nothing future-oriented. There’s little value in these often expensive market research reports IMHO. Foresight is always going to be better than hindsight to get insight and to protect market share. The ROI of you (or me!) spending time doing a recent news search and see what’s going on now is a much better option.

Data Democracy

Check out Figure.NZ, a website devoted to data democracy. The aim is to make public, private and academic data about New Zealand free for all to use so that evidence-based decisions can improve lives. The website uses graphs to make the data come alive and illustrate trends that anyone can quickly understand. Sadly, the chart below demonstrates that things aren't so rosy at the moment in terms of the establishment of new businesses.