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Business Research: Methods, Types & Examples

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Business research: Definition

Quantitative research methods, qualitative research methods, advantages of business research, disadvantages of business research, importance of business research.

Business research is a process of acquiring detailed information on all the areas of business and using such information to maximize the sales and profit of the business. Such a study helps companies determine which product/service is most profitable or in demand. In simple words, it can be stated as the acquisition of information or knowledge for professional or commercial purposes to determine opportunities and goals for a business.

Business research can be done for anything and everything. In general, when people speak about business research design , it means asking research questions to know where the money can be spent to increase sales, profits, or market share. Such research is critical to make wise and informed decisions.

LEARN ABOUT: Research Process Steps

For example: A mobile company wants to launch a new model in the market. But they are not aware of what are the dimensions of a mobile that are in most demand. Hence, the company conducts business research using various methods to gather information, and the same is then evaluated, and conclusions are drawn as to what dimensions are most in demand.

This will enable the researcher to make wise decisions to position his phone at the right price in the market and hence acquire a larger market share.

LEARN ABOUT: Test Market Demand

Business research: Types and methodologies

Business research is a part of the business intelligence process. It is usually conducted to determine whether a company can succeed in a new region, to understand its competitors, or simply select a marketing approach for a product. This research can be carried out using steps in qualitative research methods or quantitative research methods.

Quantitative research methods are research methods that deal with numbers. It is a systematic empirical investigation using statistical, mathematical, or computational techniques . Such methods usually start with data collection and then proceed to statistical analysis using various methods. The following are some of the research methods used to carry out business research.

LEARN ABOUT: Data Management Framework

Survey research

Survey research is one of the most widely used methods to gather data, especially for conducting business research. Surveys involve asking various survey questions to a set of audiences through various types like online polls, online surveys, questionnaires, etc. Nowadays, most of the major corporations use this method to gather data and use it to understand the market and make appropriate business decisions.

Various types of surveys, like cross-sectional studies , which need to collect data from a set of audiences at a given point of time, or longitudinal surveys which are needed to collect data from a set of audiences across various time durations in order to understand changes in the respondents’ behavior are used to conduct survey research. With the advancement in technology, surveys can now be sent online through email or social media .

For example: A company wants to know the NPS score for their website i.e. how satisfied are people who are visiting their website. An increase in traffic to their website or the audience spending more time on a website can result in higher rankings on search engines which will enable the company to get more leads as well as increase its visibility.

Hence, the company can ask people who visit their website a few questions through an online survey to understand their opinions or gain feedback and hence make appropriate changes to the website to increase satisfaction.

Learn More: Business Survey Template

Correlational research

Correlational research is conducted to understand the relationship between two entities and what impact each one of them has on the other. Using mathematical analysis methods, correlational research enables the researcher to correlate two or more variables .

Such research can help understand patterns, relationships, trends, etc. Manipulation of one variable is possible to get the desired results as well. Generally, a conclusion cannot be drawn only on the basis of correlational research.

For example: Research can be conducted to understand the relationship between colors and gender-based audiences. Using such research and identifying the target audience, a company can choose the production of particular color products to be released in the market. This can enable the company to understand the supply and demand requirements of its products.

Causal-Comparative research

Causal-comparative research is a method based on the comparison. It is used to deduce the cause-effect relationship between variables. Sometimes also known as quasi-experimental research, it involves establishing an independent variable and analyzing the effects on the dependent variable.

In such research, data manipulation is not done; however, changes are observed in the variables or groups under the influence of the same changes. Drawing conclusions through such research is a little tricky as independent and dependent variables will always exist in a group. Hence all other parameters have to be taken into consideration before drawing any inferences from the research.

LEARN ABOUT: Causal Research

For example: Research can be conducted to analyze the effect of good educational facilities in rural areas. Such a study can be done to analyze the changes in the group of people from rural areas when they are provided with good educational facilities and before that.

Another example can be to analyze the effect of having dams and how it will affect the farmers or the production of crops in that area.

LEARN ABOUT: Market research trends

Experimental research

Experimental research is based on trying to prove a theory. Such research may be useful in business research as it can let the product company know some behavioral traits of its consumers, which can lead to more revenue. In this method, an experiment is carried out on a set of audiences to observe and later analyze their behavior when impacted by certain parameters.

LEARN ABOUT: Behavioral Targeting

For example: Experimental research was conducted recently to understand if particular colors have an effect on consumers’ hunger. A set of the audience was then exposed to those particular colors while they were eating, and the subjects were observed. It was seen that certain colors like red or yellow increase hunger.

Hence, such research was a boon to the hospitality industry. You can see many food chains like Mcdonalds, KFC, etc., using such colors in their interiors, brands, as well as packaging.

Another example of inferences drawn from experimental research, which is used widely by most bars/pubs across the world, is that loud music in the workplace or anywhere makes a person drink more in less time. This was proven through experimental research and was a key finding for many business owners across the globe.

Online research / Literature research

Literature research is one of the oldest methods available. It is very economical, and a lot of information can be gathered using such research. Online research or literature research involves gathering information from existing documents and studies, which can be available at Libraries, annual reports, etc.

Nowadays, with the advancement in technology, such research has become even more simple and accessible to everyone. An individual can directly research online for any information that is needed, which will give him in-depth information about the topic or the organization.

