Cbi Export Manual: Your Guide To Market Research

CBI EXPORT MANUAL: YOUR GUIDE TO MARKET RESEARCH
PART 1: YOUR RESEARCH ASSISTANT

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Source: CBI Market Information database URL: www.cbi.eu Contact: marketinfo@cbi.eu www.cbi.eu/disclaimer

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PART 1: YOUR RESEARCH
ASSISTANT

Improving your competence in market research

Compiled for CBI by:
Searce


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Disclaimer
Although the content of its market information tools has been compiled with the greatest
care, the Centre for the Promotion of Imports from developing countries (CBI) is not able
to guarantee that the information provided is accurate and/or exhaustive, and cannot be
held liable for claims pertaining to use of the information.

In the case of the market publications, neither CBI nor the authors of the publications
accept responsibility for the use, which might be made of the information. Neither is the
information to be construed as legal advice. Original documents should, therefore, always
be consulted where appropriate. The information does not release the reader from the
responsibility of complying with any relevant legislation, regulations, jurisdiction or
changes/updates of same.

In the case of the Internet tools, CBI aims to minimise disruption caused by technical
errors. However, CBI cannot guarantee that its service will not be interrupted or
otherwise affected by technical problems. CBI accepts no responsibility with regard to
problems incurred as a result of using this site or any linked external sites.

The information provided is aimed at assisting the CBI target group, i.e. exporters and
business support organisations (BSOs) in developing countries. It may, therefore, not be
used for re-sale, the provision of consultancy services, redistribution or the building of
databases, on a commercial basis. For utilization of the CBI market information tools by
the CBI target group on a non-commercial basis, the condition applies that CBI is
referred to as the source of the information. All other use is prohibited, unless explicitly
approved in writing by CBI. See also disclaimer CBI market information tools:
http://www.cbi.eu/disclaimer

Compiled in collaboration with Alfons van Duivenbode
Illustrations by: COM & GERY
Photo courtesy: Studio Loske/Shutterstock/CBI/Searce


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Table of Contents

Introduction 4

1 Why market research? 6
1.1 Why is research so essential? 6
1.1.1 Exporters 6
1.1.2 BSOs 7
1.1.3 Research helps you further 8
1.2 What is market research? 9

2 Market research process 11
2.1 Step 1 - Define your research objective 12
2.2 Step 2 - Which research method? 14
2.2.1 Secondary or desk research 15
2.2.1.1 What is it and what to collect? 15
2.2.1.2 Main free sources 16
2.2.1.3 Main low cost sources 21
2.2.1.4 Main high cost sources 23
2.2.2 Desk research using the Internet 25
2.2.3 Primary or field research 26
2.2.3.1 Personal interviews at trade fairs 27
2.2.3.2 Observations at trade fairs and other places 31
2.2.3.3 Store checks 32
2.2.3.4 Other 32
2.3 Step 3 - Research planning 35
2.4 Step 4 - Collect relevant data 37
2.5 Step 5 - Analysis - from data to information 40
2.6 Step 6 - Write and present the report 45
2.7 Useful sources 46

3 Organising market research 49
3.1 Research preparation 49
3.2 Research during your export venture 49
3.3 Research budget 50
3.4 Involving other people in research 51
3.5 Organising your information (MIS) 54

Checklist 56

Glossary 57

August 2008 (update)


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Introduction

If you are thinking of expanding your business into
new export markets, you can follow what other
companies from your country do and see what will
happen. Some exporters regard this as a safe option,
as no investment in expense or time will be required
when exporting to unknown markets.
There is only one big problem: you will have many
competitors and you may risk the buyer changing to
another supplier even if, you are prepared to lower your
price. You may be surprised when he tells you that
your product is out of fashion or that consumer habits/tastes have suddenly
changed.
By doing market research, you would have noticed earlier that you were in a mature
market and would have started to consider adding a new original feature to your product,
different from your competitors, or looking into exporting to neighbouring countries.

When starting to export to the EU, market research can reduce your risks. Could you
imagine what people in Spain really want to buy - instead of what you want to sell them?
How about people in Portugal, Greece or other Southern EU countries? Do consumers
in these countries want to buy the same? Maybe for Italy you have to think differently in
terms of product size, application, colour, design or packaging.
How about consumers or buyers in Northern or in Eastern EU countries? Maybe your
product needs less adaptation there.

When exporting to the EU you can focus on similar target groups all over the continent
and address clusters of similar EU countries. If you do not have a clear idea about who
are in this target group, how many they are, if they have enough money to spend and
how they buy, you will need to find this out by market research.

This publication is an update of the CBI export manual Your guide to market research
(2003).

Structure of this manual
This CBI export manual consists of three parts:
Your research assistant (part 1)
Your research practice (part 2)
Research Action Plan RAP (part 3)

Part 1 assists you by providing basic guidelines with simple research methods, which
you can do by yourself, with your staff, or with research specialists. It explains what
market research is (chapter 1) and how you can do your own low cost research in a
structured way, following a step-by-step research process (chapter 2).

The conclusions from your research findings enable you to discover your business
problems, identify market opportunities and anticipate developments on focussed EU
markets. Here you can think how to be different from competitors by adding some
common sense, based on your expectations about what will happen in your export
venture in the next 5 years. The more information you have, the better you can make
Research is to see what everybody else has seen,
and to think what nobody else has thought

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

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an export marketing plan (EMP) in which you have to make firm commitments and
strategic decisions. A good marketing plan never can eliminate all your risks, but it
is the backbone of knowing where you are now, where you want to go, how you can
stand out and how you can measure the effectiveness of your strategy and actions.
Every research needs to be planned and organised with the allocation of time, budget
and people (chapter 3). All sources and information found need to be categorized and
shared with others in your company.
Once you understand the process of doing market research and how to stay in control
over your research activities, you should be ready to start your own market research.

Part 2: In addition to the basics of market research provided in this part, 'Your research
practice' (part 2) advices on what to research during your export venture and shows
where you can find the necessary information. Part 2 is particularly interesting for more
experienced exporters looking for new EU markets or for those exporters with enough
knowledge of market research.

Part 3: A useful E-tool to use with part 1 and part 2 is the Research Action Plan (RAP).
This interactive tool will guide you through the different export stages and shows you
how to organise your market research. It contains examples of research objectives,
questions, methodology, planning and results during the different stages of your export
venture. This RAP can be downloaded from http://www.cbi.eu, go to Suppliers, select
Export tools and select Research Action Plan (RAP).

Starting exporters are advised to read part 1 first and use it together with part 2 and
part 3 in order to systematically set up their export activities.

This manual covers certain aspects of exporting to the EU and is just one in a series
of export manuals published in the CBI database at http://www.cbi.eu.marketinfo.
More product specific information can be found in CBI market surveys. Other issues
such as exporting to the EU, market entry strategy, product range development,
Internet searching, website promotion, trade shows and corporate image are covered
in other CBI export manuals. You can find the titles on the CBI website.

We wish you much success and we hope this manual encourages you to acquire the
necessary skills and know-how to do effective market research. If you do it correctly
and efficiently, it will reward you in the end. Being more confident and anticipating
events is much preferable to just depending on the opinion of some buyers.

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1. Why market research?

1.1 Why is research so essential?

It is impossible to sell a product or service that a consumer does not want. In order to
know this and to present it attractively you need information. If you are a small shop owner
and sell to people in your own area, you are likely to know your customers well by having
regular contact with them. But if you have a larger business and want to expand to export
markets, you do not have customers; you only have prospects. They are far away, think
differently and have a different culture and habits. So, here market research is an essential
business tool to avoid the risk of a failure. For example, a US car manufacturer introduced
the Chevrolet Nova in Spain, but the car failed, due to the choice of a wrong name. No va
means does not go in Spanish.

1.1.1 Exporters
When exporting to EU countries you may want to play safe by taking the well-trodden road
and enter a large EU country. You may think that there is always a market potential in
large countries. The risk is here that buyers often have a choice of different DC suppliers
and there are local competitors. For example, the German, UK and Italian furniture markets
are mature, supplies are dominated by China and India, and local demand is backed up
by a strong national industry. Maybe you should try to find out if it is really worth putting
effort and money into these competitive markets. They may be many more opportunities
in Eastern EU countries with growing economies. Manufacturers in these countries may look
for cooperation with exporters from developing countries in order to compete with China
and India. You can find the best opportunities in these countries by doing market research.

Market research helps you to find proper answers to
the right questions. For example, in the long haul tourist
market, if you are located in Zambia, you need to find
out what sort of trips to propose to UK tour operators.
Relevant questions could be:
- Should you propose adventurous (wildlife), trekking,
cultural, responsible or relaxation trips to UK tour
operators?
- What kind of idea do British people have of Zambia?
- What sort of demographic and lifestyle trends are taking place in the UK in terms of
increased leisure time, ageing population, increased curiosity, travel to undiscovered
destinations?
- Which consumer age group could be most interesting for responsible trips?
- How do they usually travel, individually or in groups?
- How can you reach them, by specialised tour operators or via the Internet?
- Which other African countries are your direct competitors?
- Should you approach mainstream or specialised tour operators?
- How can you segment tour operators by continent, by activity, by profile of travellers?

The more knowledge you have about your prospective markets and its people, the more
likely you are to succeed. If you are an exporter of pipe and process equipment, you can
find out business opportunities by knowing where in the EU the demand for cleaner water
and sewer systems is increasing. Other questions could be:
You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers.
You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions

Naguib Mahfouz

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- In which EU countries are water systems expected to be renewed?
- How is the choice of the water treatment process made in these countries? Is it based
on price, meeting local or EU guidelines or on advanced technology?
- What are other main valve applications in the end-user industries and for what sort of
pipelines (oil, gas)?
- What are the latest developments in e-business applications in these end-user industries?
- What is the EU production of pumps, valves, fittings, instruments, metal pipes, any other
process equipment?

From discovering a niche to planning an effective export marketing strategy, research
can provide those details, which are crucial for success. Less money and energy will be
wasted on false hopes, especially when you are planning to export for the first time.

1.1.2 BSOs
For Business Support Organisations (BSOs), see also explanation in chapter 2.2.1.2, the
biggest challenge is to stress to exporters the importance of doing market research and to
stimulate exporters to take a strategic approach. It has proven to be difficult for BSOs to
convince exporters that making shortcuts usually results in being cut off. You only get
one opportunity to approach prospective buyers. Just sending information on their product
and price is not enough, particularly in agricultural, consumer goods markets and in
services.

Exporters are not helped by raw data such
as a list of unclassified buyers and some
trade statistics. BSOs should try to offer
added value to exporters by providing sound
information on EU countries, market size
and market trends in interesting export
sectors, market requirements, market
segments, interesting niches, opportunities,
consumer prices or distribution trends.
So here, there is a task for a BSO to do
research for exporters in their country.
Based on the data they find, they can
analyse the findings, filter out what is
relevant and present this information in
the form of highlights, market or sector
briefs and fact sheets. Providing this added
value will definitely enhance the performance and image of a BSO among exporters.

Based on the regular questions from exporters in your country, as a BSO you can categorize
information according to subject, offer customised research or organise thematic workshops
based on interesting developments in the EU market place. The CBI market surveys are an
ideal starting point for this. As a BSO, you are in a position to offer access to all documents
on the CBI website.

The CBI market information database is extensive but exporters usually take little time
to read all of it. This is where your added value as a BSO starts. You can select what is
relevant and where CBI surveys or market requirements are not specific enough, you can
search further. In all of the CBI publications, you will find many sources in EU countries
that lead to more product specific information or interesting importers. So, do not give
up so easily and try to take time for further searching.

Tip: When stuck while searching on the Internet, contact people from info sources (see
chapter 2.2.1) who can answer your questions or who can point you in the right
direction.

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1.1.3 Research assists you further
Market research can assist exporters and BSOs in the following ways:
You can find out: the largest markets for your product,
the fastest growing markets, market trends in the
short and long term, market requirements,
business opportunities and business practice.
It enables you to narrow down your view from a broad
perspective. You can set your priorities towards a
specific target market and plan future markets over
a 5 year period, based on sound information.
It helps you to understand where your industry is
heading and what new regulations or technologies
may affect the way you are doing business.
It helps you to find out the best product introductory
tactics. After one year, you can evaluate your
own and your trade partners efforts. Then you can
make the necessary adjustments in each EU market.
You can gain an insight into your competitors,
including their strengths and weaknesses, their
mistakes and reasons of success.
You may also find ideas for new product development
and anticipate product adaptations.
It reduces your uncertainty and by showing more involvement
and understanding of their market, buyers will take you more seriously.

Pro-active approach
By keeping abreast of the latest developments in the EU market, you can take your
marketing decisions more quickly. The international business environment has changed
rapidly as a result of EU expansion since 2004 from 15 to 27 countries, from 379 to 490
million people. This implies the emergence of new consumers with different needs and a
different marketing mix in order to reach them. For example, if you know that people in
the Czech Republic are gaining more educational qualifications because of a rising
employment rate, there will be more demand for office and school supplies. You can find
out the same sort of information about other new member states. When taking a pro-
active approach with these new opportunities you can stay ahead on your competitors.

Even in a period of slowing population growth in the larger EU member
states, new trends and consumer target groups emerge. For example, the
growing number of older people or rising number of single households
due to different life styles. Both consumer groups look for convenience products, smaller
products (such as household goods), or products packed in smaller portions (food).

Research needs a commitment
Market research requires a commitment in terms of time and money. Many companies
still aim to make every export venture self financing, or start to export and finance the
investment from the profit from sales in these markets. This does not apply to market
research. Even if CBI market surveys or ITC surveys are free of charge, you, or your
research team, will have to allocate time to go through all sorts of information. Doing
a thorough Internet research takes a lot of time, especially when you look for low cost
information sources (between 0 50). You can save time by buying reports from
business information databases (between 50 3,500) see chapter 2.2.1.4.

