Metals firm Alcoa Inc. will separate into two standalone, publicly traded companies.  

"In the last few years, we have successfully transformed Alcoa to create two strong value engines that are now ready to pursue their own distinctive strategic directions,” Chairman and CEO Klaus Kleinfeld said in a news release.

Alcoa’s upstream company, which will keep the Alcoa name, will focus on bauxite, alumina and aluminum, casting and energy. The value-add company, which has not yet been named, will include global rolled products, engineered products, and transportation and construction solutions.

An essential component of clinical care, in-vitro diagnostics tests can detect a wide range of diseases, infections, and conditions, from sexually-transmitted diseases to different types of cancer.

In the next five to ten years, the in-vitro diagnostics markets (IVD) in Europe, Japan, and the U.S. are expected to experience only modest growth. In contrast, developing and emerging markets will drive increased demand for IVD as a growing middle class and aging population seek out healthcare services.

Within the credit card sector, innovative technologies are changing the way people make purchases.

Mobile and alternative payments are experiencing significant growth, with a range of payment providers in the mix including PayPal, MasterPass by MasterCard, Apple Pay, Amazon Payments, and Google Wallet.

In addition, co-branded credit cards continue to lure affluent households and millennial shoppers — which are prime demographics in the payments industry.

As the global population increases, we are seeing a rise in how many cars are out there, especially in emerging markets. The number of vehicles on the road worldwide is projected to triple by 2035, to as much as 3 billion vehicles. With these numbers, companies are going to have to continue to innovate and create the vehicles consumers want in order to keep their sales up.

In my other post, "LinkedIn Profile Tips for Market Researchers," I outlined how to best utilize LinkedIn as a Market Researcher and provided tips to strengthen your profile. In this post I’m going to take it a step further and outline ways to effectively network on LinkedIn as a professional within the market research industry.

The World Wide Web is an enormous place, and it can be a bit challenging to figure out how to fit in and where. I’m sure it comes as no surprise that finding a place to fit in on social media can be very beneficial. An incredible 92% of marketers indicated in a 2014 survey that social media is important for their business. LinkedIn can play an integral role in the market research world, and you may be wondering how. So, here’s my outline on how to use LinkedIn for networking.

The United States and Europe dominate the market research industry with global revenues exceeding $40 billion. These research firms make up almost 5,000 companies in the US and generate over $15 billion in revenue here in the states.

Within this multi-billion dollar industry, there have been credibility concerns over the years. For example, back in 2013, The Globe and Mail, a leading Canadian online news source, pointed to botched political polls from a British Columbian campaign in their article entitled, “When pollsters get it wrong: The high cost of lost credibility.”

Market research is the process of gathering valuable information about the needs and preferences of consumers. It helps in determining if there is a market for a product or service and is a key part in developing any business. It gives businesses an insight into the profiles and spending habits of consumers and provides companies with the data necessary for making good business decisions.

The two most famous stories about market research are used as arguments against it.

In the first story, Henry Ford famously said that no bit of research or consumer testing would have led him to car production. “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

That may have been true, but Henry Ford wasn’t in the buggy business or even the transportation business. He was a machinist and worked on his family farm. His goal was not to build the first car or enhance transportation; it was to improve car production. Ford neither invented the car nor the assembly line; instead, he improved them so middle America could afford automobiles. He was all about improving efficiency because he knew, from market research, that most Americans didn’t have cars because they were too expensive. His job was to build a car cheap enough for America to buy, not build a faster buggy.

Social media can play an important role in understanding a brand’s audience. A large amount of users engage in social networking — Facebook alone has 1.2 billion monthly active users. Social media can be used to investigate your target audience and create an appropriate research plan. In this article, I will discuss a few ways market researchers can utilize social media for their research needs. 

At the end of 2014 Q4, LinkedIn had 347 million users, up from 296 million earlier in the year. It’s probably safe to say that LinkedIn is unarguably the best social site for B2B marketing, and networking for business professionals overall. With so many users, one may wonder how to stand out and get noticed on a saturated platform. In this article I will share some tips on how to best utilize LinkedIn as a Market Researcher and provide tips to get your profile strength to “all-star.”