Such research is used mostly by marketing and salespeople in the business sector to understand the market or their customers. Such research is carried out using existing information that is available from various sources. However, care has to be taken to validate the sources from where the information is going to be collected.

For example , a salesperson has heard a particular firm is looking for some solution that their company provides. Hence, the salesperson will first search for a decision maker from the company, investigate what department he is from, and understand what the target company is looking for and what they are into.

Using this research, he can cater his solution to be spot on when he pitches it to this client. He can also reach out to the customer directly by finding a means to communicate with him by researching online.’

LEARN ABOUT: 12 Best Tools for Researchers

Qualitative research is a method that has a high importance in business research. Qualitative research involves obtaining data through open-ended conversational means of communication. Such research enables the researcher to not only understand what the audience thinks but also why he thinks it.

In such research, in-depth information can be gathered from the subjects depending on their responses. There are various types of qualitative research methods, such as interviews, focus groups, ethnographic research, content analysis, and case study research, that are widely used.

Such methods are of very high importance in business research as they enable the researcher to understand the consumer. What motivates the consumer to buy and what does not is what will lead to higher sales, and that is the prime objective for any business.

Following are a few methods that are widely used in today’s world by most businesses.

Interviews are somewhat similar to surveys, like sometimes they may have the same types of questions used. The difference is that the respondent can answer these open-ended questions at length, and the direction of the conversation or the questions being asked can be changed depending on the response of the subject.

Such a method usually gives the researcher detailed information about the perspective or opinions of its subject. Carrying out interviews with subject matter experts can also give important information critical to some businesses.

For example: An interview was conducted by a telecom manufacturer with a group of women to understand why they have less number of female customers. After interviewing them, the researcher understood that there were fewer feminine colors in some of the models, and females preferred not to purchase them.

Such information can be critical to a business such as a telecom manufacturer and hence it can be used to increase its market share by targeting women customers by launching some feminine colors in the market.

Another example would be to interview a subject matter expert in social media marketing. Such an interview can enable a researcher to understand why certain types of social media advertising strategies work for a company and why some of them don’t.

LEARN ABOUT: Qualitative Interview

Focus groups

Focus groups are a set of individuals selected specifically to understand their opinions and behaviors. It is usually a small set of a group that is selected keeping in mind the parameters for their target market audience to discuss a particular product or service. Such a method enables a researcher with a larger sample than the interview or a case study while taking advantage of conversational communication.

Focus group is also one of the best examples of qualitative data in education . Nowadays, focus groups can be sent online surveys as well to collect data and answer why, what, and how questions. Such a method is very crucial to test new concepts or products before they are launched in the market.

For example: Research is conducted with a focus group to understand what dimension of screen size is preferred most by the current target market. Such a method can enable a researcher to dig deeper if the target market focuses more on the screen size, features, or colors of the phone. Using this data, a company can make wise decisions about its product line and secure a higher market share.

Ethnographic research

Ethnographic research is one of the most challenging research but can give extremely precise results. Such research is used quite rarely, as it is time-consuming and can be expensive as well. It involves the researcher adapting to the natural environment and observing its target audience to collect data. Such a method is generally used to understand cultures, challenges, or other things that can occur in that particular setting.

For example: The world-renowned show “Undercover Boss” would be an apt example of how ethnographic research can be used in businesses. In this show, the senior management of a large organization works in his own company as a regular employee to understand what improvements can be made, what is the culture in the organization, and to identify hard-working employees and reward them.

It can be seen that the researcher had to spend a good amount of time in the natural setting of the employees and adapt to their ways and processes. While observing in this setting, the researcher could find out the information he needed firsthand without losing any information or any bias and improve certain things that would impact his business.

LEARN ABOUT: Workforce Planning Model

Case study research

Case study research is one of the most important in business research. It is also used as marketing collateral by most businesses to land up more clients. Case study research is conducted to assess customer satisfaction and document the challenges that were faced and the solutions that the firm gave them.

These inferences are made to point out the benefits that the customer enjoyed for choosing their specific firm. Such research is widely used in other fields like education, social sciences, and similar. Case studies are provided by businesses to new clients to showcase their capabilities, and hence such research plays a crucial role in the business sector.

For example: A services company has provided a testing solution to one of its clients. A case study research is conducted to find out what were the challenges faced during the project, what was the scope of their work, what objective was to be achieved, and what solutions were given to tackle the challenges.

The study can end with the benefits that the company provided through its solutions, like reduced time to test batches, easy implementation or integration of the system, or even cost reduction. Such a study showcases the capability of the company, and hence it can be stated as empirical evidence of the new prospect.

Website visitor profiling/research

Website intercept surveys or website visitor profiling/research is something new that has come up and is quite helpful in the business sector. It is an innovative approach to collect direct feedback from your website visitors using surveys. In recent times a lot of business generation happens online, and hence it is important to understand the visitors of your website as they are your potential customers.

Collecting feedback is critical to any business, as without understanding a customer, no business can be successful. A company has to keep its customers satisfied and try to make them loyal customers in order to stay on top.

A website intercept survey is an online survey that allows you to target visitors to understand their intent and collect feedback to evaluate the customers’ online experience. Information like visitor intention, behavior path, and satisfaction with the overall website can be collected using this.

Depending on what information a company is looking for, multiple forms of website intercept surveys can be used to gather responses. Some of the popular ones are Pop-ups, also called Modal boxes, and on-page surveys.