Tip: In case of business providers, check their summary and table of contents thoroughly
to see if they really provide good information on the market and distribution and not
if the main part of their report are profiles of main players in that sector.

narrow your view
from a broad scope
being proactive as
a competitive edge
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Tip: If you have seen a useful report, negotiate about the price by comparing prices at
different providers or otherwise see if you can buy separate countries or chapters.

You must invest some money and time before you introduce your product in the EU
market; this prevents you from making expensive mistakes later on. You can control
your research costs by allocating a maximum budget (for example 5,000) for a whole
research project for 3 months. You could also allocate a budget per target country
( 150) or per cluster of 3 countries ( 400).

Research as an integral part of your long-term strategy
Market research is more than just compiling data and statistics. A large part of your
research is factual, which means the gathering of information to understand (prospective)
markets. But research can be also predictive, such as finding out consumers or buyers
attitudes or motives for buying your product or service in the long term.
Research can also be an eye-opener on how your company is performing see chapter
2.2 of part 2 'Your research practice'.

All data collected needs to be analysed
and to be transformed into relevant information.
This forms the basis of your marketing strategy
and tools. Researching markets, like all planning
processes, is cyclical.
At first, as you review your initial data, you may
find that some of the information raises new
questions that suggests the need for additional
research. In the end you can build up your own
information system and add missing or new data
after each search, keeping your system up-to-date.
This will be the key to your success.
In fact, market research does not stand on its own,
but forms an integral part of your Export Marketing
Strategy. It never stops.

1.2 What is market research?

As you now have become more aware of the essence of market research, you need
to know what exactly it is. Market research includes all methods to evaluate which
foreign markets offer the best potential for your products. A simple definition is:

Market research is the collection and analysis of information about markets,
people, companies and organisations that will enable you to make better
decisions for your export marketing plan.

The following myths are keeping exporters away from undertaking any form of research:

Myth 1: Research is only for intellectuals and academic people
This mis-understanding is partly created by researchers who have their
own sophisticated definitions and jargon. However, good researchers are
aware that research can be easily designed and implemented by anyone.

Myth 2: The distributor will do all necessary research
Some exporters believe that they already have enough information through
their distributor or expect the research to be done primarily by them.
In addition, some exporters regard market information as a by-product
of their accounting system. But often distributors do not give a neutral
overview of the market and trade channel developments in their country.
definition
research
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Myth 3: Market research is too expensive
Market research does not necessarily mean doing surveys, interviewing
large numbers of people and complicated computer analyses, which are
expensive especially when entering different EU countries. There are
many techniques (desk or Internet research) at low cost, which are
explained in this manual.

Myth 4: Market research takes too much time Some exporters are
usually very busy and are afraid of wasting time by getting lost in an
overload of information and many dealings with researchers. Most research
can be done quite simply and quickly. Dont ask for too much at once and
try to concentrate on what is needed (not on what is nice to know!). When
doing it step-by-step, you can do it quite efficiently.

There are various research techniques, which are covered in Chapter 2.2.

research does
not need to be
expensive

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2. Market research process

Now that you are aware of what market research is and what it can do for you, start to
prepare your research by thinking about its purpose. Unfocussed research leads to an
information overload and wrong decisions. Especially when you want to enter competitive
market where buyers are demanding, you need the right information. In a research
objective you set a target in terms of what relevant information you need, keeping your
time and budget limits in mind. To avoid losing track, you must structure your research
and make it controllable and measurable. You can do this by a research process.

You can follow a 6-step research process (see below) and use some low-cost research
methods. Within one process, you can combine searching on different research subjects
(countries, market size, target groups, trends, players, trade channels) to save time.

Step 6
Write and present
the report

Explain the cause and predict what happens.
Give indication for actions.
Step 5
Analysis - from data
to information -

Sorting and avoid getting lost.
Filtering and understanding.
Check and compare / Relate and conclude
Step 4

Collect relevant data

Which data/information is available?

Which countries to start with?
Step 3

Research planning

Categorizing data by EU country and subject.

Structuring by a Research Action Plan.

Step 2
Research method

Secondary or Desk research (see chapter 2.2)
Desk research using the Internet.
Primary or Field research (see chapter 2.2)
Step 1
Research objective

What do you need to know and why?
What are relevant research questions?
What export experience do you have?

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2.1 STEP 1 Define your research objective, subjects and questions

Company objectives and research objectives
Before starting market research, try to be very clear about what you want to
accomplish. First, look at your company objectives, for example maintain profit
while prices in your current markets are under pressure. This leads to certain
decisions that you have to make such as upgrading your product, looking for
other sales channels in your current market or looking for new export markets.
Through market research, you should be able to take the right decision. This
leads you to the definition of your research objective.

Measurable research objectives
This objective will be the benchmark you will need to refer to regularly during the
research process to stay on track and measure if the research project is successful
or not. If your research objective is looking for new export markets, this is quite
broad. You can narrow this down by trying to break this objective into measurable
research subjects.

Research subjects
Research subjects are relevant topics on which you have to find
information. You can use these subjects to get an idea or to form
a total picture of a continent or a country. Examples of subjects
are trade flows, market requirements, market size, market
developments, market segments or structure of competitors.
All relevant subjects when exporting to the EU are mentioned
in part 2 Your research practice.
For example, if a research objective is to identify the most
promising EU export markets for tennis balls, this exporter can
divide this objective into the following subjects:
Looking at the trade flow developments for tennis balls (HS
code 950661) between the EU, EU countries and the world.
Looking at the market access requirements for tennis balls
in the EU and in promising EU markets.
Identifying the development in number of tennis players in the
EU (male/female, singles/young couples, club membership).
Identifying the main competitors in the EU tennis equipment market.
Identifying the major trade channels, supply requirements for tennis balls
in the EU and promising EU markets.
Identifying the importers and consumer prices for tennis balls in six
different EU promising markets.

Research questions
Once you have thought about the most important subjects, try to
translate each subject into several research questions. In each
question, try to be as specific as possible on what sort of information
you need. For example:
the questions for the research subject Identifying promising EU
export markets for tennis balls, in terms of the trade flows can be:
What is the volume of EU imports of tennis balls between
2006 and 2008?
What are the biggest EU import markets for tennis balls?
Which EU markets showed the largest growth in the past
5 years?
What are the 10 leading developing country suppliers of
tennis balls in these EU markets?

break down
your obj ective
into subj ects
and questions

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The logical next step is to go further into details. The more details you want,
the more specific your subjects and questions will be.
For example, now that the exporter of tennis balls knows who his competitors
are and what their product features are, the next question to arise is whether
he should imitate them or come with an improved larger ball. Another question
could be whether he should approach those channels that competitors do not
supply to, such as hypermarkets, discounters. The answers to these questions
can be clarified by market research.

What export marketing experience do you have?
When exporting for the first time, most exporters start
with a broad view as a first orientation in order to become
more familiar with a new market environment. Once the
above main research objective is clarified, you will have to
find out whether the opportunities and potential sales are
worth your investment in terms of extra production
capacity, product adaptation or logistics. If so, you can
continue to focus on some target countries.
If you do not have prospective business partners yet,
you will need to put extra effort in sales staff, who should
have some knowledge of the EU market.

In assessing export opportunities, you may have carried out some
research before and already have some information on EU markets in
your own company. Once you have checked your internal sources and
defined your research objective, you can make a list of what you want
to know and what can be found out.

On the other hand, if you already have customers in EU countries and are
considering expanding into other EU countries, you may already be familiar
with the EU, but you will need specific information about your new target
country. So your research questions will be similar to those above.

Research objectives can also be more specific, especially if you are already
selling in some EU markets.

Example 1 Exporter of basket balls to a niche market

A target group specific objective in the market where he is already selling
basketballs in the UK. He has heard that young handicapped people like to
play basketball and that they need smaller and lighter weight balls. He
wants to find out if this is an interesting niche market. His research objective
is to identify a promising market for basket balls for handicapped sportsmen
in the UK.
His research subjects and questions could be:
- Market size:
o How many handicapped people play basketball in the UK?
o What is their age?
o How is it organised? At school, club or voluntary basis?
- Market developments:
o How many have played basketball in the past three years?
- Market requirements:
o What quality requirements or other special requirements are there for
basketballs for handicapped players?
- Trade channels:
o From whom are they buying basketballs now? Price level?

know your
buyers market
conditions

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Example 2 Exporter of castings and forgings to the construction segment
A buying structure specific objective. For example an exporter of casting and
forgings wants to expand his business in Eastern EU countries. He has found
out that many new houses are being built, thanks to a growing middle class
in Poland and in Hungary. This could be an opportunity for his machine tools
(welding equipment and wood working equipment).
His research objective is to identify business opportunities for machine tools
in the Polish and Hungarian construction industry. His research subjects and
questions could be:
- Market size:
o How many new houses are being built in Poland and Hungary?
o Where are the main areas in these countries?
o What sort of machine tools are mainly needed in these areas?
- Competitors:
o Who are the main competitors for machine tools in Poland and Hungary?
- Trade channels and logistics:
o Who are involved in the DMU (Decision making unit) for new machinery?
o What is most important for Polish or Hungarian buyers (price, quality,
product safety, after sales service) when buying machine tools?
o Where are nearby logistical providers for machine tools, how much does
it cost when they import and stock his machinery?

It may take some time and effort to become
more trained in research, but once you have
done a research process a few times, it will be
easier. It will certainly be of great benefit to
you in the end, especially if you are well-aware
of the useful sources for your specific product.
You need an Export Marketing Plan (EMP) to
make your export venture a success. This
planning is sub-divided into several stages that
can be used in a flexible way. Whether you are
a starting exporter or already exporting to the
EU, in both cases you need you need relevant
information in each stage to make the right
decisions.
What to research during each stage will be further explained in part 2 'Your
research practice' and in part 3 the RAP.

2.2 STEP 2 Which research method?

Now that you have thought about what you want to achieve with research
and about the kind information you need, you now have to think about how to
get to the right sources to obtain this information. When you do market research
by yourself, there are two main methods to collect raw data and information:
Secondary or desk research: here you are looking for previously collected
data and published information by others, such as companies, governments.
Secondary or desk research does not need to be expensive as you can find
so much via the Internet, especially in on-line databases.
Primary or field research: here you collect information first-hand from the
source, for example from buyers (importers, wholesalers), staff of EU Trade
Associations, retailers, retail outlets and consumers. In this case, your research
team collects the data or information direct from the foreign marketplace.
Primary or field research (see chapter 2.2.3) can be done with or without the
help of a research specialist. It always directly relates to your product, it is
done on the spot, and usually it follows secondary or desk research.

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2.2.1 Secondary or desk research

2.2.1.1 What is it and what to collect?
Desk research is the best technique to find out where
you stand. Here, you collect raw data or information
from within your own company (internal sources) for
example, sales records, customer files, contact reports,
trade show reports, letters of complaint, opinions of your
own staff, sufficient production capacity or anything else
that tells you what and why customers buy from you.

Nevertheless, you must search elsewhere (external
sources) and collect any published information in
hardcopy by contacting relevant organisations (trade
associations, libraries, government and other companies).
From you country you can collect most of the information from the
Internet. You can check the sites of these organisations, as most of
them have online presence, or contact them by email. You can collect
this information based on country, product or on subject.

Desk research

Advantages Disadvantages

Data collection is fast

It is often too general

Relatively cheap

You have to validate its reliability

You or your staff can do it Conflicting statistics, different
definitions

The best starting point for
action or further research

Information can be too old

Competitors may have access to
the same information

Within the abundance of information, especially in developed countries, you
can familiarise yourself with new EU markets. At the same time, you must
try to find all relevant data for your own sector or product. The challenge
here is to collect and compile as much useful information and statistics about
interesting EU markets within a limited time.

Tip: Before starting your desk research, be very clear about your objectives
to prevent losing your focus (need to know versus nice to know),
which will mean losing much time and money.

Start with the free sources
These sources include all CBI publications and all other external sources.
Based on the links in CBI market surveys, you can search further for
more details for your product or service which you can find in country
overviews, other market surveys, trade statistics, access requirements,
consumer surveys, sales tracking data, trade press articles, newsletters,
newspapers, company profiles or consumer magazines.

Continue with some creativity and persistence
After starting enthusiastically, you or someone else in your research team
may quickly reach a dead end. This may happen when searching on the
Internet, for example, in a specific country such as Slovenia for a medicinal

secondary
research as
the first step
finding what
you need to
know from
your desk

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Page 16 of 60

plants. So far, it may have been easier to find information
on medical plants in Germany, France or in the UK.
Even if you do not want to enter these large markets,
this market information gives you an idea about the
market structure or its main applications in EU countries.
Regarding Slovenia, do not give up! Try to think about
a clever way to get to know this market. For example,
you could get in touch with the local trade association,
local libraries, trade press or visit websites of
homeopathic Slovenian wholesalers or drugstores.
You could even ask them by email or phone if they
have any market information and if not, where you
can find this. Maybe there are exhibitions on
medicines in Slovenia, or in a neighbouring country,
or in Germany with Slovenian exhibitors who are looking
for contacts with foreign companies.
A more down-to-earth approach is to look for any
information on medical use in Slovenia. You could find
this in the National Statistics Office or at the Slovenian Trade & Investment
Promotion Office (Tipo) in Ljubljana.
You will probably need to translate the information into English. If you still
cannot find anything, you can look for existing reports on Over The Counter
(OTC) medicines from commercial information providers see later in this
section. Your efforts will be always rewarding, and with some persistence,
you will always be pointed in the right direction.

The main sources that are explained in the next paragraphs are sub-divided by:
- Free sources (CBI, sources in developing countries, sources in the EU)
- Low cost sources
- High cost sources.

2.2.1.2 Free sources

CBI
CBI is a good starting point for your desk
research by offering useful publications and a
database that includes market surveys, including
export guidelines and product surveys.
To help you make an Export Marketing Plan,
CBI also offers information on market access
requirements and various export manuals.
Registered exporters can download all CBI
publications from http://www.cbi.eu/marketinfo
Go to Search CBI database and select your
market sector and the EU.

