Introduction to Desk Research
Introduction to Desk Research (AKA Secondary Research)
Preamble
Through my posts and articles I try to simplify the specialized topics of the marketing-research industry and make them accessible to a general audience — a process called in English vulgarization.
In this article I’ll talk about desk research — also called secondary research. Methodologically, this type of research falls under neither qualitative nor quantitative research; it stands on its own as a distinct kind. These studies depend on collecting, analyzing, and organizing data and information that has already been gathered through primary quantitative or qualitative research, or through surveys, or from databases held by various parties.
Definition
Desk research is research conducted at a desk, relying solely on available published data and information — whether inside the organization or outside it.
The data or information that desk research depends on is available as published material to the general public, either free of charge or for a fee. Examples of sources for this information: periodic reports, magazines, or books. Hence the use of the term Secondary — from second hand, meaning “used.” The data or information in the research is “used.” As for the other name — desk research — it suggests the research is done at the desk without needing to go into the field to conduct interviews or gather observations. I might call it, from my own perspective, “recycled research,” because preparing this type of report is like recycling waste — except that here we recycle information. Once a primary research report (quantitative or qualitative) is published, it becomes a source for desk research.
Desk research is classified as one type of marketing research, even though it greatly resembles, in methodology and research steps, academic research — or more precisely, the scientific research approach. Note that most global marketing-research agencies in Saudi Arabia don’t respond to requests for proposals to conduct desk research most of the time, for two main reasons: a scarcity of specialists in this branch of research, and because it’s low-cost and therefore low-margin. In many cases, if they are forced to take a project to maintain their relationship with a particular client, they subcontract it to another agency specialized in desk research — sometimes in another country.
The Difference Between Primary and Desk Research
Desk research outperforms primary research in some aspects. Cost: desk research is much less expensive to execute. Speed: it executes much faster. In terms of information accuracy, primary research (quantitative or qualitative) outperforms desk research, because primary research provides fresh data, while previously-published data may be old, and in this era trends and habits change very fast — costing desk research the property of reliability for making a particular decision. Still, desk research provides indicators and insights that significantly help decision-makers.
In most cases, desk research is used as a supporting step before primary research. Before starting any primary research, a quick desk-research step is done to verify whether there’s a recently-published study related to the same topic — so instead of reinventing the wheel, that published research is leveraged and its results applied. Imagine how the business owner would feel investing $20,000 in a particular primary research only to later discover it was available for free, or for sale for $2,000?
This type of research is used to prepare research instruments such as the questionnaire or discussion guide — especially in fields where it’s hard to draft instruments for various reasons. And just as the accuracy of primary research results heavily depends on the sampling approach and data-collection method, desk research is mainly influenced by the information sources it draws from. Confidence varies based on the trustworthiness and objectivity of the sources. For example, a desk-research piece based on newspaper articles is far less reliable than one based on officially-published government statistics or on publications from specialized industry associations.
The Lifecycle of a Desk Research Project
1. Define the Objective
There should be a specific objective behind conducting any desk research. The reasons can be a particular problem the research is meant to solve, or to discover hidden opportunities in a particular market. In most cases, the main objective is to provide enough information to make a sound decision. As I mentioned, sometimes the objective is for the desk research’s results to help formulate the objectives of primary quantitative or qualitative research, or to identify the best sampling methodology for a particular primary study — in that last case, the desk research goes by the name Exploratory Research.
2. Determine the Required Information
A list is made of the information to be gathered in the research, to be classified later in the research report into chapters or sections — each containing certain information. All these chapters and sections feed into achieving the desired goal of the research, set in step 1 of the lifecycle.
3. Identify Information Sources
After determining the target information, the researcher then thinks about likely and available sources from which to obtain it. This step depends heavily on the experience of those practicing this type of research. It’s like a newly graduated criminal investigator — they’ve studied a lot of theory but practically need many cases to become skilled at following clues and connecting them to reach the perpetrator.
4. Collect and Manage Information
After identifying sources, the researcher begins collecting the information and placing it into specific templates, then classifying, organizing, and condensing it. The decision-maker wants the essence — they want something concise because they don’t have time to read tens of pages from here and there. This step is also one where the researcher excels with practice.
5. Prepare the Report
After examining all probable sources and gathering information from them, the information is organized, analyzed, and presented in a concise report. The analysis comes from comparing the information across the different sources, then favoring the most accurate based on source credibility — because, in many cases, the researcher will find a contradiction in the same piece of information presented across multiple sources. At that point, the researcher uses personal judgment to identify the most accurate. Each slide in this report contains the information sources used, and a complete list of all sources used appears at the end of the report as a reference for the decision-maker should they wish to dig deeper into any aspect.
Sources of Desk-Research Information
Since the information to be presented in a desk-research report is available — whether something exists depends on previous experience in a particular market and in available sources in that market — at some location (the source), these sources recur in providing us with information used in other desk-research efforts. It’s like water wells: when we need water, we’ll look for the nearest dug wells rather than digging new ones. So we’ve agreed that desk-research information sources get reused. These sources typically fall, based on where they’re located, into two types:
- Internal information sources: data from within the organization (historical and current), and results of previous research the organization has done.
- External information sources: publications of governmental bodies such as the General Statistics Authority, Customs, ministries, in addition to books, master’s and doctoral theses, and scientific journals.