For example: A prospective customer is looking for a particular product that a company is selling. Once he is directed to the website, an intercept survey will start noting his intent and path. Once the transaction has been made, a pop-up or an on-page survey is provided to the customer to rate the website.

Such research enables the researcher to put this data to good use and hence understand the customers’ intent and path and improve any parts of the website depending on the responses, which in turn would lead to satisfied customers and hence, higher revenues and market share.

LEARN ABOUT: Qualitative Research Questions and Questionnaires

Business research helps to identify opportunities and threats.
It helps identify research problems , and using this information, wise decisions can be made to tackle the issue appropriately.
It helps to understand customers better and hence can be useful to communicate better with the customers or stakeholders.
Risks and uncertainties can be minimized by conducting business research in advance.
Financial outcomes and investments that will be needed can be planned effectively using business research.
Such research can help track competition in the business sector.
Business research can enable a company to make wise decisions as to where to spend and how much.
Business research can enable a company to stay up-to-date with the market and its trends, and appropriate innovations can be made to stay ahead in the game.
Business research helps to measure reputation management
Business research can be a high-cost affair
Most of the time, business research is based on assumptions
Business research can be time-consuming
Business research can sometimes give you inaccurate information because of a biased population or a small focus group.
Business research results can quickly become obsolete because of the fast-changing markets

Business research is one of the most effective ways to understand customers, the market, and competitors. Such research helps companies to understand the demand and supply of the market. Using such research will help businesses reduce costs and create solutions or products that are targeted to the demand in the market and the correct audience.

In-house business research can enable senior management to build an effective team or train or mentor when needed. Business research enables the company to track its competitors and hence can give you the upper hand to stay ahead of them.

Failures can be avoided by conducting such research as it can give the researcher an idea if the time is right to launch its product/solution and also if the audience is right. It will help understand the brand value and measure customer satisfaction which is essential to continuously innovate and meet customer demands.

This will help the company grow its revenue and market share. Business research also helps recruit ideal candidates for various roles in the company. By conducting such research, a company can carry out a SWOT analysis , i.e. understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. With the help of this information, wise decisions can be made to ensure business success.

LEARN ABOUT: Market research industry

Business research is the first step that any business owner needs to set up his business to survive or to excel in the market. The main reason why such research is of utmost importance is that it helps businesses to grow in terms of revenue, market share, and brand value.

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Business Research: Types, Methods, Examples

Updated on
Jan 29, 2024

Ever wondered what it takes to build a flourishing business ? Aiming to provide maximum sales and profit, business research helps you to gather comprehensive information about your business and accordingly make relevant changes if required. So, in this process of being successful, we gather all types of data to better define our strategies and understand what products or services customers want. And in case, you’re planning to expand your business, research can help you determine your odds of positive results. In this blog, we’ll help you understand the basics of research and analysis .

“Whoever gets closer to the customer, wins.” – Bernadette Jiwa

This Blog Includes:

What is business research, business research example, importance of business research, types & methods, focus groups , case study research , ethnographic research, survey , correlation research , experimental research , advantages and disadvantages of business research, scope of business research, role of business research, business research books, business research report, top 10 tools for business research, business research partners, top 10 business research topics, career prospects , [bonus] best mba colleges in the world.

Business Research can be simply defined as a process of gathering comprehensive data and information on all the areas of business and incorporating this information for sales and profit maximization. If you are wondering what is Business Research, it is a systematic management activity helping companies to determine which product will be most profitable for companies to produce. Also, there are multiple steps in conducting research, with each thoroughly reviewed to ensure that the best decision is made for the company as a whole.

Also Read: Scope of MBA in International Business

Let’s say there’s an automobile company that is planning to launch a car that runs on CNG. To promote cleaner fuel, the company will be involved in developing different plans and strategies to identify the demand for the car they intend to launch. Other than this, the company will also look for competitors, and the target audience, keeping in mind the distribution of CNG in India. Hence the research is conducted on various ideas to formulate a sustainable and more efficient design.

When it comes to the question of why Business Research is important, it has an essential role to play in varied areas of business. Here are some of the reasons describing the importance of Business Research:

It helps businesses gain better insights into their target customer’s preferences, buying patterns, pain points, as well as demographics.
Business Research also provides businesses with a detailed overview of their target markets, what’s in trend, as well as market demand.
By studying consumers’ buying patterns and preferences as well as market trends and demands with the help of business research, businesses can effectively and efficiently curate the best possible plans and strategies accordingly.
The importance of business research also lies in highlighting the areas where unnecessary costs can be minimized and those areas in a business which need more attention and can bring in more customers and hence boost profits.
Businesses can constantly innovate as per their customers’ preferences and interests and keep their attention on the brand.
Business Research also plays the role of a catalyst as it helps businesses thrive in their markets by capturing all the available opportunities and also meeting the needs and preferences of their customers.

Also Read: Business Analyst vs Data Analyst

Business research plays an important role in the business intelligence process. This is usually conducted to determine if a company can succeed in a new region through competitive analyses and a better marketing approach. Due to this, this broad field has been distinguished into two types namely, Qualitative Research and Quantitative Research Method.

Here are the most important types of Business Research :

Qualitative Research Methods

It involves putting open-ended questions to the audience through different channels of communication to understand why researchers think in a particular manner. Stress is laid on understanding the intent, attitude, and beliefs to figure out the behaviour and response of the customers. Moreover, the goal of Qualitative Business Research is to get in-depth knowledge about the subjects of the research. Moreover, qualitative research enables us to put the perspective of the consumer in front of the researcher so that we can understand and see the alignment of the ideas between the market and the business.