Market surveys: CBI offers market surveys on more than 30 different
sectors in 27 EU countries including an EU survey, which is an overview of
the EU market. CBI has divided their products and services for exporters
of developing countries into 4 main groups: agricultural products, consumer
products, industrial products and services. In each market survey, you can
find good information about the latest market developments (consumption
or industrial demand), production, trade channels, imports/exports, price
developments and opportunities. All market surveys give many references
and useful sources (websites) for your further research.

Do not give up
and try to find
people who can
help you further

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Page 17 of 60

To assist you in your decision making to export to the EU, each survey has
Export guidelines that cover the main market access requirements, how
to select your product and target countries, your market entry and how to
decide on your export marketing tools.

Product surveys: If you are looking for information on a specific product,
you can check the CBI product surveys. They give similar information as EU
market surveys with a focus on 6 selected EU countries.

Market access requirements: CBI has a special database on this subject.
You can find out what sort of legislation there is in the EU and in EU countries.
Secondly, you will find additional requirements of EU buyers though labels, codes
and management systems. Most requirements are based on consumer health
and safety issues, environmental and social concerns and on quality.
You can also find relevant information on tariff-related requirements and on
intellectual property for your sector or product. For market access requirements
see also chapter 2.3.2 of part 2 'Your research practice' and chapter 1.6 of the
CBI manual Exporting to the EU.

Export manuals: In order to improve your skills in exporting, CBI publishes
other export manuals such as the Export Planner, Exporting to the EU, Digging
for gold, Your guide to product range development, Your image builder, Your
expo coach, Website promotion and several manuals on other topics.

Other useful publications: For several sectors there are e-business studies
and sector alerts. For exporters of garments, footwear and accessories CBI
publishes two fashion forecasts per year and for jewellery, there is a special
design guide.

Market surveys

Export marketing plan

Market Access
requirements

Product surveys

Products and Markets Requi rements Gui dance

S
e
r
v
i
c
e
s

I
n
d
u
s
t
r
i
a
l

C
o
n
s
u
m
e
r

A
g
r
i
c
u
l
t
u
r
a
l

Export manuals

Export guidelines


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Page 18 of 60

You can also find the latest news, including reports from trade fairs, promotion
programmes and special subjects in the CBI News Bulletin, a quarterly magazine.
You may be able to see how other exporters in your sector are doing.

How to use CBI information?

Example 3 Moroccan exporter of goat leather handbags
If the research objective of an exporter from Morocco is looking for a new
export market and his research subjects and questions are very similar to
those that are given in chapter 2.1, he can use CBI information as follows:
o The EU survey luggage and ( leather) accessories (May 2007) tells him
that EU imports of handbags, made of leather have almost doubled in the
past 5 years (see EU imports by product under bags). This was mainly in
value due to more supplies of branded luxury handbags from Italy and
France.
o The share of developing countries in the supply was 49%, dominated by
China, followed by India and Vietnam with large volume supplies.
o Italy and France are the biggest EU importers, but they are also the biggest
producers see the EU survey under Production.
o Spain, the United Kingdom and most of the new EU member countries
showed the biggest growth in consumption of the whole sector, of which
handbags formed more than one third in most EU countries see EU
survey under Consumption. This was particularly in Spain, his nearest
market.

o When focussing in on Spain, he can read in the CBI survey The
Spanish market for luggage and ( leather) accessories (2007) under
Consumption that consumers spend more on their outfit and are more
interested in foreign designed handbags. This is also partly influenced by
the continued rise in the number of tourists and foreign residents; both
have brought different tastes in leather goods and clothing to Spain.
o Even if there are many small manufacturers of handbags in Spain, the
classic handbag is losing ground. Younger Spanish women now prefer
fashionable bags, but of a good quality material (leather). Spanish
manufacturers complain about the cheaper Asian copies made of fabric,
or paperboard.
o In the same survey under Production he can check some sites of main
players and of Asefma (trade association). Discover here what models
Spanish manufacturers make, their sorts of leather (bovine,
goat),colours, finish, how they present their handbags, their
main customers (wholesalers, agents, large retailers) and
what their prices are. There may be an opportunity to form
partnerships to help them maintain their competitive position
against Asian suppliers.

o Under Trade channels he can find that the non-specialised
channels such as department stores (El Corte Ingls),
hypermarkets, clothing chain stores and online shops are
gaining ground. Here, he can look at their sites on
models, sizes, designs of leather handbags or on prices.
o In the chapter on market access requirements he can
find out that there is a Directive 2002/617EC for dangerous
substances in leather, and a law against the use of
endangered species in leather (CITES -EC 338/97).
There are also anti-dumping tariffs up to 75 for handbags
from China, which is certainly good news for handbags from

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Page 19 of 60

Morocco. He can check further in the CBI database whether there are any
other requirements with regard to clean production methods of leather,
tanning, de-liming and use of chrome.

o He can also check Spanish trade shows on leather goods and look at
the CBI fashion forecasts to know the seasonal trends in fashion for the
coming years.
o In the product survey The EU market for handbags (2007) he can find
more details on target groups, trends for the major EU market, including
Spain. His handbags may fit well into urban, vintage or Boho chic styles.
He could target fashion conscious women between 25 and 50 years. The
quality of his leather bags is an interesting feature, especially if the leather
is made in natural colours. He could consider adding some handbags with
beads, coloured stones, as well as some oversized bags.
o When doing desk research he also can look into the Portuguese market,
which usually follows the trends in the Spanish market.

In most EU countries, there are similar trade promotion offices as CBI that
promote the imports from developing countries in the EU or in their own
EU country. These can be found at www.tpo-net.com.

BSOs
In many developing countries, there are organisations that stimulate exports
from their country through assistance and export promotion programmes
see also chapter 1.1.2. There are governmental BSOs (ministries and national
trade promotion offices) and sector associations.
In addition to individual assistance, they provide the following information
services:
Trade and country statistics and publications about EU markets.
News bulletins and information on market or trend reports for specific
products or sectors in the EU or in a cluster of EU countries.
Database of other exporters in your country and of EU importers.
Specific product or market information through customised research.
In some countries BSOs work with a 48 hour response system.

Chambers of Commerce
Before approaching organisations abroad, first check your local Chamber of
Commerce, which will also function as a BSO. Next to the usual Chambers,
there are bilateral Chambers of Commerce such as The Dutch South African
Chamber.

In EU countries, most Chambers offer a variety of information such as on
regulations and on the major trends in industry. You also can find here
information about local trade press, trade fairs, business culture and links to
other relevant organisations. Addresses of Chambers of Commerce in each EU
member state can be found via the site http://www.europeanchamber.com.cn/
or via the World Chambers Network at
http://www.worldchambers.com/CCII/index.htm

Multilateral organisations
Multilateral organisations such as the ITC also offer market information. ITC
covers around 50 different sectors on the EU and some EU countries see
http://www.p-maps.org. Some of the market briefs and reports have to be
paid for. ITC also offers trade statistics that can be found on the site
http://www.trademap.org as well as information on export packaging, which
is given at http://www.intracen.org/ep/packit.htm

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Page 20 of 60

Within the other multilateral organisations,
FAO, OECD, UNCTAD and the World Bank offer
assistance programmes for exporters from
developing countries.
You can find statistics on production, trade and
much information on current issues, including
trade regulations, trade incentives and access
requirements at these organisations. The World
Bank has good statistics on demographic, social
and economic developments in the world,
including the EU.

NGOs
Within Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) there are many
organisations that are specialised in a form of assistance, including
economic, export assistance and fair trade programmes for exporters from
developing countries. Concord is an EU coordination centre for NGOs, which
is a good starting point for you to find NGOs in your target countries. Their
site http://www.concordeurope.org gives an overview of National NGO
platforms such as http://www.bond.org.uk and of NGO networks in all
EU countries.

Also at the sites http://www.unsystem.org; http://www.oneworld.net
or http://www.euforic.org you can find links to NGOs
aiming for a better balance in global trade. In addition,
you could contact the local ministries of foreign affairs,
which publish address lists of NGOs in their country.
In addition to providing information, NGOs may offer
credit schemes, incentives or assist in locating and
contacting potential customers in EU countries.

Libraries
You could visit National libraries in your own country or
in your target markets. Apart from the National libraries,
most organisations mentioned so far have libraries that
you can visit. Here, you often need to make an appointment
first. However, recently many of these organisations have
cut their costs by only publishing information online and
closing their libraries.
Searching in libraries is a self-service activity, which implies that you
need to get familiar to their search system. You often search by
subject, title or keyword, which leads to a book or publication. Useful
parts you can copy.

National libraries have an online catalogue at their Internet site. In
case of a complex system, you could have a look beforehand. There
are libraries that have a document supply service, which carry out a
search for you at limited costs and send the result of this search to
you, even if you are overseas. However, you need to become a
full member. In most libraries, reading rooms have consumer magazines,
international newspapers, journals, trade magazines, annual reports,
yearbooks and sometimes an online article database and market reports.

Embassies
Your embassies in target markets can be a useful source for general economic
data or country information. They provide guidance on any local regulations or
Multilateral
organisations
and NGO platforms

____________________________________________________________________________________________


Page 21 of 60

laws. They usually also have general information on doing business within their
country and can introduce you to key persons or organisations in your sector
and to translators.

Banks
Banks are another source, especially for financial data such as exchange rate
forecasts. Major banks also have departments that are involved in researching
world markets, economic trends and developments in international trade.

EU Information Centres and EU helpdesk
Many EU countries now have a local information centre in the major cities or at
a special European corner in local libraries. Here you can find information on EU
legislation and directives, EU funding schemes and sources. You can also find
general information about the EU member countries here.
The EU website has a helpdesk for exporters from developing countries,
which provides specific details on many of the trade related issues
(http://export-help.cec.eu.int/). You can also find the tariffs and quota for your
product see also chapter 2.3.2 of part 2 'Your research practice'.

2.2.1.3 Main low cost sources

Trade Associations
Trade Associations that are well-organised can provide useful information.
You can find them on two different levels:
Associations of manufacturers: in some countries there are associations
on a product or sector level. In the case of furniture, there are furniture
manufacturing associations and there are wood associations (by raw
material). Both associations have different points of view and different
information.
If you are looking for local manufacturers, you can often find them through
the members list of these associations. Check the sites of these members
and see whether they could be interested in your product or in some form
of cooperation.
Associations of retailers publish newsletters or
reports on retail sales and trends in their country.

Trade associations have their own databases and have
reference libraries for their members. They sometimes
conduct their own national or international market studies.
These studies are quite reliable and informative, especially
in Germany, France, UK, Spain, Scandinavian countries,
Ireland and the Netherlands. Sometimes they make
comparisons between different EU countries.
Information is often in the local language, although
some associations also give English translations.
If not, you can translate their information with
http://www.google.com/translate_t - see also the
CBI export manual Digging for gold.
Reports of trade associations are free to members and
are often sold at a cost, usually between 50 and 250 to non-members.

Tip: Always try to access their news service, articles or annual reports
that use information or give summaries from their reports.

extracts of
studies in
annual reports
world- wide
or national
trends

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Page 22 of 60

For some sectors, there are European Trade Associations who publish newsletters
with a focus on some EU countries. These associations are also useful sources for
EU production data and for getting to know the hot issues in the whole industry
or sector. Some associations also provide information on consumption and trade
channels.

Tip: Definitely look at websites of European Trade Associations, the
addresses you can find in all CBI surveys under doing business.
At their sites, you can find out sector related portals and links to
other product related organisations.

Tip: Before buying a report keep in mind how useful the information
will be and how much it will cost to gather the information yourself.
Always check the table of contents and see if you can get a
summary of the report.

Trade magazines and newspapers
Trade magazines published in your target market are very useful for
gaining a general impression of the market developments, competitors,
market or lifestyle trends, current issues and opinions in the industry
and addresses of active agents and distributors.
Special features can sometimes include relevant market statistics.
You can receive these magazines overseas by contacting them by
email, or by asking for their contact details at a library, at your
embassy or from someone you know who lives there. Once you are
in contact with the editors, you can ask for back copies.
Online subscriptions to their database, which often includes a news
service by email, vary between free of charge up to 200 per year.
The advantage is that you will have up-to-date information from a
sector specific source, some insight reviews and some statistics.
The addresses of trade magazines you can find in all CBI surveys
under doing business.

Tip: You can share such a subscription with other exporters or ask
a BSO to subscribe.

National Statistics Offices
You will be able to find here raw data on demographics, income,
employment, education, immigration, population density, leisure
activities, consumption, household expenditure, housing, production,
number of employees, industrial development, international trade
and much more.
This data is a good basis to spot changes in demographic, lifestyle
and consumer expenditure. Examples on how to make these
connections are given in chapter 2 of the CBI export manual
Exporting to the EU, which can be downloaded from
http://www.cbi.eu/marketinfo

You can look at their websites or buy their yearbook at low cost ( 20 40),
or get it from libraries. Many National Statistics Offices have the information
in their local language, but with a dictionary you will able to read most of the
statistics and tables. Sometimes websites of statistical offices are complex.
Try to allocate some extra time to understand how they categorize their subjects,
how to create your tables of information and how you can retrieve the data
you really need. Here, take care that you dont get lost in the abundance of
information that is nice to know!

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Page 23 of 60

It is definitely worth checking out National Statistics
Offices carefully. Once you know the way, you will be
surprised with the results. You may be lucky to come
across international comparisons of different EU
countries. This will save time.

Statistical offices spend large budgets on comparative
tables of consumption or on usage patterns.
For traditional food products, such as rice, milk, bread,
beer, wine, the usage is registered nationally and
internationally.
A main reason is that a clear administration and
definition is required for levying taxes and subsidies in
EU countries. This registration generally applies to alcohol, cars, gasoline, milk and
agricultural-products, which means that in many EU countries there is much information
available on these sectors.

