Building a successful business is not only challenging but difficult. Most often it seems like the entrepreneur is walking in the dark, with multiple options for decision making. And basing a business decision on raw intuition can prove fatal.

What could act as a light of certainty in such situations is a scientific market research. Market research guides businesses through the vast choices available for making critical business decisions. It gives a large degree of certainty which could help in building a successful business.

Usually implementing market research is easy and simple. A regular market research would have 6 steps:

•       Objective and Problem Definition
•        Determining Research Design
•        Research Instrument Design and Preparation
•        Collection and Sampling of Data
•        Data Analysis
•        Visualization and Communication of Results

This gives us a brief about how to go about market research. But there are some important aspects of market research, if not defined in a good way, that will lead to failure of the whole exercise.

Let’s discuss these aspects which we think are key in conducting a successful research project:

1. The question that you want answered should be exactly defined:

It is seen that whenever a company starts a new research project, they choose the topics which they believe will fit their needs rather than looking at the market and identifying the gaps they need to fill. This leads to a narrow definition of the problem statement and thereby the business runs the risk of missing on the full range of data, that will be required define their market. 

2. Voice of the customer should be fully captured:

Target customers should be at the centre of any market research project. Capturing their aspirations, pain-points, feedback & expectations is critical to build a successful product or a business. It is imperative to understand exactly what the target customer needs so that the research process is effective and the insights are meaningful. To do this, businesses should adopt all or most of the research methods like interviews, focus groups, surveys, or observations

3. The source of your information is vital:

Relying on third-party data collection system can often result in subjective understanding of a research. During the process of sampling and collection of data, it is extremely important to make sure that the data is collected from people who best fit the target audience’s profile. Ensuring this makes the data accurate and dependable. This way the strategic business decision gets the desired results.

4. Merits of Multiple and On-going market research:

Most businesses run market research surveys only during the beginning of a launch of a product or service. These surveys are typically run to assess the current market conditions, competitive analysis, market size etc. However, this information may not be relevant at the end of the 1^st, 2^nd or 3^rd year of launch. Hence, the advantages of running research surveys periodically, i.e. before launch, during launch and after launch can be of great value-add for the strategies of the organisation. Assessments and alterations can be made in time based on these on-going surveys.