The data collected in this type of business research is by the following methods:

Interviews
Case Study
Ethnographic Research
Website Visitor Profiling
Content Analysis

Also Read: Study MBA in Music Business at Berklee College of Music!

Let us take a detailed look at some of the ways-

Interviews and surveys are similar. The only difference lies in the fact that the responder can put a question in an interview whilst it is not possible during a survey. Through interviews, it is easier to understand the detailed perspective of the person concerning the subject of research. A mobile brand researched to understand why certain colours are preferred by male and female customers. The research revealed that since red is assumed to be a feminine colour, it is more preferred by females than males.

Focus groups are a type of business research that involves only a set of individuals. Each selected individual represents a particular category of the target market. The major difference between interviews and focus groups is the number of people that it involves. To launch a new product for a particular group of society, focus groups prove to be the best way to understand the needs of the local audience.

For example, Tesla decides to launch their latest car model in India. The company, therefore, will require feedback from the Indian audience only.

Did you know? Amazon, the internet giant changed its payment strategy to enter the Indian market. Since the Indian economy was not entirely ready for online modes of payment, amazon introduced a new payment method and came up with ‘ cash on delivery ’ to gain consumers’ trust.

One of the most effective ways for business research is conducting case studies. With the motive to understand customer satisfaction, challenges that usually the customers face while using the product and hence, providing them with the right solution can be achieved by analysing data secured through data secured by case studies. Case study researchers are conducted in many fields of business that ultimately aid organisations in improving their products or services.

Ethnographic Research refers to understanding people as a whole. One must be able to grok their consumers or target audience which will help identify patterns, flaws, etc. Ethnography is a branch of anthropology that is the study of what elements or features make us humans. How did people live? What aspect made us so dependent on smartphones and technology? Why would people buy one product over the other? It refers to asking questions about lifestyle, communities, etc., and trying to gain insight into consumer behaviour and buying patterns.

For example, consider a random product. Are people looking for that product? Do they need it? Is it a necessity or a luxury? Which class of people are most likely to buy it? People often cannot comprehend what they are looking for. Gaining different perceptions can help us tailor our products accordingly to the consumers. Who would have thought that the majority of humans will need face masks for survival?

Also Read: How to Become a Research Analyst?

Quantitative Research Methods

With the employment of mathematical, statistical and computational techniques, quantitative research is carried out to deal with numbers. This systematical empirical investigation starts with the acquisition of the data and then moves on to analyzing it with the help of different tools. The goal is to identify clientele and then meet the targets of the audience. As the method of business research employs a questionnaire to determine the audience’s response, the questions are built around the idea that the audience knows about the product or the services that the firm offers. Some of the key questions answered in quantitative research methods include, who is connected with your network, how they qualify for the ‘product’ or how regularly they visit your website.

The data is collected based on the following research:

Correlational
Online
Casual Comparative
Experimental

It is the most common method under quantitative research via which a huge amount of data can be collected concerning a product or service. A common set of questions are asked to the people and they are asked to provide their inputs. To understand the nature of the market in-depth, this method is massively used by leading organisations all across the globe. Analysing data recorded through service helps organisations make suitable decisions.

Under this research, usually two entities are put together to examine the impact they create on each other. As suggested by the name it is the best process to understand patterns, relationships and trends. the data grasped through correlation research is generally combined with other tools as one cannot achieve a firm conclusion using this type of business research.

Experimental research is purely based on proving a particular theory that is pre-assumed. True experimental research companies can understand varied behavioural traits of the customers that further assist them in generating more revenue. Exposing a set of audience to common parameters, their behaviour is recorded and hence analysed. This can be understood as the main basis of the experimental research.

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What is Business Research: Methods, Types & Examples

What is Business Research: Methods, Types & Examples

Defne Çobanoğlu

Every business owner wants their company always to be successful and profitable. And even if you have a successful business plan, that does not mean things will not need changing in the future. And trial and error may not be on the table when you can not afford to lose money and precious customers. Therefore, you need to be cautious before taking any steps and do your research .

In this article, we explained business research, its methods, and types to help business owners and inform those interested to know more. We also added some examples of scenarios any company may face. Let us get started with the definition of business research!

What is business research?

Business research is a type of research process where the main goal is to help a company thrive and collect data about the target audience, potential business plans, and marketing strategies . The data collection about possible risks and investment opportunities helps business owners make informed decisions about future plans.

The fields that can use business research include marketing, business, education, and social science . But of course, they are not the only ones that can benefit from business research. It is a helpful research type for all business needs. Now, let us see how we can further categorize this into methods and types of business research.

Methods and types of business research

Business research methods and types

In business research methodology, there are two main types. These are quantitative research and qualitative research. In the simplest terms, quantitative research is about collecting numerical and factual data, whereas qualitative research is about collecting data by using open-ended questions . These two methods can be divided into more specific parts. Let us get started with quantitative research methods.

A. Quantitative Research Methods

Quantitative research methods give the researchers factual and numerical evidence that can be effectively used in decision-making processes. There are numerous ways to collect quantitative data, and it is also possible to use more than one method to prove the credibility of the information. Let us start with the first one:

1. Survey research

Surveys are a great way to collect information from a targeted group, no matter how big or small. They can be done in the format of an online survey, phone survey or questionnaire . Surveys are usually close-ended or multiple-choice questions that are easy to group and analyze. The business doing the research can collect valuable information directly from its customers.