The addresses of statistical offices you can find in all CBI surveys under useful sources.

International directories
International directories provide addresses of manufacturers, importers and
wholesalers. However, some of them sell old addresses, often without websites
or email addresses, so you can only reach them by phone or fax.
Therefore, it would be better to look first at the CBI market surveys, at websites
of local trade associations and at trade fair databases before buying these
addresses. Some directory providers are given at the end of this chapter.

Other
There are the following other organisations that could lead you to other low cost
information:
Trade fairs sites addresses see CBI market surveys.
Local and International universities and business schools. They have their own
search engines.
Trade promotion offices in the USA, Canada, Australia or China that provide
news and reports on some EU countries or on global basis at low cost or
for free such as TradePort Country Profiles
http://www.tradeport.org/countries/index.html or http://www.usatrade.gov
where you can come across market reports on EU countries, which are made
for US exporters, which can be downloaded free.

2.2.1.4 Main high cost sources

Business information providers
You can also buy up-to-date information reports from
business information providers. These can be research
brokers/agents or research companies. Both offer a
range of international market reports through their
online databases.
Brokers and agents re-sell complete or parts of market
reports from the well-known UK and international
research companies. These reports are on many
different sectors and cover the global market, the
market in EU countries or in individual countries.

When searching on the Internet with the terms market, consumption or
production on any product/sector or country, you will immediately see
addresses of
trade partners
via international
directories

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Page 24 of 60

the names of the big research agents. In 2008 the most common agents
included Research and Markets, Mindbranch, Global Information,
Reportlinker, Report Buyer, Corporate Information, Marketresearch.com
as well as some agents from India such as Bharat Book Bureau, Aruvian
Research, RNB Research and from China such as Chinamarket.

The well-known research companies are Datamonitor, Euromonitor,
Freedonia, Mintel, AC Nielsen, GFK, `Frost & Sullivan, Key Note (UK
market) and many more. They offer a large variety of market reports,
market briefs, article service, company and retailer profiles of the EU
countries and other countries around the world.
Sometimes they are specialised in food, clothing or
in industrial products. You can find these research
companies under useful sources in chapter 2.7.

Most research companies offer valuable information and
are sometimes quite detailed on consumer behaviour,
buying patterns and retailer opinions.
Another advantage is that you have information on
several EU countries from a single source and compiled
in a similar format. However, the disadvantage is that
you have to pay for it! Sometimes prices go up to
4,000 for a European report on one sector.

Tip: Here you also can share a report or parts of it with another exporter
or BSOs, or you can commission some of these companies to make a
report.

Before buying a report, keep in mind how useful the
information must be. For example, does it provide
enough answers to your questions? Are all your target
countries covered? Check carefully the table of contents
and think about how much it would cost to gather the
information yourself.
Once you have decided to purchase a report, you must
pay in advance with a valid credit card. Then you can
download the report or have it sent by email on CD Rom
or in hardcopy. Even if you buy them in parts, these
reports are still expensive.

Tip: Be careful with the publishing date. This can be
sometimes 2 years later than all statistics in the
report. For example, the report was published in 2008, but provides
statistics for 2006. So before buying, check the summary or contact
a salesperson and ask him to send some sample pages.

Tip: Try to get anyway a sample report from another country or another
product. Then you can judge if the information given is explanatory
enough, if they give some background information and, where statistics
or statements are based, on or what product definitions they use.

Mark the sources
During your desk research try to mark the pieces of information with a date
and source. In doing so, you will know where you got it from, especially if the
information subsequently proves to be false.

if interesting, share
a report with other
exporters or a BSO

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Page 25 of 60

2.2.2 Desk research using the internet

The Internet offers an almost endless stream of information. All sources
mentioned in the previous sections have websites, so you can access
these sources and an innumerable amount of other sources anywhere
in the world, just from your desk.

An ideal method to collect data or information
The Internet is a very useful research tool, it gives you great
possibilities and if you do it right, you can save much time.
However to avoid any disillusionment:
Look first at the websites of useful sources.
If you cannot find what you need, maybe some
links or portals will lead you to some answers.
Search by keyword using different search engines,
where you must be creative when entering keywords
and narrow your search in time and know when to stop!

How and where to search via the Internet and organise
your information is further explained in the CBI export
manual Digging for gold.

Structure your Internet search
Be prepared, stick to the subject and avoid getting off the track.
Hence, like all other research methods, structure your search and
write down beforehand what you are looking for, keeping your Research
Action Plan (see chapter 2.3) at hand. Remember: always focus on
what you need to know versus what is nice to know.
In your computer create a Market Research Directory that you subdivide
into countries and then by subjects.

Take moments of reflection
Take regular breaks, for example, every hour with a moment of reflection
by asking yourself:
What was I looking for?
What did I collect so far? Do this by skimming the
documents (see chapter 2.4).
How and where does this information fit into my
Research Action Plan?
If it is useful and reliable, where do I file it into my
Market Research Directory?
What is worthwhile to print out for reading?
Decide on which countries require more information.
Can I find this out from somewhere else (by field
research, reports from business information providers)?

Tip: You can find the best results in national search
engines and use the local language of the country
concerned. You can find these engines via
http://www.whitelines.net

Internet Action and Human Interaction:
You also need people!
Do not give up when you cannot find information by
yourself. Try to take time to contact someone from any
of the relevant sources, preferably by phone or otherwise
endless access
to information
from anywhere
but dont go off
on any wild
goose chases!

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Page 26 of 60

by email. Most of the aforementioned organisations are required to inform other
people, including foreign exporters. Try to simply explain to them what you are
looking for and do not expect instant answers. When you speak to the right
person, they are often willing to answer your question or to point you in the right
direction. It also may lead to useful information and sometimes to unexpected
business contacts.

Tip: For any organisation you need to contact for additional information,
make a standard email or letter. This you can use several times
with slight modification, focussing on the people or organisation
you are contacting.

2.2.3 Primary or field research

What is it and what to collect?
Field research is the way to collect primary data by using face-to-face interviews,
store checks, observations or telephone interviews. This implies that you collect
the information on the spot. Here, you are zooming in from the general country
and sector level to your specific situation.

The role of field research?
There is often a need to validate the findings from desk research and collect
additional information. You could find some of the missing information from
interviews with buyers or consumers. You may become aware of hidden
feelings people have towards your company, country
or product. This could be a real eye-opener for you
or for your business. Even if statistics show a growing
market, field research can be crucial to making the
final decision. In other words, whether or not to enter
this market, and if so, how to do it.

For example, the exporter of tennis balls (see chapter
2.1), may have found out by desk research that
Germany was the largest EU importer between 2006
and 2008, and was increasingly importing tennis balls
from China, India, Thailand and Malaysia - but also
from smaller DC suppliers.
In order to judge if he should focus on Germany as a
target market - instead of Italy - he needs to get more
details. When visiting for example, the international trade fair, ISPO in
Germany, he can find out more on the following subjects:
Are German and Italian buyers interested in his tennis balls?
Are they aware of the production of tennis balls from his country?
Why are these smaller DC suppliers gaining ground in Germany or in Italy
(low price, special tennis balls, good quality, outsourcing, fast delivery,
tennis balls for special market segments or promotion).
What do German/Italian buyers really like in tennis balls from DC
suppliers?
Is any change taking place in the supply chain of tennis balls?

Field research often requires a whole process
Field research focuses on consumer or buyers motives (why they would buy
your product instead of your competitors product) and forms a basis for your
positioning strategy. So field research requires a well thought through and
in-depth approach and a whole research process. Here you can combine a

be aware of
hidden feelings

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Page 27 of 60

few subjects as shown in the example below, but do not combine not too
many subjects. This makes field research time consuming and more complex.
With desk research, you can combine more subjects and countries in one
process.

Field research

Advantages
Disadvantages

Direct exposure gives a better
feel for the market

Usually more expensive than
expected

Chance to meet potential
customers

Takes much time due to a lack
of contacts

You can adjust the list with
required information during the
field research

Time consuming to judge the
reliability of research specialist
see chapter 3.2

Start field research in your own country
o Companies already exporting to the EU: you
could talk with other exporters, especially those
who export to interesting markets. What do they
know that may be valuable to you? Even if they
may be reluctant, any information from them
could be of use. However, you need to verify their
information with your own data later on. You can
also talk to BSOs or other relevant associations in
your country.
o Exporters of similar products: a talk to other
companies exporting products similar to yours, but
who do not directly compete, may be useful. There
might be a way to join forces in research and enter
the export market together.

Doing it simply your own way
The most common and low cost methods for doing field research are:
Personal interviews (face-to-face) at trade fairs;
Observations at trade fairs;
Store checks;
Other techniques such as telephone interviews and Internet surveys.

2.2.3.1 Personal interviews at trade fairs

When visiting a trade fair you have a good opportunity to collect
information from potential customers as well as from competitors
and key persons in your sector. If you do not want to leave your
stand, try to reserve one or two extra days to look around and
have short conversations or interviews. Prepare this by considering
the following seven points:

a. Planning of visit
If you are planning a visit to a trade fair, plan it well in advance.
With too short notice, it will be difficult to fix appointments. If
the people you want to see have promised to give you some
information, allow them some time to have it ready.

start to talk
to colleagues

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Check the site of the trade fair and order a catalogue beforehand, so you
can get familiar with the categories, themes and products on show and
find out interesting stands and contacts. Check also if there are any
seminars or workshops at the trade fair that are worth visiting. Especially
international seminars may provide a global overview of the sector, an
insight of main players, the supply chain or other useful information.

b. Structure your personal interviews
Think about what you want to know, or your research subject (see
chapter 2.1) and which countries. You also could verify the information
you already have collected from desk research. For example, whether
the German market for tennis balls has really grown and whether this
will continue.

c. Who you want to interview?
You could make a distinction here, depending on your sector:

- Visiting potential customers Checking your chances in the markets
of buyers from importers, wholesalers
department stores, hypermarkets,
or industry.
- Visiting competitors Checking how they approach their
markets and what they sell there.
(You could pretend to be a buyer)
- Visiting key persons Getting relevant information from
experts from trade associations,
trade press, sector experts.
Try to set a realistic target on how many people to interview, the duration
of the interview of for example, 6 potential customers
(2 in 3 countries) in the morning, 20 minutes per interview;
3 competitors and 3 key personnel in 3 countries. You can
take more interviewing time; it all depends on what you
need to know from them.

d. Making appointments
Try to find out the right contact person and make an
appointment beforehand. You can use name dropping
here by saying that you received their name from
company X or from the trade association.
Briefly explain that you are interested in their company,
products and production system.
Once you are in contact with the right person, that allows
you to enter the stand. Often large stands do not allow
people to enter without having an appointment. Even if your
contact person is away or too busy, you may be able to
speak to someone else and take the opportunity to look at
their products and collect relevant brochures and leaflets.

e. The right timing
When visiting people at a trade fair, get your timing right.
At the beginning of the fair, people are not really in the
mood to answer questions from someone they do not
know well. So try to choose a quiet moment, or one of
the last days of the fair, when people are more relaxed or
sometimes bored.
A good opportunity is the golden moment, when people
are taking a coffee or having some food.
plan your visit and
think about your
research subj ects


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f. The questions
Think well beforehand about the sort of questions. Try to keep them short
and simple. If questions are long or complex, people will quickly get
confused, often leading to wrong interpretations and answers. There are
different types of questions:
- Open questions, for example Could you tell me how satisfied you
are with your current product X?
People can answer this question more freely in their own words and
this can turn quickly into a conversation, jumping from one subject
to another. A disadvantage is that it is more difficult to keep control
of the conversation. There is a higher risk of misunderstandings
and the answers are more difficult to analyse.
- Closed questions, which can be:
o Dichotomous on which only two answers are possible yes/no
or agree/disagree or see/did not see.
o Multiple choice, meaning four or more stated answers are possible.
Closed questions are useful to structure your questions. You also can
ask several questions in a short time. They are easier to analyse. The
disadvantage with closed questions is a lack of spontaneity and that
they force people to give too simple an answer, while the reality is
much more complicated.

The best thing is to start your interview by asking a
few simple spontaneous dichotomous questions from
the top of your head, followed by some open questions.
This semi-structured approach leads a conversation.

You could prepare a questionnaire with 10 - 15 questions.
Here are some hints when making your questionnaire:
Ask 2 or 3 general and easy questions first;
Is the person willing to answer your questions?
Is the person able to answer your questions?
Questions must be closely related to what you need
to know and not what is nice to know.
Questions should not lead the person to say what
you want to hear because he/she finds you a very
friendly person.
Ask the difficult/important questions in the middle or
at the end of the interview, depending on the available
time of the person. Try to briefly confirm his answer to
prevent misunderstandings.
Structure your questions by putting them in a logical
order so that you can memorize them easier.
There is less risk that you may lose track after the third
question, if the respondent talks a lot.
Dont ask two things in one question, for example:
(1) Could you tell me how satisfied you are with your
current product X and (2) why?
You can ask this second question as follows:
(2) If you are not satisfied, what could be the reason?
Avoid questions with different replies, for example:
Which trends have influenced the success of your product?
The reply includes more trends, such as more single
households, healthy eating, growing affluence in that
country and fashion influences. Therefore, ask instead:
Which major trend has influenced the success of your product?
how to ask your
questions?

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Tip: You can test your questions beforehand with your staff
or colleagues at some quiet moments and make
adjustments, if necessary.

Because many people at the stand are sales staff, they are
likely to talk about their product. When they ask who you are,
briefly introduce yourself and mention that you are trying to
get familiar with their market. Avoid selling your product.

g. The conversation
Start the conversation by making a compliment about their
product or stand or by showing an interest in their culture;
this will be often appreciated. Try to come quickly to the point
by asking him/her some simple questions. Once the person
carries on talking, try to get control of the conversation by
asking your next question. You do not need to say that it is
an interview. A small conversation sounds less demanding
than showing up an endless list of questions.
Try to get a bit deeper into each subject, which usually
generates an ongoing conversation. When jumping from one
question to another, it creates chaos for both of you.