The mission of tracking, organizing, and archiving information sources is very important — and here we find chaos in companies on this process, where each department or department head identifies their own information sources of interest (assuming the head has the awareness of the importance of information in this era and the ability to track these sources).
Type 1: Internal Information Sources
Anything documented or recorded inside the company counts as secondary data that can be relied on in desk research. The availability of this data is related to the company’s interest level in information and in documenting, recording, classifying, and archiving it, and providing the right tools to access it. Some organizations can be illiterate in terms of managing their information — and finding historical data with them is like finding a needle in a haystack. Assuming the company does care about information, what are the likely internal sources?
First, company records: the researcher can find data on revenues, expenditures, profits or losses, and sales. All this data might be available, but not well classified, in which case the researcher can collaborate with management to design custom templates for entering daily business data to help them analyze data and prepare reports more effectively. For example, Finance might provide me with information on total sales; I might find some details at the Sales department on how this total is distributed across cities or specific customers — but the truly effective state is for these things to be available immediately on request, not for management to take more than a week or two to secure these details.
Second, front-line employees: the employees facing customers — such as sales reps, customer-service staff, and technical-support staff. All these people can be rich sources for qualitative data, sourced from the customer themselves through direct, regular contact. Here lies the importance of preparing specific report templates that front-line staff are asked to fill weekly — or meet with them weekly to discuss these things verbally, recording their notes or recording the meeting as audio.
Third, prior research: research conducted by the company, including primary and secondary research — both can be rich sources for a desk-research effort being conducted now.
Fourth, prior experiences: companies aware of the importance of information have a knowledge-management department. I’m not here to address its tasks, but this department provides an environment and incubating tools for the company’s past experiences with particular issues. The researcher benefits from this when consulting previous problems and experiences that were successfully handled — to solve current issues being tackled via the desk research. However, the absence of a knowledge-management department forces the researcher to interview veteran and long-tenured employees to ask about their experiences. Many of them may not be at the company anymore — leading to dealing with the problem naively and possibly falling into the same prior mistakes the company made when handling similar matters.
Type 2: External Information Sources
These come in several forms, and interest in these sources varies by the industry the company operates in. The skill of reaching information in a short time depends on knowing where it is — in which source — and how to access it.
First, what’s published by governmental, educational, commercial, and agricultural bodies, and statistical agencies.
Second, public libraries and university libraries: each contains specialized books and possibly international scientific journals not available in the market. Academic libraries stand out for access to master’s and doctoral theses, in addition to access to more specialized books if the university itself is specialized in a particular field. The challenge remains limited access — possibly restricted to students or university staff. Understanding the archiving method in libraries (most often the Dewey Decimal system for classifying and arranging books) and learning how to access books will save you a lot of time when visiting the library to reach specific books.
Third, specialized firms: some firms specialize in collecting information about particular markets and publish specialized reports periodically for a fee, an annual subscription, or sometimes free. That said, you may find their research expensive and far broader than your request. In that case, you can negotiate with this type of firm to get a specific piece of their report rather than the full report, for a lower price. Examples: Euromonitor, IDC, Gartner.
Fourth, your network of contacts: trying to reach friends, former colleagues, relatives who may have information on the research topic. I’ve personally benefited from this method every time I’ve done desk research.
Fifth, the internet: all external sources mentioned above may be available electronically online, but my reason for separating the internet as a standalone source is the importance of separating electronic sources in a separate file, because of the differing nature of dealing with everything electronic. I recommend all readers attend the two free courses on sharpening the researcher’s skills in using the world’s most powerful search engine, Google — find these two courses here. A certificate is awarded upon successfully passing the exam. This course enhances the researcher’s capability, especially for those who wish to specialize in desk research. The lessons are available as video episodes.
Finally, note that Google isn’t the best solution for the researcher in some cases — there are specialized search engines in certain areas that may outperform Google. I won’t enumerate them in this article.
A Case Study
A merchant works in importing and selling stainless steel sheets. There are dozens of merchants in every city working the same trade, some distinguished from others by price and by availability of certain types — none of them can carry every type at the same time due to storage cost. One trader did a desk-research effort, starting with internal sources, analyzing sales — so he knew his most important customers and the best-selling types over the past three years and where to focus on which items. He also identified which types had never sold or had moved very slowly, so he decided to avoid importing them in future and sell off what he had at lower prices to cut storage cost. Then he started analyzing sales monthly to try to find a seasonal correlation tied to buying a particular type at a particular time of year, and reached some insights. He then analyzed customer payment behavior — who delayed, who didn’t commit to payment — all these analyses help him make decisions about future dealings.
What about external sources? This trader began searching online for suppliers other than the ones he currently dealt with, then corresponded with them to learn their prices, procedures, and shipping speed. Through this research, he identified the cheapest and fastest suppliers and started on his way to standing out in his market. Later he did another research project to study the relationship between sheet prices and the prices of the raw materials from which stainless steel is made, and concluded that the raw materials at a particular time of year drop noticeably under several factors, and that this drop in turn affects sheet prices — so he started allocating his largest budget for buying in that period, and you’d find him offering competitive prices year-round on par with major traders in the market despite his small size. If those big traders ever realized his research skills, they’d be counted among the bankrupt.
Closing
I ask God to benefit you with what I’ve written and that it be a motivator to harness information in your favor in your journey of fair competition with your competitors. If I’ve erred, that’s from me; if I’ve gotten it right, that’s from God.
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