2. Correlational research

Correlational research focuses on the discovery of whether two different entities influence each other in any way. The main focus of this research method is not to make decisions. But rather, they can use the findings to explore further using other research methods.

3. Causal-comparative research

Causal-comparative research is similar to correlational research in that both of them compare two different elements and how they affect each other. But the main difference is that fact the focus of this research method is to draw conclusions on the cause-and-effect relationship of said entities.

4. Experimental research

Experimental research has a broad spectrum when it comes to what is taken as ‘experimental’. Basically, it is when businesses want to test a specific theory about the quality of a product or service. There are many methods that can be used, and it is decided by the researcher according to the theory that will be tested.

5. Literature research

Literature research is a very effective and economical research method to use. It is about using offline and online existing literature and going through them to analyze the data. It is mostly used in sales about consumer behaviors.

B. Qualitative Research Methods

Qualitative research is not about numbers like quantitative research. Instead, it is about emotions, opinions, and approaches. The target audience can be presented with a topic through open-ended questions. There is more than one method to go with, and it is even possible to use multiple methods at once. Let us see qualitative research methods:

1. Interviews

The interview method is mostly done on a smaller participant group about a specific subject. They consist of open-ended questions and can be in a structured or unstructured format. Interviews are one-on-one questions asked to the target audience to gain insight into the problem .

2. Focus Groups

A focus group is a pre-determined group of individuals who are chosen to participate in a study to answer specific questions. The researchers present them with a topic and encourage discussions with open-ended questions . Then, the findings are generalized to make decisions.

3. Ethnographic Research

Ethnographic research is similar to conceptual research, and its main focus is to understand the culture and people of the target audience by using observation . This method is done by observing the people in their natural environment and seeing how they interact with one another and their surroundings.

4. Case Study

Businesses generally use a case study method to showcase to potential consumers how their product or service helped a certain individual or a group . It is a good way to attract new customers. This method helps highlight the company’s skill sets and assets.

5. Website visitor research

This research method is relatively newer than others. Its main focus is to collect feedback from individuals who use the company website and ask them about their opinions. A business can use this method by presenting a customer with a quick survey after their purchase on the website . Afterward, the company can improve user satisfaction by fixing existing problems.

Importance of business research

The reasons for conducting business research

Businesses grow by knowing their target market, potential customers, and competitors. And this is only possible by conducting market research to help make informed business decisions. The main goal of business research is to help stakeholders of the company make planned and informed decisions using the facts in the business research report. However, there are other reasons why business research is important. These are:

Gathering information on customers: A business research report provides data on consumers’ behavioral changes, their needs, preferences, and expectations. The managers and stakeholders can make informed decisions with this knowledge.
Performance evaluation: Research allows businesses to evaluate their success against industry standards and other competitors. This helps keep track while deciding how to differentiate themselves from others.
Market expansion: Business research topics include areas that were not explored before. Therefore, when the business wants to expand to new markets, the research provides information on the market’s dynamics and potential risks and profits .
Efficiency and cost-reduction: The data collected by business research helps identify any obstacles to productivity and cost excessiveness. That way, a more cost-effective and efficient approach can be taken.
Business research examples

Business research helps business managers make smart plans for the company and its future. They can make informed decisions about new marketing strategies, building new products or service branches, or improving customer satisfaction .

Business research example #1

Imagine a company making energy drinks wants to know if they can expand their market to the older part of the population. They do not know if they will be interested in their product or what kind of marketing strategies they can use to attract older people’s attention. They can make up a focus group and ask them about their opinions. The company can also conduct literature research to find out information about the competitors .

Business research example #2

Imagine a company that has a clothing store website wants to know if there is anything that makes shopping on their website difficult for customers. They can show a pop-up customer satisfaction survey and ask them if they can find what they are looking for easily and how the website visiting experience was. Then, they can collect customer feedback and see how they can improve their website to enhance customer satisfaction levels.

Frequently asked questions about business research

What are the 4 stages of business research?

Much like every other research, business research is also best done when it is preplanned and organized. And there is a 4 stage plan of business research. These are:

1 - Defining the problem

2 - Designing the research plan

3 - Collecting data and making an analysis

4 - Reporting on the findings

What is the purpose of business research?

The purpose of business research is to make sense of the existing elements of a business, such as consumers, product placement, marketing, innovation, etc . And using the data collected on these elements to make informed decisions and create smart business strategies to improve the success of the company.

When to use business research?

Business research is best used when a new approach is taken or a new product is launched, and the risks need to be assessed. It is essential to be mindful of all the negative and positive sides of a new strategy without risking the entirety of the company.

Final words

When you own a business, no matter how big or small, change can be intimidating. You can not go to new territories blindly. But, you can not stay the same either. In order to keep your existing customers and find new potential ones, you should be mindful of their habits and opinions. The best way of doing this is either to ask them directly ( using a survey, interviewing them, etc .) or to do your own research to draw conclusions.

In this article, we explained business research, quantitative and qualitative research methods, and business research types. We also included some examples of business research and what methods can be used for those problems. If you want to do your own business research but do not know where to start, you can check out quantitative research questions to get you started. Also, do not forget to check out other articles on research and so much more!