Find out the persons position and what responsibilities he/she has within the
company. You may be able to get the name and function of a contact person
with whom you can get in touch later. If the person you have interviewed
has given you good information, you can give a small present or gadget
from your country in return.

After visiting each stand, you can use a note pad to write down relevant
information and some details of the company, their products, contact person,
special things he was talking about, which could also be personal (he visited
your country last year).

Tip: When doing your interview in a semi-structured way, you have a higher
chance of getting names of important buyers.

Combine visits to trade fairs with visits to relevant organisations
When you are at a trade fair, try to put aside some time to go to stands
of relevant organisations such as trade associations and trade
press, where you can also pick up information.
If they are not at the fair, you could visit them.
Let them know beforehand about your visit and
try to make an appointment with a key person.
Just explain what information you are looking
for, as there could be a mis-communication
between you or staff from the organisation,
dealing with your request. They may not be
familiar with your product or your situation.
Therefore, make a friendly but polite email or
letter. Avoid asking too many questions, start
with 2 or 3 questions and try to be as specific
as possible.

In your request, it is important to set a date, which gives you a reason to
follow up later. Bear in mind that when asking for information free of charge,
you cannot be sure to get specific answers.


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2.2.3.2 Observations at trade fairs and other places

When visiting a trade fair and you find it difficult to do
interviews, try to reserve 0.5 1 day to observe what
is going on in your sector. The information should be
easily apparent and not be too complicated. Observation
research is a method that allows you to get familiar
with a market, competitor and customer.

Competitor and customer observations
At trade fairs, visit at least the stands of the main
players (importers or manufacturers). At these stands,
you can you take a close look at:
Product corners, their product range and designs;
What sort of application in the case of agricultural
or industrial products;
Themes or concepts of their products and their stand;
Presentation and promotion of their products;
Their profile, locations in the EU, customers, contacts with overseas
suppliers.
In the case of a potential customer, think how your product could fit in
their product range or theme or how you could
present yourself as an outsource supplier. In the
case of a competitor, think how you can distinguish
yourself from them.

Observation is also a technique that helps to turn
the facts you have found so far into something
meaningful.

Country, culture and trend observation
Use public transport during a business trip. It may
take longer but it gives you an idea about local people
as well as advertisements in subways, railway or
bus stations. In the hotel, you could look at some
local TV stations, where commercials give you an overall picture of what is hot
and what is not.

Market place observation
The most realistic and low cost technique is a market place observation, which
you can do in shopping centres or in-store (see also next section). When
observing, pretend you are a consumer, by being a mystery shopper. During
your observation, you watch and record the actions of consumers, observing
what they buy, who buys (men, women, teens, children), impulse buying and
influences of (price) promotion.

When in-store, you will get an impression of the
sales staff and discover that some of them are not
completely knowledgeable about what they are
selling, especially when it concerns technical
products.

Tip: For any observation, try to write down the
relevant things that you see to prevent
forgetting them afterwards. You can include
these observations in sales or trade fair
reports.
in Western EU
countries..

and in Eastern
EU countries

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2.2.3.3 Store checks

Once you are in an EU country, you can do some store checks in addition to
market place observations. In these stores, you can pick up price catalogues
and see how competitor, or similar products to yours, are being displayed.
Next to getting an idea of in-store promotion and merchandising tools, you
could ask the opinion of a few people, such as the store manager or sales
staff. Try to write down everything of relevance. You can also do store checks
in online shops and e-markets.

Example 4 Exporter of coffee doing a shelf check in a supermarket

An exporter of coffee wants to check the shelves in a super or hypermarket.
By doing so, he can find out the most relevant facts on subjects such as
product positioning, competition, dominance of private labels and prices.
He checks the following:
o How many cm has coffee brand A, brand B, brand C and which brand is
market leader?
o How many cm has the stores private coffee brand?
o Which coffee brands have the most and best visibility?
o What are the prices per 250g of each of these brands?
Discount prices?
o What are the current forms of packaging and what sort of
special packages (1-2 person packs) are there?
o What is the split between fresh coffee, vacuum packed coffee,
instant coffee, convenience variations, mixed with milk powder
and cappuccino.
o What are the new types of coffee and what is their main selling
selling point in terms of flavour, authenticity, convenience or
other attributes?
o What sort of promotion, atmosphere, multi-packs, price
discounts, and form of targeting (housewives, men, busy
people)?
o What are the impulse brands?

He will try to take a picture of the whole shelf, so that he can
have a closer look at it later on. However, he must ask for
permission beforehand. At the same time, he should ask if he could speak
to the store manager. When the staff asks him why, he should say that he
is trying to get familiar with the local coffee market. He should already have
some questions in mind.

2.2.3.4 Other

Telephone interviews
These are personal interviews by phone, which is an effective low cost method
and when in contact with the right person, you can get the results quickly. If
you do it among buyers or directors of trade associations, it may take several
calls in order to reach them. Nowadays there are several operators that allow
low cost international calls. You could also call for free by using Skype, a
software program for making free phone calls over the Internet see also
http://www.skype.com but take care to use a quality headset to assure a good
connection. Test it before contacting your target group.


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You could use name-dropping here such as I got your name from Mr/Mrs.......
who I met at the last trade fair.
Try to be courteous and patient and if inconvenient call back later. At the first
call, clearly explain who you are, why you are contacting them and if they are
prepared to participate. Use a compliment such as I heard that you are the
expert in.... Follow a semi-structured approach, ask them two open questions,
and then try to create a conversation.
Try to end the conversation with a brief summary and tell him that you will
keep him informed about the results, which gives you the opportunity to get
in touch with him again. With important buyers, you can work to an
appointment to have an interview, for example at the next trade fair.
When doing telephone interviews, you will have to think about a
relevant number of people you are going to phone in your target
market.

Tip: Be as brief as possible in your approach, stay personal and
leave room for questions from the secretary or buyer. Recently
telephone research has suffered from a bad image as many
buyers and consumers are called by researchers/students,
reading up a long story, asking many questions, presenting
this in an unpleasant manner and sometimes not knowing
fully what they are talking about.

Tip: Think about the right timing. So do not call on a Monday
morning or Friday late afternoon.

Internet surveys
You can also carry out your own field research via the Internet by:
Using electronic questionnaires with existing customers or common
interest groups. A common method here is to post a questionnaire
to a newsgroup and respondents can reply by email.
By tracking and tracing visitors to your website (if you have one)
and invite them to complete a questionnaire.
By offering added value features on the website, for which
visitors have to register.

An example of an added-value functionality is offering registered visitors
a subscription to email alerts or access to a virtual trade fair, which will
update them on new developments in your range. By requesting
registration, you can directly find out who is interested in your company
and product range. Thereby, you have created a database with prospective
customers who you can approach directly.

The big advantages are the low costs, speed and tracking, whereas the
disadvantages are that Internet users are not representative of all
potential buyers or consumers, as anyone can complete the questionnaire.

Last but not least, according to a survey by Ernst & Young, an average
manager in the UK or the Netherlands is overwhelmed by hundreds
of emails and text messages every day. Consequently there is a high
chance that you will have to follow up several times in order to get a
response.

Doing it on a larger scale and in the professional way
You could decide to get more in-depth opinions, ideas and impressions
of buyers or consumers. This can be done by field research in your target
countries by research specialists. In conjunction with them you can
collecting primary
data via the I nternet
also use name- dropping
in telephone interviews

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consider the sample size (the number of people selected for field research),
which will depend on the country and your available budget. If you want to
make your research more credible to buyers, you could decide to use a more
scientific method.

For example, the exporter of tennis balls may have interviewed ten German
buyers, of which five said they might be interested in his tennis balls, but
only at extreme low prices to sell to discounters. He could start by checking
the prices of tennis balls at websites of large retailers. But still he does not
know whether many German tennis players buy their tennis balls. Is the
price of balls really important to German tennis players?

He could look for a research specialist near Munich, who may have a stand
at ISPO, and let them run questionnaires and do interviews. These
interviews can be done among a sampled target group of consumers or
tennis players. This field research will help him find out how and where
German players usually buy tennis balls (at sports retailers, department
stores, hypermarkets or discounters).
He could also find out if German consumers regard
price as more important than quality. At the same time,
he could find out how much German consumers are
prepared to pay and how they buy. Do they go to a
sports shop, buy them at the tennis court, or do they
buy balls when shopping at hypermarkets?
Or are they prepared to go specifically to a discount shop
to buy tennis balls??
With the results, the exporter can convince the buyers
to accept a reasonable price instead of an extreme low
price. Alternatively, the exporter of tennis balls can
re-focus on another target group of tennis players in
Germany such as children, by making balls with fancy
designs. Alternatively, he could look at the Italian market.

For details on how to work with research specialists - see chapter 3.

finding more
details of your
target group by
field research

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2.3 STEP 3 Research planning

When you have clarified your research objectives
and its related research subjects and questions,
and decided which research methods to use,
you can then do your research planning.
In this step, you are going to plan what sort of
information you need on which EU countries,
how detailed it needs to be and how much of it
you need. Be realistic about the time and budget
you are going to allocate for doing research.
The more subjects and countries are going to
include in your plan, the more time and money
it will cost.

Structuring your research by a Research Action Plan
You could use a Research Action Plan (see table below) that helps you to do
research efficiently and make time commitments. After you have collected
sufficient information, you can summarize all relevant points on each subject in
a brief conclusion, so that you retain the overall picture of your research process.

For example, if your research subject is Identifying five large export markets in the EU,
you can make a profile of each country, categorized by subject and with some key
statistics and facts. These profiles give you an idea of how easy or difficult it will be to
export to Germany, France, the UK, Spain or the Netherlands. It also helps you to
identify possible next steps for your entry strategy or what you need to research further.

Example 5: Research Action Plan (for the year 2008)

Country / Subj ect Sources Do by Done Results
Germany
- Market potential
CBI survey/Trade
Assoc./Portal 15 Aug 12 Aug Decreasing by 2%
- Market requirements
CBI database/EU
helpdesk 20 Aug 19 Aug Environmental regulations
- Products / trends Trade Magazines 25 Aug More research needed
- Number of customers
meeting profile A
Statistisches
Bundesamt/Magazines
25 Aug 23 Aug Bayern - 400,000
Former East - 200,000
- Distribution Euromonitor 1 Sept 30 Aug Importer / Mail order
- Prices ITC P-maps, store
checks
5 Sept 3 Sept End user 25 35. Falling
by 2% in 2008
- Competitors Magazines, Companys
websites
10 Sept 10 Sept 2 large importers (brand A, B)
2 Chinese, 1 Indian exporter
- Other Other sources 15 Sept More research needed
United Kingdom
- Market potential Mintel/ONS 16 Aug 13 Aug Growing by 3%
- etc..
France
- Market potential Trade Assoc./Portal 18 Aug 15 Aug Growing by 2%
Italy Trade Assoc. 19 Aug Waiting for information

A copy of a research plan is useful when searching on the Internet where you will come
across many subjects that are categorized or mentioned in many different ways. This

How long does it
take to answer
your research
questions?

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Research Action Plan is a simple version and keeps your search focused on your key
subjects.
In this plan, you could also include the research methods, such as which subject
you can find out by desk research, what is to be checked by field research. Try to
be honest about what you can do by yourself or your research team and about what
should be done by research specialists.

An interactive version of a Research Action Plan is given in an E-tool, which can be
downloaded from the CBI site. This RAP is closely linked this part 1 and part 2 Your
research practice. It gives you an example of a furniture exporter from Uruguay
making his Export Marketing Plan with a focus on Spain and Poland.

What next?
When pushing a research project forward, try to set a new deadline or think about
simplifying your subjects or questions. Try first of all to make an EU Research Action
Plan and then go further into details.

In your research planning you also have to think about which research technique to
use (see earlier in this chapter 2.2), how much budget you want to reserve and who
to involve in your research project (see next chapter 3).

Do not expect too much too quickly
Within a market of 27 different countries, do not expect too much information, too
quickly. Try to be realistic and try to structure your research planning. You could
reduce confusion by starting with a few countries that have much information
see next section 2.4.

Overload of data leading to cancellation
You could start very enthusiastically, but after 2 -3 weeks there may be many
downloaded files in your computer. There are many printed documents with
statistics in different languages on your desk with still missing pieces of the puzzle.
Especially collecting information from the new EU member states or smaller EU
countries (Belgium, Denmark, Portugal, Greece) takes much time.
Being overloaded with raw data and being confused, you may decide to push the
research project forward that year. There will then be a high probability that the
research will be cancelled and all efforts so far will have been useless.


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2.4 STEP 4 Collect relevant data

Once you have done the research planning and have set up a Research
Action Plan, the next step is to start collecting data from all available
sources in your own country and in EU countries in the most effective way.

Which information is available and what is easy to find?
Start with your internal sources (see chapter 2.2.1.1) and visit a BSO in
your country. They may provide you with general information on the EU,
annual reports of competitors already exporting to the EU, articles in your
local trade press and anything else that is relevant.
Then, look at the CBI market surveys (see chapter 2.2.1.2) for your sector
and get all relevant information and useful sources from where you have to
start your further research.
Trade statistics are relatively easy to get and are usually available for all
EU27 countries. They give you a rough indication on growing EU markets.
However, you have to bear in mind that re-exports can be high, especially
in the Netherlands and Belgium. Re-exports are usually destined for other
EU countries, so an increase in imports by the Netherlands for example, is
not necessarily because of a growing Dutch market.

Information not specific enough
You may find that the information from these sources
gives you a general picture about the sector, but
specific information on your product is still missing.
For example, your product is part of a larger group;
your kiwi fruits fall into a large group of other fruits,
or your wooden fountain pens fall into a large group
of writing and drawing instruments. This leaves still
some questions to be resolved.

