Guest Post: Alan Brawn
One of the directives I personally keep top of mind is to listen to the right voices and make the right choices, but that mindset begs the question of who are those right voices?
Often, this begins with a person or group of people we seek out for input and/or advice. As we listen, it is imperative to consider the sources. How do they fit into what you are seeking, and what do they know? Is there an agenda or personal objective? File this under due diligence, with a dose of healthy skepticism.
Other than individual voices from whom we seek input and advice, there is market research that can (if conducted properly) provide a crystal ball view at the current state of affairs, and what is to come in the future.
Let’s look at the makeup and quality of market research, and whether what you see touted as market research is actually research, and falls under the right voices designation. This may not be top of mind for some, but for those that rely on market research to help make decisions, it ultimately affects you and your AV and digital signage businesses.
I promise to provide some relevant research source recommendations toward the end (teaser alert) that you can use to your advantage in charting a new or redirected path in the coming year.
Okay, here is the academic part. In board terms, research is defined as systematic gathering of data and information and its analysis for advancement of knowledge, establishment of facts, and reaching new conclusions. There are six recognized steps that guide the process:
- Step 1: Identify and develop your topic;
- Step 2: Do a preliminary search for information;
- Step 3: Locate a variety of materials;
- Step 4: Evaluate the quality of your sources;
- Step 5: Make notes and compare findings;
- Step 6: Decide what to do with what you find and act.
Now is the time to consider the right voices.
There are two basic “types” of research.
- Primary research refers to the collection of original data directly by a researcher, meaning they gather information firsthand through methods like surveys, interviews, observations, or experiments. It is direct research conducted to answer a specific question or test a hypothesis;
- Secondary research relies on data collected by others. It gathers existing data, and then report, analyze or interpret that other researcher’s data. The existing data they gather may be primary of secondary, so this exacerbates the question of the quality of information.
There is a plethora of so-called research out there that relates to displays, software, and digital signage, in general. I want to share the actual published methodology of one purveyor (name withheld for obvious reasons) that some of us are familiar with. Example of their methodology directly from their website:
“Our market estimates and forecasts are derived through simulation models. A unique model is created customized for each study. Gathered information for market dynamics, technology landscape, application development, and pricing trends are fed into the model and analyzed simultaneously. These factors are studied on a comparative basis, and their impact over the forecast period is quantified with the help of correlation, regression, and time series analysis. Market forecasting is performed via a combination of economic tools, technological analysis, industry experience, and domain expertise.”
Most “research” reporting companies do not publish their methodologies. Much of what we encounter in so-called “research” is nothing more than a Google search (mostly out of cubicle farms in the far east) and a compilation of published information (secondary research) put in an attractive report format masked as primary research. This process is suspect, and more often than not missing substantive primary sources.
What you think you are getting is not what you are really getting. The “garbage in and garbage out” concept is alive and well.
As promised, the following are just a few sources that fall under the notion of right voices:
- McKinsey;
- Gartner for marketing;
- HubSpot for marketing and sales;
- Omdia for primary technical research;
- Avixa for AV in general and IOTA ;
- NSCA and Dr. Chris Kuehl for economic tends;
- Commercial Integrator and their industry research and recaps;
- Sixteen-Nine on digital signage displays and software;
- Invidis in Germany;
- Futuresource Consulting (UK); .
General resource examples include:
- US Bureau of Labor and Statistics labor/stats databases to check on emerging job roles;
- LinkedIn for most sought-after new skills;
Suffice it to say primary research takes time, and there is a cost involved.
The amount of time and effort invested in research will determine the quality and depth of what you get. Most importantly, it is the quality of research sources and materials that is critical.
On the surface the easy out and least expensive path to information is to do your own Google search and look at the executive overviews of these secondary research sources. This is also the least accurate. I regularly look at several of these sources and compare them to what I get from my primary sources listed above.
As my friend Dave Haynes would say, “I would not bet my company on these so-called research reports.”
Not snark just fact. You get what you pay for, and before you bet the farm consider the source.