Defne is a content writer at forms.app. She is also a translator specializing in literary translation. Defne loves reading, writing, and translating professionally and as a hobby. Her expertise lies in survey research, research methodologies, content writing, and translation.

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Business research methods: A comprehensive overview

Last updated

3 April 2024

Reviewed by

Cathy Heath

Business research is the process of gathering and analyzing different types of information to make informed business decisions.

If you undertake business research correctly, it has multiple benefits, such as:

Improving organizational operations

Identifying trends

Forecasting potential outcomes

This research can include studying competitor performance, examining consumer preferences, analyzing market trends, and identifying industry gaps.

Let’s learn more about business research methods and the steps for a successful research process.

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The importance of business research

In today's fast-paced, data-driven world, we need to rely on more than just intuition and guesswork. Companies need a well-planned business research strategy to uncover invaluable insights into consumer preferences, market trends , and emerging opportunities.

Business research allows companies to:

Identify market opportunities

Researching industry trends and market segments enables businesses to discover untapped markets and new opportunities to expand sales.

Analyze customer behavior

Understanding customers’ motivations, perceptions, and behaviors is essential. Companies can create targeted marketing strategies and products that meet consumer needs while improving customer satisfaction .

Stay ahead of competitors

Competitive analysis can reveal what your competitors are doing well and where they are struggling. With this information, businesses can adjust their strategies to remain competitive.

Optimize operations

Business research can help companies optimize their operations and improve efficiency. Analyzing data on processes and workflows lets businesses identify areas of improvement, streamline operations, and reduce costs.

Overall, investing in business research is essential for companies wanting to remain competitive and relevant. The right research strategy helps businesses uncover insights to drive growth and improve their bottom line.

Qualitative research methods vs. quantitative research methods

Business research has two main methods: Qualitative research and quantitative research.

Qualitative research methods

Qualitative research involves exploring and understanding a topic through non-numerical data.

This research type is particularly useful for exploring complex, multifaceted issues that may be difficult to quantify.

It can provide insights into customer needs and preferences and identify trends and patterns.

Researchers often use qualitative research in the early stages of a project to explore the problem and develop a deeper understanding.

It provides a foundation for quantitative research and can determine what researchers need to ask to answer the research question.

Qualitative research methods include:

Focus groups

Case studies

Ethnographic research

Website visitor profiling

They focus on understanding people’s attitudes, behaviors, and motivations.

Quantitative research methods

Quantitative research uses numerical data to test a hypothesis or solve a research question .

Researchers can capture quantitative data from:

Face-to-face interviews

Telephone interviews

Online polls

People often view quantitative data as more objective since it’s statistical and less subjective than qualitative data .

Quantitative research uses collections of data and measures, manipulates, and compares the information to get insight.

Which type of business research is best?

While quantitative and qualitative research methods both have their benefits, they also come with a few drawbacks:

Qualitative research cons include:

Typically small sample size , making it harder to generalize

Time-consuming

Quantitative research disadvantages include:

Not capturing the depth or nuance of the topic

Minimal understanding of beliefs, opinions, or behavior behind consumer decisions

Researchers must interpret the data correctly for accurate observations

Businesses need to consider which method suits their research goals and resources best. Carefully selecting a method ensures valuable insights for more informed decisions to meet your business goals.

Five research techniques for your business

As you start planning your business research strategy, it's important to consider which research methods you want to use.

Let’s look at five research techniques, including when you should use them:

Surveys are a common method in business research. They effectively collect data from a large group by asking them to complete a questionnaire .

Surveys are best for gathering information about a specific population's:

Preferences

Experiences

You can conduct specific types of surveys, each with varying purposes and methodologies.

Types of surveys:

Customer satisfaction surveys

These surveys measure customer satisfaction with a product or service.

The questions may focus on the customer's product experience or the overall customer experience .

Market research surveys

These surveys gather information on a specific market, including:

Consumer preferences

Consumer behavior

Competitor analysis

Market trends

Employee satisfaction surveys

These surveys gauge the level of satisfaction and engagement of employees within an organization.

They may include questions on:

Compensation

Work-life balance

Job security

Career development

Brand awareness surveys

These surveys determine the level of awareness and recognition of a brand within a specific market. This type of survey can also measure brand loyalty and reputation.

Researchers conduct surveys in different ways, including online, by phone, or in person.

Online surveys are becoming increasingly popular due to their convenience and the ability to gather data quickly.

2. Interviews

Interviews are another valuable method in business research.

Unlike surveys, interviews involve talking to people one-on-one to gather in-depth information. Interviews are best to understand someone's perspectives, motivations, or experiences.

For example, if a company wants to understand why its customers prefer a certain product or service, it can use interviews to ask follow-up questions to gain more insights.

Interviews can be structured or unstructured depending on the researcher's objectives.

In a structured interview , the interviewer has a predetermined set of questions to ask all respondents. This method ensures that everyone answers the same questions, making it easier to compare and analyze their responses.

An unstructured interview is where the interviewer does not have a set of predetermined questions but lets the conversation flow naturally. This type of interview is more flexible and allows for unexpected insights to arise.

Whether a researcher wants to understand consumer behavior or develop new business strategies, interviews can provide valuable data to inform decisions.

3. Observation

Observation is an excellent method to see how people interact with products, services, or physical spaces.

It allows researchers to observe real-life scenarios and collect accurate data about:

Business processes

Employee behavior

Customer interactions

Overall business operations

It's particularly useful in situations where traditional survey or interview methods may not be effective.