In your further research, try to find out if there is a
specific HS code for your product or for a smaller
product group than in CBI market surveys. Check this
at the ITCs trade map or EU helpdesk and if so, get
to know the trade flows more specifically.

Often research for your product has never been done,
or companies who have done so will not share that
information with competitors. In addition, the data
that you have collected from the above sources may
be at least 1-2 years old, especially if trade statistics
were used. Also, bear in mind that southern EU
countries are relatively slow in providing sales statistics.
In the meantime, trends may have changed.

Include and structure your observations
The observations you have made during a business trip or trade fair is
valuable information. Try to write down these observations (see chapter
2.2.3.2) and try to describe what you have seen and interprete this.
Here you can ask yourself questions such as:
What is so special about it?
Did I see this before? Where was that?
Why was that stand very busy? Was it because of their product,
price or promotion?
What was special about that shop or hypermarket?
checking your
own information
first
still missing the clear
picture of your target
group for your
specific product?

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Try to structure your observations by putting them in a logical order.
If you do not have the time to write it down, ask someone else in your
office to transcribe your notes. These notes can be included as a special
report in the other information you have found so far on that country.

Which countries to start with?
You can search in one or two countries or you can research several EU
countries in one research process. Either way, start your search with easy
countries with good and up-to-date information sources, for example
Germany, France, the UK or Sweden. These countries have much
information in English. If your native language is French or Spanish,
southern EU countries would be a good start.

For the large EU countries, information on consumption and production is
often available. In addition, you can compare consumption, production or
trade structures easier, because the large countries often compile their
information according to similar definitions. You may discover some
interesting niche markets and decide to get more details here.

But if you want to look for other target countries, information from the large
EU countries focussed on your specific product/service is a good basis to go
on with the difficult countries with few information sources. These countries
simply do not have governmental agencies that collect this data on a regular
basis. But as the new EU countries become more important as markets,
more interest in basic data and better collection methods will develop.

Dealing with difficult countries needs persistence
If you really cannot find any statistics on consumption, you can collect general
information such as demographic (population growth, ageing population,
development men/women), social (households, leisure, lifestyle), economic
growth or on main industries.

You can collect this easily from National Statistics Offices, the
Worldfact Book or Wikipedia. With this and some information
about imports/exports, you can estimate future developments
in that country. You may discover interesting facts about that
country.

Which countries to combine or cluster?
If you are thinking about entering Austria, information on the
German market gives you a basic idea about trends or the mood
in German speaking countries. Besides, the German trade press
often cover the Austrian market as well. You could regard
Germany and Austria as a cluster.
This also applies for information on the Swedish market giving
you a rough idea about tastes, habits and trends in Denmark,
Finland and the Baltic States. The same applies for Poland and
some of the Eastern EU countries.

Be careful. When researching these clusters, do not generalise.
Keep in mind that differences remain between countries. See also
chapter 2 of the CBI export manual Exporting to the EU. Even within
UK, France,
Germany have
often up- to- date
information
Try to cluster but
EU countries are
not roughly the
same
I know quite certainly that I have no special gift. Curiosity, obsession
and dogged endurance have brought me my ideas

Albert Einstein

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Page 39 of 60

clusters of countries there could be great differences in lifestyle, consumer
tastes, eating habits, for example in the Benelux.

Structure and categorize data by country and by subject
Start to categorize all data during collection when searching on the
Internet and use your market research directory. In this directory, you
create folders that you name by country and subdivide into subjects
such as consumption, production, trade flows, trade channels or prices.

When coming across very interesting documents or reports, print these
out as they are easier to read than on a screen. This allows you to highlight
important information, make notes on them and look at them regularly.
Categorize your prints in the same way as your market research directory
and label each pile by country. This enables you to keep track of how your
data is built up and how you can easily re-locate it.
By going through your directory after each search, you can recognise
from which countries and subjects you have sufficient data and what
you still need to collect.

Use clever reading techniques
You can save much time and energy during your Internet search and
categorizing by:
Skimming: You skim over the surface of the text and read it at
speed, similar to when you are quickly reading a newspaper or
magazine. Take notes of passages that need attention afterwards.
Scanning: You scan rapidly the pages of a document or report
looking for specific information. For example, you scan when
trying to find a word in a dictionary.
Submarine reading: You read through the text carefully and at
the same time think and analyse what is being said, comparing
it with other things you have read, agreeing or disagreeing with
it, re-reading parts you do not understand and noting missing
or incorrect information. This reading needs your full concentration.
Submarine reading is required in Step 5 Analysis.


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2.5 STEP 5 Analysis from data to information

When you think to have collected enough data you should have it categorized well
in print and in your computer (Market Research Directory). Now its time to scan,
sort and read all documents, taking out what is relevant, understand it, check if it is
good information, make comparisons and draw your conclusions. The analysis can
be subdivided into four parts, although in reality some of these parts are done at
the same time.

You can proceed in this step as follows:
Sorting and avoid getting lost
Filtering and understanding
Checking and comparing
Relationships and conclusions

Sorting and avoid getting lost

In the past 20 years, various innovations such as computers,
television, satellites have pushed people from a state of information
scarcity to a state of information surplus in a very short time.
So in addition to effective collection of data, you must be able to
manage and to handle all this information. Therefore, you have
to sort your data as much as you can.

As already mentioned in step 2.4, you can start to categorize your
data while searching. Keep control by reviewing your subjects
per country and try to fill in some parts in your Research Action Plan.

This structured approach of working prevents you getting lost in an
information overload. If you do not have the time yourself, someone
else could do this for you. The sooner and the most effectively the
data is sorted, the better it will be in the end.

After having done most sorting, you will see what is still missing. If it is
really essential, you could consider buying this missing data from business
information providers. Nevertheless, you can carry on with the analysis of
the countries where you have sufficient data.

Filtering and understanding

Now it is time for submarine reading. You have to read
carefully all data and information and filter out what is
relevant. When reading each document, ask yourself:
is it is relevant for my research objective, subjects and
questions? Put aside everything, which is not or not
directly relevant. You may have come across documents
that caught your attention simply because they
contained one or more trigger words relating to your
subject. But when looking closely at it, there is no real
value or just a couple of phrases with some value
such as summaries of reports, articles about interesting
reports that are just advertorials. Put this to one side
as well.

There may be documents that need to be translated,
dont lose yourself
in an information
overload

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but judge first which parts are necessary before putting
effort into it. You might understand already things from
the tables such as consumption or production in the
last 5 years, main retailers and shares. If there are
interesting trends like market growth or detailed
descriptions of consumers or manufacturers, try to
translate and understand this.

When reading printed documents, highlight important
parts like sales, consumer target groups, buying motives,
or trends in the trade with a text marker. You can
also write important statistics or facts on a separate
sheet, so that you always have this information at hand.

The main purpose in this part of your analysis is that you start to form a
picture of interesting EU countries that you need to sharpen by every
additional piece of information you can find. These countries could become
your target markets. For example, the exporter of tennis balls found out
that Italy is more interesting than Germany, because volume imports grew
by 10% every year between 2004 and 2008. In the same period, the
number of Italian tennis players increased as well. Although the German
market may have grown by 2% every year, there are many competitors.
In addition, from field research he learned that many German buyers
regard a low price as most important. So he concentrates on sharpening
further his picture of Italy.

Focussing in on Italy, he could deepen his understanding by taking another
look at all Italian documents that he has put aside earlier. He also should
collect extra information by desk research and include more background
information on the Italian sports goods market. Additional field research
could be considered at a later stage.

Checking and comparing

Now that you understand most of your documents and notes and have
become more focussed on some EU countries, you will have to look at the
quality of it by checking its reliability, completeness and comparability.

Reliability
You can look at the reliability by asking yourself the following questions:

Who wrote it and where did you get it from?
Especially data collected from the Internet may not be reliable or
trustworthy. So check the writer of the article or report, or also check
if the site gives an address or telephone number of a person or
organisation. What was your impression of the whole site?

Example 6 Is the buyers information always right?

A buyer or someone you interviewed at a trade show may have told
you that the market size for product X is 1,500 million in his country
and he may have given you many other figures and statements,
pretending he knows it all.
Write down that information, but do not believe him straight away
and definitely check it with the information you have found so far.
You may come across an article in a trade magazine or in a report
check the quality
of the information
you have found

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that estimates this market size at 850 million one year before.
Check these figures by looking at:
- Population statistics where you can calculate the per capita
consumption, dividing 1,500 million by the population. The
outcome you can compare with a country similar in size and
in living standards.
- How the article/report and the buyer could have defined the market
size.
- How did the buyer express the market size? Was that in retail
sales or in consumer expenditure. In case of retail sales was it
including or excluding VAT?

Why did they write it?
Bear in mind that each product/market combination can be viewed from
different angles. For example, a report on orange juice in Spain can be made
from the perspectives of:
o The growers of oranges
o The processors of oranges
o The governmental offices making legislation on packaging methods
o The wholesale/retail trade
Check first the type of organisation (commercial, personal, academic or
governmental) and think about their possible motives in making that report,
such as selling information, recruiting members, selling an opinion or selling
assistance. Generally, reports made by government or NGOs, such as CBI, are
quite neutral, unbiased and reliable.

When was it written?
Check the year of publication and its statistics. If it is too old, put it aside and
you could use it for your background information if you cannot find anything
on that country.

How was it written?
Check the tone of the article or the person you interviewed. Was it not too
exaggerated? Even official statistics are sometimes too optimistic, reflecting
national pride rather than reality. Also bear in mind that companies
sometimes understate sales statistics in order to match their sales reported
to tax authorities.
Check also if some market developments are not too generalised.
It is sometimes very easy to make statements on an EU level, but does
that apply to all countries? Does that apply to all regions within each
country (urban as opposed to rural areas)?
And, to all consumer groups or industries?

Completeness and up- to- date
For all EU countries you can try to get the full picture.
However, in reality this is difficult and it will take much
time and cost, especially if you want up-to-date statistics.
Most statistics available are two years old, which is a
reasonable time frame to know consumption and trade
statistics in each country, using Eurostat.
You may get more recent data from Germany or the
UK. Still, two year old statistics are a good basis to
understand the trends in different EU countries.

two year old
statistics as a
good basis

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Comparability and different sources
It is difficult to compare EU countries, due to a lack of data in some countries.
Bear in mind that EU countries use different sources, methodologies and
different ways in reporting their statistics. Especially, southern EU countries
and smaller EU countries have their typical definitions and specific categories
of product groups or retailers.

When looking at several EU markets, the ideal situation is when you have
it from a single source, using the same product or market definitions. Try
to use a single source especially for general data (demographic, socio-
economic trade statistics, retailing). Still, it will be extremely hard to find
a low cost single source for your specific product in the market size in all
27 EU countries.

You may find this in online databases or in reports from business information
providers, but it will be expensive and even then, it is not certain that they are
correct. On the other hand, you also come across different versions of the same
information of a country or subject. So take out the most recent and reliable
version and keep the other versions aside.

Relations and conclusions

Now you must have selected the most relevant and
reliable data, information, statistics and your field
interview reports. This is now sorted by country and
subject in the form of printed documents with highlights
and your notes. After having gone through them
several times, you should know your way around all
these documents.

Next, you will have to go deeper into all of it and try
to find relationships between statistics, statements
and developments. Take some time and concentration
and here proceed in a structured way and do not lose
sight of what you need to know. Most of the additional
statistics of all EU countries, you can find at National
Statistics Offices, Eurostat or the Worldfact Book.

You can look for possible relationships between:

The market size statistics you have found and the economic development
in terms of consumer behaviour and consumer spending in country Y in
the same period. Next to the check of the reliability of your statistics, you
can look what happened in the past five years and particularly in the
current, if available, or in the last year.

Consumption, production and imports/exports. There is a relationship
between these developments. But be careful! If imports are high
production is high and exports are low, you could conclude that the
apparent consumption is extremely high. This is not always true. You
will have to consider high levels of stock that can be built up by large
wholesalers in order to export these products the next year to a
neighbouring country. Another reason for high imports could be the
establishment of a large international supplier who also builds up stock.
A reason for low exports could be an abrupt fall in demand by the major
export market of that country, falling exchange rates of Asian destinations,
different sources
and different
methodologies

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or simply a miscalculation. See also chapters 2.3.1 and 2.3.3.3 of part 2
'Your research practice'.

Other relevant relations for your product or service, such as:
- The climate in a country, or cluster of countries, and the type of
footwear (boots in colder countries).
- The height of people and the size of footwear, clothing, furniture
(beds, tables) and meal proportions.
- The number of working women and the sales of fashionable
clothing, footwear, jewellery and accessories.
- The size of households, the area (urban or rural) and the
size and tastes in furniture, furnishing and home textiles.

Each time when making these connections, ask yourself what you can conclude
after you clearly understand the reason. You also could try to find out the
reasons for increases or decreases in sales, or of sudden peaks in import or
production. Try to find out the reason behind this growth, and assess whether
this will continue in the near future by looking closer at the relationships you
have found. For example between:

Less farmers in the EU Intensive use of advanced agricultural and horticultural
machinery by large farms requiring more spare parts.
Economic recession Falling housing markets, less demand for household
and furnishing goods. Or, a rising demand for second
hand goods, increased sales by discounters etc.
Specific news or events Bird Flu, BSE, industrialisation in agriculture leading
to more demand for organic food.

Other reasons can be found in market trends related to changing consumer behaviour,
technological developments, changing safety regulations and so on.

Most data you may have collected by desk
research, especially from sites of local trade and
consumer magazines.

If you are an exporter of e.g. clothing, textile,
cosmetics, jewellery, furniture, interior decorative
articles, gifts, gardening articles, you can predict
demand and understand relationships by knowing
the future trends in fashion. You may have
become familiar with these trends, from the
information collected and your observations
during your field research. See also the CBI
export manual Your guide to product and range
development which can be downloaded from
http://www.cbi.eu/marketinfo

On a country-by-country basis, you could check these relationships by starting
with Germany or France as reliable and accurate information sources. Once you
have clarified the relevant relationships in these countries, this will give you an
idea of the future development in other EU target countries. You could use this
when estimating demand or forecasting sales.

what can you
conclude after
you clearly
understand
the reason?

