Market research serves as a helpful tool and an integral part of education in academic institutions. Whether at a large public university or a small private college, all institutions of higher education use research products in a variety of ways. To understand how your institution can best utilize market research, you should analyze who will require access and how they will be using market research, as well as consider the benefits of using a syndicated market research solution. In this blog post, we'll share some of our insights into the benefits and best uses of market research by colleges and universities.

Since the world first started integrating electricity into everyday life, electricity and power has been based around “the grid.” The grid is the system that creates, transforms, delivers and even stores all of the electricity and power that we use, while also transferring power from suppliers to consumers.  Including wires, switches, transformers, substations, meters, gages and more, the grid’s infrastructure is vast and broad (the size of the entire continent), yet also intricate and detailed (each individual consumer is connected). It powers everything in our society, from power plants to homes, and everything in-between. The grid is our national engine and keeps our society running at all times.

As the calendar has now moved into the summer months, many professionals in the beer industry have their efforts focused on one thing: the 4^th of July, one of the biggest days of the year for the U.S. beer market. More than 103 million Americans drank beer on Independence Day in 2013, with 68.3 million cases of beer sold over the course of the weekend, which is a significant increase over previous years. In 2008, beer sales only recorded 24 million cases sold during the holiday weekend. But, as of 2012, Independence Day has claimed the top spot over Memorial Day and Labor Day as the most popular holiday for beer purchases.

I will never forget the time in high school when my 11th-grade English teacher walked into class on the first day of school and assigned a 15-page research paper on George Orwell’s 1984. I had no clue how I was going to write 15 pages of content, especially on a book that, at the time, was pretty challenging. As it turned out, those 15 pages came pretty easily thanks to the help of some secondary sources. Secondary research is just as important in the data collection process of market research. While market research is definitely not high school English, the same concept applies: external secondary research is a tremendous tool with numerous advantages.

As you might have heard, the 2014 FIFA World Cup kicked off last week with Brazil’s win over Croatia. While the outcome didn't surprise many (Brazil was a heavy favorite coming into the game as the third seed), the game itself was of great importance to the rest of the world. The first whistle signified the onset of a world event that has been in the planning process since Brazil was awarded the hosting rights in 2007. Of course, like other major events, countless hours, days, months, and years of preparation have gone into this tournament, along with the $11.7 billion put toward its production, making this years’ event in Brazil the most expensive ever. And, after that $11.7 billion went toward funding the actual games, what about the other industries?