Researchers can use several types of observation for business research, including:

Naturalistic observation

Controlled observation

Participant observation

Non-participant observation

Naturalistic observation involves observing behavior in a natural setting without manipulating the situation. This can gain insight into customer interactions and the decision-making process.

Controlled observation consists of manipulating a scenario and observing how people react. This can be useful for testing new products, services, or processes in a controlled environment.

Participant observation involves the researcher participating in the situation they are observing. This can help the researcher better understand the motivations and behaviors of those they’re observing.

Non-participant observation occurs while the researcher remains outside the situation and simply observes the actions. This approach can be helpful when it’s not possible or ethical for the researcher to participate directly.

Observation understands the human aspect of consumer behavior and how it influences decision-making.

Testing involves conducting experiments to gather quantitative data about a specific product or service. It's best to measure the impact of changes or improvements to a product or service.

Testing can involve different techniques like:

A/B testing: Evaluating two versions of a product or service

Usability testing : Seeing how users interact with a product to evaluate its ease of use

Performance testing: Checking the performance of a product under various conditions

Each type of testing is for a specific reason and with a specific goal in mind.

For example, usability testing ensures a product or service is user-friendly, while A/B testing identifies which version is more effective or preferred. Performance testing ensures a product can handle the demands of heavy use.

5. Focus groups

Focus groups are a popular method of business research to gain in-depth insights into consumer behavior, attitudes, and perceptions toward products and services.

A focus group typically consists of people that share similar characteristics. They come together to discuss and provide feedback on a specific topic.

Focus groups are best suited for situations where businesses want to understand their target audience’s needs and wants. This can be useful when:

Launching a new product

Testing a new advertising campaign

Evaluating the effectiveness of an existing marketing strategy

Focus groups provide a unique opportunity to get real-time feedback on ideas and products, allowing businesses to fine-tune their offerings to meet customer demands.

Understanding each research technique helps you design a strategy to collect the most relevant data for your business needs.

Steps of a business research process

Now you know the types of business research and its purpose, let’s look at the seven steps to successfully undertake it:

1. Identify the research problem

The first step in conducting research is to define the problem or issue to address. This may involve surveying customers, analyzing market data, or interviewing key stakeholders .

For example, if you own a fashion brand and your sales have dropped significantly, you may want to know why.

2. Conduct a review

Before starting research, check what researchers have already discovered in your organization, industry, or field.

Conducting a review can involve reading relevant articles or research papers and gathering secondary or desk research data.

This review process helps you better understand your research topic and may provide some insights into your research problem and fine-tune the next stage of your research.

3. Develop research questions and objectives

At this stage, you will develop specific research questions to achieve your objectives.

Research objectives are the goals you aim to achieve by conducting the research.

In our fashion brand example, one research question might be: "How do current fashion trends affect our sales?"

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The ultimate guide to research design for business.

17 min read To get the information you need to drive key business decisions and answer burning questions, you need a research methodology that works — and it all starts with research design. But what is it? In our ultimate guide to research design for businesses, we breakdown the process, including research methods, examples, and best practice tips to help you get started.

If you have a business problem that you’re trying to solve — from product usage to customer engagement — doing research is a great way to understand what is going wrong.

Yet despite this, less than 40% of marketers use consumer research to drive decisions [1] .

So why are businesses missing out on vital business insights that could help their bottom line?

One reason is that many simply don’t know which research method to use to correctly investigate their problem and uncover insights.

This is where our ultimate guide to research design can help. But first…

What is research design?

Research design is the overall strategy (or research methodology) used to carry out a study. It defines the framework and plan to tackle established problems and/or questions through the collection, interpretation, analysis, and discussion of data.

While there are several types of research design (more on that later), the research problem defines which should be used — not the other way around. In working this way, researchers can be certain that their methods match their aims — and that they’re capturing useful and actionable data.

For example, you might want to know why sales are falling for a specific product. You already have your context and other research questions to help uncover further insights. So, you start with your research problem (or problem statement) and choose an approach to get the information you need.

Download our free eBook: How to get inclusive research design right

Key considerations before a research project

After you have your research problem and research questions to find out more information, you should always consider the following elements:

Do you want to use a qualitative or quantitative approach ?
What type of research would you like to do (e.g. — create a survey or conduct telephone interviews)?
How will you choose your population and sample size fairly?
How will you choose a method to collect the data for ease of operation? The research tool you use will determine the validity of your study
How will you analyse data after collection to help the business concern?
How will you ensure your research is free from bias and neutral?
What’s your timeline?
In what setting will you conduct your research study?
Are there any challenges or objections to conducting your research — and if so, how can you address them?

Ultimately, the data received should be unambiguous, so that the analysts can find accurate and trustworthy insights to act upon. Neutrality is key!

Types of approaches in research design

There are two main approaches to research design that we’ll explore in more detail — quantitative and qualitative.

Qualitative research design

Qualitative research designs tend to be more flexible and inductive (broad generalisations rather than specific observations), allowing you to adjust your approach based on the information you find throughout the research process. It looks at customer or prospect data (X data).

For example, if you want to generate new ideas for content campaigns, a qualitative approach would make the most sense. You can use this approach to find out more about what your audience would like to see, the particular challenges they are facing (from a business perspective), their overall experiences, and if any topics are under-researched.

