Business Research

Who puts out business research?

There are three main sources for business research: the government, industry associations, and publishers. Each source has strengths and weaknesses, so most business research will use a combination of sources. Let’s look at each of these sources in brief.

The U.S. Government is the largest producer of market research in the world. They keep statistics on every single industry and count just about every single person in the country. And they make all of this information freely available online. So that’s the upside. The downside is that 1) this is a huge amount of information and is understandably hard to keep current, and 2) the government clearly doesn’t spend any money on Web design, making a bulk of this information hard to find for the average Web surfer. The government office who collects most of this data is the Census Bureau. And they’re a great place to start any business research – especially if you know where to look.

Industry associations are, as you probably know, organizations that cater to businesses in a particular industry. They have a vested interest in the success of businesses within their industry because, well, to have more successful businesses is to have more dues-paying members. So they’re very interested in helping businesses succeed. One of the services that many of these associations provide is to offer industry statistics, reports, trends, etc. to businesses in their industry. That’s the upside. The downside is that these offerings vary association to association. Some associations offer all sorts of research for free on their Web sites. Some only offer research to association members. And with some it’s hard to tell if they have much research at all. In all cases, though, it is worth an inquiry to an industry association if you’re looking for specific research on an industry.

Publishers (either in print or online) are the third leg in our business research journey – and we ought to draw a distinction at the outset. There are two types of publishers: those that want to sell you the content they publish and those who will give it away in whole or part. The former stay in business through what they charge users – the latter stay in business usually through advertising on Web sites or sponsorships or some other secondary funding source. In both cases, the benefit of getting business research from publishers is that this info tends to be both specific and current. The downside is that free publishers can be hard to track down and are often advertising-riddled - and “not-free” publishers can be ridiculously expensive.

Where to find business research?

The Economic Census publishes statistical industry reports by NAICS code. Data is currently from 2002.

More current industry data can be found on specific industry sectors, through Census reports like Manufacturing, Mining, and Construction; Retail &Wholesale Trade; and the Service Annual Survey.

The American FactFinder provides data on every U.S. citizen. Search by city, county, zip code, or metro area for detailed statistics on the people in that place.

You can find a listing of the best free business research Web sites on the BizToolkit site, which is maintained by the James J. Hill Reference Library, a business library in St. Paul, MN.

Contact your local public library for access to in-print business research sources, or premium databases. Most public libraries have excellent business research tools that are sometimes available online to library card-holders. 

Free business research online, something to think about

As noted above, you can find a great deal of business research available for free online. In fact, the amount of research available online seems to grow exponentially each year. But that doesn't make a search for reliable information any easier. In fact, it becomes more difficult. 

As Trish Hoskins notes:

Much of the information free on the web is lacking in date and source information. Where did they get their data? what year(s) are the statistics from? I often struggle to find this information posted on free websites, even from otherwise reputable sources. At least with printed materials or my library's databases, there is usually some indication of how they came up with the information -- and sometimes, even how to make sense of it.