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2.6 STEP 6 Write and present the report

By the time that you have read and reviewed your documents and made the
relevant connections, you will have a clear idea of the results and conclusions
for your research action plan and possibly for the whole research project.

Now that all data has been collected and put into a useful format, it now must
be transformed into intelligence. Try to predict what will happen, how it will
develop, how it fits into your business objective and your export marketing
plan. In terms of further research, think about what other research you
should do and when.

But resist the temptation to drop any information
or relevant facts that do not conform with your first
conclusions. Try to make honest assessments in which
the conclusions reached are backed up by convincing
evidence.

In this transformation process, you use your analyses
and expertise to show how markets operate. Also
clarify the threats and opportunities and the possible
consequences of actions by others (competitors)
operating in the same market.

The result can be summarized into a brief report. Preparing a thorough
report may take a long time. When working with a research specialist,
you may expect a clearly understandable written report with relevant
details this should be one of their skills.

If you have to communicate the results by yourself, you could express
them in the form of a presentation, instead of a written report.

Whatever the form of presentation, the results of a research must
be as short and as clear as possible. As a rule, by Keeping It Short
and Simple it remains clear to yourself and this will be surely
appreciated by others.

The result should at least include:

A brief explanation why the research was done.
The research objectives.
How the research was done (methodology).
What are the main findings (consumers, competitors,
trends, opportunities, threats...).
Conclusions and recommendations.
Appendices (statistics and addresses).

Your report should be easy to understand for all involved and give
indication for further actions.

Keep it short
and simple

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2.7 Useful sources

CBI
The CBI market information database at http://www.cbi.eu/marketinfo offers information
on EU markets including extensive information on market access requirements for 37
product sectors. You can download information by going to Search CBI database, select
your sector and your EU target country, click on the search button and filter your result on
market access requirements, market surveys or marketing guidelines. The database also
gives links to further information.

The RAP can be downloaded from http://www.cbi.eu, go to Suppliers, select Export
tools, then select Research Action Plan (RAP).

EU website
The official EU website has much on the workings of the EU, and other trade-related
information which may be useful. See http://europa.eu.int
and http://europa.eu.int/comm/trade/index_en.htm. For example if you look for
country information, choose your language, go to `the EU at a glance and then select
countries.


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International, multi-lateral organisations and NGOs
Trade statistics between the EU and the rest of the world can be found at
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu or at Eurostat
http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/eurostat/
or at the main site of the EU at http://europa.eu.int/.

Other relevant international organisations and NGOs are
UNCTAD (UN Conference on Trade & Development http://www.unctad.org)
OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development http://www.oecd.org)
FAO (Food & Agriculture Organisation of the UN http://www.fao.org)
ITC (International Trade Centre http://www.intracen.org)
ICTSD (International Centre for Trade & Sustainable Development http://www.ictsd.org)
ILO (International Labour Organisation http://www.ilo.org)
ISO (International Standards Institute http://www.iso.org)
CEN (European Committee for Standardisation http://www.cenorm.be).

More general information can be found at the sites of:
NAFTA, the North Altantic Free Trade Association http://www.mac.doc.gov/nafta/
ECB, European Central Bank http://www.ecb.int/home/html/index.en.html
PRB Population Reference Bureau http://www.prb.org/
IMF, the International Monetary Fund http://www.imf.org/
WTO, the World Trade Organisation http://www.wto.org/; the World Bank
http://www.worldbank.org/data/countrydata/countrydata.html;
United Nations http://www.un.org/
CIA World Fact Book http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook and
Wikipedia Encyclopaedia http://www.wikipedia.com

International directories
Retailers database Europe http://www.retail-index.com/
International Database of foodservice operators http://www.foodservice-index.com/
European Business Register http://www.ebr.org/
Europages http://www.europages.com/
Kelly search http://www.kellysearch.com
Thomas Global Register http://www.tgrnet.com/;
Kompass http://www.kompass.com/
Hoovers http://www.hoovers.com/
http://www.emarketservices.com
http://www.alibaba.com

International universities
Cambridge University Library http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/
Yale University Library http://www.library.yale.edu/
Harvard Libraries http://lib.harvard.edu/
Paris Sorbonne University http://www.paris4.sorbonne.fr/en/article.php3?id_article=11
Humboldt Berlin University Library http://www.ub.hu-berlin.de/english/welcome.html
Oxford Universities Libraries http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/
The British Library http://www.bl.uk/
MIT University Library http://libraries.mit.edu/
Stanford Library http://www-sul.stanford.edu/
Singapore University Library http://www.ntu.edu.sg/publicportal/
Peking University Library
http://www.zhongguancun.com.cn/en/facilities/Libraries-Peking%20University.asp.htm
IFLA International Federation of Library Associations http://www.ifla.org/


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Research brokers or agents:
Research and markets http://www.researchandmarkets.com/
Marketresearch.com http://www.marketresearch.com/
Mindbranch http://www.mindbranch.com
Global Information, http://www.globalinformation.com
Reportlinker http://www.reportlinker.com
Report Buyer http://www.reportbuyer.com
Corporate Information http://www.corporateinformation.com
Bharat Book Bureau http://www.bharatbook.com
Aruvian Research http://www.aruvian.com
RNBResearch http://www.rnbresearch.com
Chinamarket http://chinamarket.ccidnet.com

Research companies:
Datamonitor http://www.datamonitor.com/
Euromonitor http://www.euromonitor.com/
Mintel, market research and consumer intelligence http://www.mintel.com/
Freedonia http://www.freedonia.com
Frost & Sullivan http://www.frostandsullivan.com
Key Note http://www.keynote.co.uk
ACNielsen Trends and Insights http://www.acnielsen.com/
IRI Information resources http://www.infores.com/
Synovate, Research Reinvented http://www.synovate.com/
GfK, Growth from Knowledge http://www.gfk.com/
Nielsen Netratings, Internet audience measurement and analysis
http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/
NPD global tracking data http://www.npd.com
Taylor Nelson EU tracking data http://www.tns-sofres.com
The Economist - country briefings http://www.economist.com/countries/
Martec International http://www.martec-international.com/
Aneki/ energy per capita http://www.aneki.com/fr/consommation.html
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3. Organising market research

In chapter 2, the 6-step research process was explained, with the major methods
of collecting data in a structured way and transforming this in useful information.
Chapter 3 focuses in on the practical side of your research in terms of preparation,
planning, budget, involvement of other people and the organisation of your
collected data and information.

3.1 Research preparation

In chapter 2.3 we already showed how you can structure your research subjects
and countries by using a Research Action Plan (RAP). When developing a RAP
(what you want to find out) and using the step-by-step Research Process (how
you are going to do it), you have to consider what you need to do. Here you must
prepare your research by making commitments in terms of planning and budget.

When to start?
When starting up a research process, you will need to estimate a reasonable deadline
for the collection of data and by when you want to have all information analysed.
You will have to categorize your objectives, subjects, questions
and countries, think how much time it would take to get the
information and set dates.

You should start collecting information at least 1.5 months
before analysis, depending on what you want to know, which
methods you intend to use and how many people are involved.
Especially when you have to ask for information (by email,
fax) from trade associations or trade press, it may easily take
a couple of weeks before you obtain it, even when reminding
people a few times.

How much time do you need?
An average research process can easily take 3-4 months or
longer. Especially when you research several EU countries from
overseas, the process will take much time. Also bear in mind that
information on eastern EU countries is not easy to get from the Internet.

You also definitely need to translate some parts of the collected information
and read it all. Still, there is no standard indication of time and the length
of a process depends on the complexity of your research objective, number
of subjects and number of countries.

Market research never stops
Once you have started to do market research, you will have to do it continuously.
By ongoing monitoring, you can keep control over developments in your target
markets and anticipate your opportunities in time. In doing so, you will definitely be
taken more seriously by your trade partners and by other contacts in your markets.

3.2 Research during your export venture

When starting your export venture, you can work according to several stages. At each
stage, you will have to do market research by formulating what you want to find out
through research objectives, subjects and questions.
How many objectives and subjects and in which order, will depend on your specific
situation, your sector (consumer goods or industrial goods) or the number of target
countries.
categorize at
each step and
stay focused on
your target
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For the purpose of doing market research, we advice to work according to the following
stages:

1. Introduction & Mission.
2. Current market position.
3. Market and industry trends (market potential, market requirements, market
developments, market segments and market structure).
4. Export audit (SWOT and Competitors analysis).
5. Market assumptions and Export objectives.
6. Market entry strategy (target market/country, target group, positioning,
product and brand, price, distribution and promotion).
7. Export organisation (management responsibilities, action plan, budgets,
forecasts, feedback and evaluation).

Part 2 Your research practice helps you to formulate your research objectives at each
stage. It also tells you what the main research subjects are at each stage and what
possible questions you can ask yourself.
You can find what would be the best research method to use at each stage, where you
can find information on these subjects in CBI publications and in what other sources
you may find most of the answers. This practical part also gives you an idea about
the planning of your research in terms of timing, human resources and budget.

Part 3 is an interactive version the Research Action Plan (RAP) from chapter 2.3, which
follows the above stages. This E-tool shows you an example of Creative Woodworks
a furniture exporter from Uruguay who discovers, by doing market research, that there
are good opportunities to target older people in the Spanish market. They conclude
that Spanish importers would be the best trade partner for them. At the same time,
they found opportunities to produce chairs for small manufacturers in Poland.
In this RAP, you can also find how Creative Woodworks make their market entry
strategy more solid by choosing the right positioning and marketing mix. All their
decisions are based on the information obtained by low cost market research, mainly
done by themselves. This RAP can be downloaded from the CBI website.

3.3 Research budget

How much budget to reserve?
Any form of structured research implies that you have
to reserve a budget as accurate as possible. If you know
well beforehand the limits of your available budget, it will
be clearer to you whether to work with research specialists
or not. You also have to be careful when buying reports
from business information providers see chapter 2.2.1.4.

Tip: Always start your research at the CBI as all market
surveys, the database and other publications are free
of charge to exporters and BSOs in developing countries.

If you have no budget, you still need to spend the time on
market research to be allocated with the permission of others. For
example, general information on EU countries from Eurostat and the
World Bank is free of charge. However, you should allocate time to
extract what is relevant out of these statistics.
When searching on the Internet, you will find out that the more specific
information you want, the more expensive it will be.
If you do field research, you definitely have to allocate a budget, especially
when working with research specialists. If you do it yourself at trade shows
or when visiting your target markets, here also you must allocate extra
you need to
make
commitments
____________________________________________________________________________________________


Page 51 of 60

time for yourself or for the other persons doing field research by your sales
or marketing manager.

Even though Internet technology makes access to information much easier,
you still need to make a commitment in terms of budget and time. Being well
informed means being well prepared, which improves your chances in the
market.

3.4 Involving other people in research

In the preparation of your research, you should also
consider the formation of a research team. Especially
when researching export markets, it may take much
time when it is done by one person. The best way is
to divide this extra workload and involve more people.
The advantages are that more information can be
gathered, at different spots and from more different
points of view. Before the formation of your research
team, think about what you can do by yourself and
if/when you have to involve a research specialist.

What can you collect by yourself?
Most of the desk research using the Internet can be
done by yourself or within your company. You could
also have the data collected by trainees or students
under your own supervision or by your marketing
manager. It is important though, that the trainee
can work orderly, is persistent, can deal with much
information (sorting, categorizing) and can judge
when to stop searching. It would be ideal to have
someone who knows some foreign languages.

Data collection usually takes time, so trainees can do
much of this work. However, you must give them a
clear briefing of what you want and try to stay involved
with their progress.
The advantage of doing the research yourself, or under
your supervision, is that you have the complete market
understanding and you know better what you need than
other people.
On the other hand, it will cost you much time in the
beginning to find the right sources. You may also find it
hard to judge the reliability of sources from the Internet.

As for field research, you should visit EU countries in
order to get a better feel of your target groups and
buyers. There is a good opportunity when visiting an
exhibition. Try to do some research at the show itself
and in the city where it is held. Although an analysis by a local researcher
is expensive, do not underestimate the costs of your own analysis.
In addition to the time and money spent on the trip, you need time for
preparation. For example, you must find out relevant organisations, make
appointments and know where to find them. One option could be to hire a
consultant in the target market, who prepares an itinerary for you and who
joins you during the trip.

j oining forces
within your
Research team
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Tip: You can work with colleagues in your country and by joining forces
you can save time and money. You can also share information sources
by shared bookmarking, social bookmarking, shared favourites.
Shared or Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to share
and to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks, which means
links to web pages.

Tip: You can also link up computers of research teams in your company
and of sister companies. Each person involved can open up a:
- gmail account (http://www.gmail.com) that gives you the possibility
to use Google Docs in which you can share documents, spreadsheets
with other people.
- del.icio.us account (http://del.icio.us/).

When to involve a research specialist?
Maybe for specific subjects or analysis purposes or research techniques you have
to get in touch with specialists. Outside help can be useful if you do not have
enough knowledge and experience in house. Researchers who are well informed
and have many contacts in the sector of your product can provide much
information in a short period. They also can give you additional information that
can be relevant for your strategy.

Desk research can be outsourced to specialised researchers or consultants, who
can do a customised research for you, but you will have to pay for it - see also
chapter 2.2.1.4.
In the case of field research, you probably will discover research methods you
would not have used yourself, because of the complexity and time-factor.
Moreover, preparing questionnaires, sampling a target group, running hundreds
(or even thousands) of personal interviews (or telephone interviews) and running
a statistical analysis are not easy jobs.

An important advantage of commissioning the research externally is that
there is an independent, un-biased view and outcome. Another advantage is
that local consultants or creative specialists can offer a large input to concept
making, product adaptation or product sample testing. They usually are better
informed about the right designs, colours and shapes.

