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Businesses face new opportunities and challenges as different trends emerge. Decision makers need to be aware of how all these developments will affect their organization and be flexible enough to alter their strategy to meet evolving technological standards and consumer preferences.

Our white papers and eBooks explain important new trends to help you stay ahead of the competition. Below is a list of five of our latest white papers and eBooks.

What is the fastest-growing market in the IT industry? According to MarketsandMarkets, it’s business intelligence and analytics software. The global business intelligence and analytics software market is expected to increase from $17.90 billion in 2014 to $26.78 billion in 2019, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.4 percent.

Given today’s competitive business environment, many companies are looking for ways to optimize their operations and improve tactical and strategic decision-making. Business intelligence and analytics software can help a variety of employees — including executives, financial analysts, marketing managers, security personnel, and others — monitor and visualize real-time data across an organization. These BI software tools include dashboards, visual analytics, and reporting capabilities that help business professionals make sense of data and identify new opportunities to improve ROI.

Differentiation is providing superior value to customers at a profitable price. If we look at the fundamental equation of business (Figure 1), differentiation may be thought of as increasing value through some combination of more or better benefits or a reduced price. Benefits include product and service performance, but also include availability, image, relationship, and many other performance attributes. Price includes the price charged for the product and service, but also includes terms, total cost in use, paperwork required to complete and track the exchange, and other attributes. Any decrease in price attributes or increase in benefits will increase value.

During the economic recession, the furniture retail industry was negatively impacted as consumers cut back on non-essential spending, but now there is an uptick in demand. In fact, the U.S. furniture industry has outpaced the U.S. economy in recent years. While the housing market improves and discretionary spending increases, we will see this growth continue. By 2019, the global market for furniture and floor coverings is forecast to reach $695 billion.

Several key industry trends have emerged, as new innovation and shifting consumer preferences influence the demand for furniture. Read on to learn more about the top trends that are shaping the furniture industry.

Recently, there has been a lot of buzz around a “new” tool that scientists have found to perform genetic manipulation that is referred to as CRISPR/Cas. The ability to edit DNA has been available for quite some time, so what makes this method special? The answer lies in what it is and how well it works.

What Is CRISPR?

CRISPR is an acronym that stands for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats.” It is not actually a technology; it is a natural DNA sequence found in bacteria. So why do we care about bacterial DNA? What scientists have discovered is that there is a part of the bacterial DNA where DNA sequences would show up over and over and, in between those duplicate sequences, there were more unique sequences that matched the viruses that the bacteria had run into in the past. The bacteria use those unique sequences to identify the viruses that are a threat so they can defend themselves much like an immune system.

New education technology companies have entered the market and are attracting millions of dollars in funding from venture capitalists. In different ways, these companies are working to provide innovative solutions to on-going problems in education.

To learn more, check out the eight education tech companies listed below. The startups highlighted in this article are less than seven years old and have all been profiled in the Ed Tech Startup Dashboard Q3 2015 by Simba Information, a leading provider of market research and analysis.

MarketResearch.com partners with more than 700 publishers to offer users the most comprehensive collection of market intelligence. This week, MarketResearch.com is spotlighting multi-industry research provider Barnes Reports. We asked Barnes Reports to share more information about their reports and what differentiates them from other market research companies. Read on to learn what they had to say.

The United States is the largest cosmetics market in the world, and its total revenue is expected to exceed 62 billion in 2016. However, the global market is still growing, with opportunities in emerging markets throughout Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.

The beauty and cosmetics industry can be broken down into smaller segments including make-up, skin care and lotions, hair products, and fragrances and perfumes. Together, these segments form an industry that continues to grow year after year. To learn more about specific segments and find out about new industry trends, read the post below.

Leeyen Rogers, age 25, decided to stop drinking soda for health reasons. Instead, she drinks tea to stay hydrated during her busy workweeks as VP of marketing at JotForm in San Francisco.

She prefers to drink iced tea during the day and hot tea at night for relaxation. For Leeyen, tea is a versatile, guilt-free beverage that doesn’t have the potential sugar crash associated with soda. “I don’t love drinking plain water, so tea is a healthy and delicious alternative,” she says.

Leeyen’s beverage choice is representative of a larger trend influencing American consumer habits. The overall demand for tea has increased due to its perceived health benefits, convenience, and availability. In the United States, volumes in the ready-to-drink tea category grew by 3.7 percent, outperforming carbonated soft drinks, which declined 1 percent.

Unlike most B2C marketers, many B2B companies invest little or no resources (both time and money) in understanding brand awareness, but Harvard Business School Marketing Professor John Quelch challenges this position. His reasons:

• Most B2B marketers cannot economically address thousands of small businesses using the traditional direct sales force.
• If left unattended, individual managers will each do their own ad hoc marketing.
• B2B marketers are realizing that developing brand awareness among their customers' customers can capture a larger share of channel margins and build loyalty that can protect them against lower-priced competitors.