Working in market research, I often hear people say "what exactly is market research," or "I don't need it." But, what many people don't realize is you certainly need market research even if you don't realize it, and especially if you want to secure funding from investors.

If you've ever watched an episode of ABC's hit show "Shark Tank," you've seen numerous hopeful entrepreneurs walk into the tank and deliver their pitch. Then, the questioning begins: What are your sales? Who is your competition? What will you use the money for? How can you scale your business? How & where will your product be distributed? Who is your target market and what are their spending habits?

The effects of natural phenomena on global financial markets can be complex and often difficult to assess. Who are the winners and losers, and what are some of the common factors that contribute to the economic impact? To help understand this, let's take a look at a variety of natural phenomena from the last few years and their impact on affected markets.

With all new business ventures comes risk. Once an entrepreneur begins the process of developing a strong business concept and model, they need to consider the market they are about to enter. The key to success is taking the time to thoroughly understand the market landscape, which means investing in market research to analyze all aspects of the market.

The last discussion we featured on Custom Research covered the structure and timing aspects of a custom research project. This post looks more closely at the components of project structure, specifically research methodologies and techniques.

Any custom research project will have as the main deliverable the data analysis and recommendations based on the data acquired during the project. How that data is acquired (typically through a combination of secondary and primary research) is critical and very important in terms of project validity. Through the combined research approach, the project, most often, will be designed to acquire both qualitative and quantitative information.

A quick downfall for many companies is competition. Even if your company or brand is offering an amazing product, if the competition does it better, than your product might die out. Knowing who your competitors are and understanding how you compare to them in the consumer's eye is a crucial part in creating a great marketing campaign.

According to Bloomberg, about 80% of entrepreneurs' business ventures fail within the first 18 months. Whether or not these entrepreneurs work to turn things around, I’m not sure. But, what I do know is that once a business begins the downward spiral, there are ways that you can direct your business back to the right track, one of which, and potentially the most crucial, is market research.

Custom market research offers solutions tailored to individual business needs, so each customized market research project will be different. Structure and timing depends on a number of key elements, including complexity of project objectives, determined size of primary research components, difficulty in recruiting target participant segments, etc. Though a research company may have experience conducting research in a specific market, it is important to bear in mind that each project is tailored to a specific business need and is, therefore, unique in its scope and deliverables. The fluid process of custom allows for changes and “tweaks” to improve the output as information is collected.

At its core, insights uncovered by B2B market research provide companies the information necessary to make better informed strategic decisions. Most research projects have two dimensions to consider: type and scope. Defining the best type of market research project is most often driven by the need for a deeper understanding of either customers, competition, or a target market, while the scope is determined by the depth of the data needed to provide the insight for the strategic decision at hand.

When making important decisions that will impact your business, it’s critical to have accurate information that supports your conclusions. One of the biggest problems entrepreneurs and small business owners face is acquiring syndicated research that provides all the specific market and competitor data they need to support their decision for a price that is affordable, yet without sacrificing the value of using multiple sources.

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.