On the other hand, research specialists can be very expensive. So seriously
consider beforehand whether they are really needed and whether the result
would be worth your investment.

Research by yourself or by a specialist

By yourself
By a research specialist

Self orientation and familiarisation

Entrepreneurs are biased

Networking

Gives much credibility to others

Flexibility in research objectives

Use scientific methods for sampling

Flexibility in methodology

Use methods for extrapolation (forecasts)

a neutral view
and credibility
to buyers
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How to work with research specialists?
Some misunderstandings and myths about market research (see Chapter 1.2)
were created by market research communities. Some of them formed a
mystique about their own profession and its services.
Especially large research companies such as Nielsen
or Gfk developed their jargon and their own
approaches. They claim that only those people
who were properly trained the research priests
were able to conduct reliable market research.
In some cases they are correct because research
professionals do have the experience, the accuracy,
and specific knowledge of consumers, especially in
their own country.

But for you, a useful research specialist should be
someone who can find his way around EU information
sources, who is able to collect information quickly,
who speaks some foreign languages and has some
knowledge of your sector. He must be trained to analyse quickly and
thoroughly and should be able to give you the right answers in order to
meet your research objectives.
Once you have decided to work with a specialist, the research process is
very important in order to avoid misunderstandings. Please take note of
the following tips:

The briefing: a document in which you and the specialist agree on
the research objective, process, planning, methodology, deliverables
(report, CD ROM and Internet) and cost of the research project.
After meeting the specialist, he will write a briefing (or research
proposal) on which you have another meeting, to make sure he can
do the job and to avoid all kinds of misunderstandings (wrong problem
definition, wrong target group). In the end the specialist will make
a de-briefing on which you finally agree.

Always ask a few research specialists: compare their skills,
relevant expertise, ability to do the job fast and on the spot and their
costs. If you ask them to make a proposal on a no win-no fee basis,
it would be polite to send them a small letter letting them know that
you do not wish to continue the job with them.

Advance payment 50% : once you have agreed to start the research,
do not be surprised if they ask you to pay 50% in advance to finance
their initial costs.

Once the research has been completed, you
should expect to receive a comprehensive
report on your researchers findings, in answer
to your brief. The researcher will also provide
recommendations on your best route forward
and any further research that may be useful
for you.

research process
and briefing very
important
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3.5 Organising your information (MIS)

Each research process leads to more information and in order to use this
effectively you will have to organise all collected data and information and
make it accessible to all people in your company or to your sister/colleague
company.
Most data collected will provide you indications for your market entry
strategy. But you will also have come across data or information, which
was nice to know, but you did not need immediately. Some of this data or
pieces of information may have led to new questions. If you were focussed
on your research objective and questions, you may have ignored them.
However, you still should categorize them by country, by subject, and
keep them aside for later analysis or for future research.

Organising data and information
The words data, information, knowledge and intelligence are often confused
for definitions see glossary. Intelligence is acquired when following the steps
of the research process, as described in Chapters 2.5 and 2.6.

In smaller companies, marketing decisions are often driven by informal rather
than formal data, due to a lack of money and time. The management may think
that their informal data is sufficient for their business. There is much data in the
directors or managers heads. Often there is no time to make this data available
to others, or to sort, filter and convert this data into information.

Setting up a marketing information system - MIS
You can get the best out of your collected data by setting up a MIS,
especially useful for a BSO. This is a tool to collect, verify, analyse, store
and regularly feed out information to all people who are somehow involved
in marketing decisions. It may take some time to set up such a system,
depending on the form of your MIS. You can find some cases of setting
up MIS systems for NGOs via http://www.popcouncil.org or via
http://www.concordeurope.org.

Procedures of an MIS
When setting up a MIS you must also think about the procedures of such a
system. Important questions in this respect are:

- Who is doing what to set up and maintain such as system?
- When and how often should they do this?
- What are your qualified and verified information sources?
- Can you use these sources?
- How do you or your research team analyse or summarize
this information? Can you use templates here?
- How to organise, categorize and store this information so that
anyone can get this easily?

Once this MIS is established, all people involved can benefit from its functional
capabilities, especially if you have created your own electronic database. With
the help of some specialised computer software, you can automatically
incorporate data feeds to your MIS from the Internet and from other external
sources. A MIS is often designed to make sure that:
Market research and market analyses are done regularly.
Internal and external data and information sources are fully used.
The collected and stored information is tailored to your specific
requirements.
data are
ingredients
to prepare
the recipe
sharing
information
with others
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Which form does a MIS have?
Many marketing information systems are electronic, but this is not a
necessity. In fact, you create your companys own library. You could rely
entirely on written records and keep all data categorized in hardcopy.
The advantage of hardcopy is that it reads much easier than on a
screen and people can quickly find what they are looking for. On the
other hand, hardcopy takes up much space.

How can you develop a MIS?
An electronic MIS can be developed relatively easily by using a Microsoft
SQL database. You can also develop this by using MySQL database, an
open source application that can be downloaded free of charge. You
could also use several document management systems that have open
source applications. These systems are web-enabled, which means that
they can be placed in an Internet or Intranet environment rather easily.
This means that it can be shared by other people in your company or
your colleague company.

You can label information with: subjects/countries/keywords/year/source
variables. This makes retrieval of data quite easy.
An MIS could be also a combination of data in hardcopy (books, magazines,
papers and reports), CD ROMs and data held in computer files.

What sort of information should be in a MIS?
Of course, this varies from company to company but most common
categories are:

I nternal data and information
- Company data showing sales by product category, customer
category, distribution channel and price level, margins, profit,
inventory levels, promotional expenditure.
- Forecasts of sales and new markets.
- News and gossip coming from sales reports, news, trends from
external sources.

External data and information
- Market information which enables you to monitor your
performance. This includes market size, average order size, demand
by product group, by country, by market segment, by trade channels,
price /product developments and consumer trends.
- Market requirements including quality standards, tariffs and quota.
- Competitors information covering products, changes in market
share, prices, promotional activities, staff changes and new
developments.

your own library
in hardcopy.
or in an
electronic
database
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Checklist

Checklist for improving your competence in research

THE MARKET RESEARCH PROCESS

Can you formulate relevant research objectives, subjects and questions? (Chapter 2.1)
Are you familiar with secondary or desk research? (Chapters 2.2.1 and 2.2.2)
Are you aware of the main free, low cost and high cost sources? (Chapters 2.2.1)
- Do you know what to find in the different forms of the CBI market surveys? (Chapter 2.2.1.2)
- Do you know how to use the CBIs market info database, export manuals and other useful
publications? (Chapter 2.2.1.2)
Do you know how to do your own low cost primary or field research? (Chapters 2.2.3)
- Do you recognize what sort of field research you can do in your own country? (Chapter 2.2.3)
- Are you aware what to discover by interviews and observations during trade fairs and store checks?
(Chapters 2.2.3.1, 2.2.3.2 and 2.2.3.3)

Do you grasp the technique to sort, filter, check, understand and make relationships between
all data/information that you have collected? (Chapters 2.4 and 2.5)
Can you write the summary conclusions into a brief report? (Chapter 2.6)
Can you plan your market research and reserve the necessary budget? (Chapters 3.1 and 3.3)
What can you do by yourself? Or what can your staff or trainees do? (Chapter 3.4)
Can you organise your data and information? (Chapter 3.5)

RESEARCH DURING YOUR EXPORT VENTURE

Look at part 2 Your research practice.
Look at part 3 the RAP that can be downloaded from the CBI website.

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Glossary

Apparent consumption
Rough estimation of consumption, which is calculated by the production figure and adding
the imports minus the exports and inventory level in that year. This method is often used
in FAO statistics.

Apparent sales
Rough estimation of sales if you know the number of companies or retail outlets in a
country or region selling your product. By estimating their average sales per year, you
may get a picture of what is being sold in that year.

Bookmark
A file on your computer in which you can store all the URLs of useful Internet sites which
you frequently visit. In Explorer, you can create bookmarks in the favourites which you
can see on the menu bar.

Briefing
A document that confirms the requirement for, and scope of, a proposed research
project. Among others, the research objective, process, planning, methodology,
deliverables (e.g. report, CD Rom etc.) and cost of the project should be mentioned
and agreed by both parties.

These are research companies and information providers offering online reports or parts
of reports at a high cost. You can also buy up-to-date information reports online.
You often will have to pay in advance online by a valid credit card. Examples are
Frost&Sullivan, LexisNexis, Euromonitor, Marketresearch.com.

Consumption or consumer expenditure is calculated based on a large sample survey
commissioned by the National Statistics Offices (every 4 years) or large research
companies.

Consumption per capita
Consumption or retail sales in a country divided by the total national population.

Customised research
Desk and or field research done by research specialists and which are tailored to your
needs or to your specific research problem.

Data
Data (primary and secondary) is the raw material from which marketing intelligence is
ultimately derived. It includes all kinds of facts, complete or incomplete, in various degrees
of accuracy and can be formal or informal (e.g. opinions. feeling, suspicions).

Desk research
The technique to collect secondary data from existing sources, which can be subdivided
into internal (e.g. data within your company) and external sources (e.g. Trade Association,
Business Support Organisation, Internet etc.).

EMP
The Export Marketing Plan, which is a useful tool that help you to organize your export
venture. It can be downloaded from http://www.cbi.eu

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Field research
The collection of primary data in the target markets using interviews, questionnaires,
store checks, observations, telephone interviews, product testing etc.. It focuses in on
details and opinions of consumers or buyers related to your specific product. Field research
is mostly done on the spot and usually follows desk research or done to verify the findings
of desk research.

Industry sales
Sales figures, often provided by trade associations. These sales figures also include sales
to export markets, which you will have to deduct to calculate the domestic sales.

Information
The process to filter and digest the data and convert them into patterns. During this
process, you try to collect all categories, to reconcile contradictory items, to interpolate
missing information, to identify inaccurate data and deepen the overall picture of your
target markets.

Intelligence
Intelligence or market intelligence results from the transformation of knowledge by
predicting how the market will develop and how it can be acted upon.

Knowledge
Further analyses of information by an interpretation of all relevant information in order
to understand what it means.

Marketing
The process of planning and the execution of the conception, pricing, distribution and
promotion of ideas, products (agricultural, consumer or industrial) and services, which
is done in an efficient way and at a profit.

Marketing Information System MIS
This is a tool to collect, verify, analyse, store and regularly feed out information to
those people responsible for making marketing decisions.

Marketing mix
The unique blend of product/service, pricing, distribution and promotion strategies
designed to reach a specific target market.

Market players
Domestic and foreign suppliers such as importers, manufacturers who have a
considerable share in the market. Suppliers with the largest share are the main players
who dominate that market.

Market research
The collection and analysis of information about markets, people, companies and
organisations that will enable you to make better decisions for your export marketing
plan.

Market segmentation
Subdividing a market into distinct categories of consumers - or consuming industries
with similar wants and behaviour patterns. A market can be also segmented into other
categories e.g. by product, by season etc.

Perception
The process by which people select, organize and interpret information to form a
meaningful picture.

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Portal
A starting point for research on the Internet. They usually have a subject focus, such
as by product (food, ingredients, jewellery) by science or as a general starting point
for research on the web (e.g. Yahoo). All information portals are designed to be
one-stop-shops for all your information needs.

Positioning
Positioning is a term used to refer to how you want consumers (or buyers) to think of
your product or service relative to those of competitors.

Primary market data: In this case, you or a professional researcher collects data
directly from the foreign marketplace through interviews, surveys, and other direct
contact with representatives and potential buyers.

Quantitative research: This research is done to find out all general characteristics
and statistics of your target group aimed at describing how large they are, in which
region or country they live, their age, sex, income level etc..

Qualitative research is often used to understand more deeply your target group in
terms of their culture, attitudes, feeling and motivations of using a product.

Research subject
Research subjects are relevant topics on which you have to find information. You
can use these subjects to get an idea or to form a total picture of a continent or a
country. Examples of subjects are: trade flows, market requirements, market size,
market developments, market segments, market structure, competitors, trends,
players, trade channels etc.

RAP
A plan that you have to make yourself giving you a structure and basis for monitoring
and reviewing the progress in your research. The Research Action Plan is a useful
E-tool that helps you to organize your market research. The RAP can be downloaded
from http://www.cbi.eu

Research process
The research process is a 6-step process to structure a research project. It helps to
make market research controllable, measurable and successful. In each process, you
can combine searching different research subjects and use different search techniques.

Research shortlist
You make your own shortlist and start to categorize by country, by region, by product,
by sector, by competitor and set your priorities of what you need first. Here you can
use your research action plan as a basis.

Research technique
A method to collect primary or secondary data such as desk research or field research.

Retail sales
Total sales without sales tax by all retail outlets in a country for a product, product
group or sector. Although product categories are too broad it still will be a good point
of reference to compare EU countries.

Sample
The number and the characteristics of people (e.g. French young male, aged between
20 and 30 years old, living in Paris) who are selected for a field research and who
should represent a percentage of your target group.

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Secondary market data: data from various sources, such as trade statistics for a
country or a product. Working with secondary sources is less expensive and with the
Internet, you can find much in online databases and portals such as market developments,
product standards, market access, trade regulations, prices, buyers platforms, statistics
and much more.

SWOT
Strength-Weakness / Opportunity-Threat analyses from which you set your
export marketing objectives.

Tracking data:
Retail sales of specific product groups and up-to-date, measured quarterly instead of
yearly. This information is collected through cash registration systems or scanners and
registered by research specialists such as Nielsen, Taylor Nelson or NPD, which is reliable
but very expensive

USP
Unique Selling Proposition i.e. how consumers can recognize that your product or brand
is standing out by being special or different from competitive products or brands.

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CBI EXPORT MANUAL: YOUR GUIDE TO MARKET RESEARCH

PART 1: YOUR RESEARCH ASSISTANT

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