To put it simply, qualitative research design looks at the whys and hows — as well as participants’ thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. It seeks to find reasons to explain decisions using the data captured.

However, as the data collected from qualitative research is typically written rather than numerical, it can be difficult to quantify information using statistical techniques.

When should you use qualitative research design?

It is best used when you want to conduct a detailed investigation of a topic to understand a holistic view. For example, to understand cultural differences in society, qualitative research design would create a research plan that allowed as many people from different cultures to participate and provided space for elaboration and anecdotal evidence.

If you want to incorporate a qualitative research design, you may choose to use methods like semi-structured focus groups, surveys with open-ended questions, or in-depth interviews in person or on the phone.

Quantitative research design

Quantitative research design looks at data that helps answer the key questions beginning with ‘Who’, ‘How’, ‘How many’ and ‘What’. This can include business data that explores operation statistics and sales records and quantifiable data on preferences.

Unlike qualitative research design, quantitative research design can be more controlled and fixed. It establishes variables, hypotheses, and correlations and tests participants against this knowledge. The aim is to explore the numerical data and understand its value against other sets of data, providing us with a data-driven way to measure the level of something.

When should you use quantitative research design?

If you want to quantify attitudes, opinions, behaviours, or any other defined variable (and general results from a large sample population), a quantitative approach is a way to go.

You could use quantitative research to validate findings from qualitative research. One provides depth and insight into the whys and hows, while the other delivers data to support them.

If you want to incorporate a quantitative research design, you may choose to use methods like secondary research collection or surveys with closed-ended questions.

Now that you know the differences between the two research approaches ( though you can find out more ), we can go further and address their sub-categories.

Research methods: the subsets of qualitative and quantitative research

Depending on the aim/objective of your research, there are several research methods (for both qualitative and quantitative research) for you to choose from:

Types of quantitative research design:

Descriptive – provides information on the current state of affairs, by observing participants in a natural situation
Experimental – provides causal relationship information between variables within a controlled situation
Quasi-experimental – attempts to build a cause and effect relationship between an independent variable and a dependent variable
Correlational – as the name suggests, correlational design allows the researcher to establish some kind of relation between two closely related topics or variables

Types of qualitative research design:

Case studies – a detailed study of a specific subject (place, event, organization)
Ethnographic research – in-depth observational studies of people in their natural environment (this research aims to understand the cultures, challenges, motivations and settings of those involved)
Grounded theory – collecting rich data on a topic of interest and developing theories inductively
Phenomenology – investigating a phenomenon or event by describing and interpreting the shared experiences of participants
Narrative research – examining how stories are told to understand how participants perceive and make sense of their experiences

Other subsets of qualitative and quantitative research design

Exploratory – explores a new subject area by taking a holistic viewpoint and gathering foundational insights
Cross-sectional – provides a snapshot of a moment in time to reflect the state
Longitudinal – provides several snapshots of the same sample over a period to understand causal relationships
Mixed methods – provide a bespoke application of design subsets to create more precise and nuanced results
Observational – involves observing participants’ ongoing behavior in a natural situation

Let’s talk about these research methods in more detail.

Experimental

As a subset of quantitative research design types, experimental research design aims to control variables in an experiment to test a hypothesis. Researchers will alter one of the variables to see how it affects the others.

Experimental research design provides an understanding of the causal relationships between two variables – which variable impacts the other, to what extent they are affected, and how consistent is the effect if the experiment is repeated.

To incorporate experimental research design, researchers create an artificial environment to more easily control the variables affecting participants. This can include creating two groups of participants – one acting as a control group to provide normal data readings, and another that has a variable altered. Therefore, having representative and random groups of participants can give better results to compare.

Sample population split into intervention and control groups

Image source: World Bank Blogs

Descriptive

Descriptive research design is a subset of qualitative design research and, unlike experimental design research, it provides descriptive insights on participants by observing participants in an uncontrolled, geographically-bound natural environment.

This type gives information on the current state of participants when faced with variables or changing circumstances. It helps answer who, what, when, where, and how questions on behaviour, but it can’t provide a clear understanding of the why.

To incorporate a descriptive research design, researchers create situations where observation of participants can happen without notice. In capturing the information, researchers can analyse data to understand the different variables at play or find additional research areas to investigate.

Exploratory

Exploratory research design aims to investigate an area where little is known about the subject and there are no prior examples to draw insight from. Researchers want to gain insights into the foundational data (who, what, when, where, and how) and the deeper level data (the why).

Therefore, an exploratory research design is flexible and a subset of both quantitative and qualitative research design.

Like descriptive research design, this type of research method is used at the beginning stages of research to get a broader view, before proceeding with further research.

To incorporate exploratory research design, researchers will use several methods to gain the right data. These can include focus groups, surveys, interviews in person or on the phone, secondary desk research, controlled experiments, and observation in a natural setting.

Cross-sectional

Just like slicing through a tomato gives us a slice of the whole fruit, cross-sectional research design gives us a slice representing a specific point in time. Researchers can observe different groups at the same time to discover what makes the participant behaviour different from one another and how behaviour correlates. This is then used to form assumptions that can be further tested.

There are two types to consider. In descriptive cross-sectional research design, researchers do not get involved or influence the participants through any controls, so this research design type is a subset of quantitative research design. Researchers will use methods that provide a descriptive (who, what, when, where, and how) understanding of the cross-section. This can be done by survey or observation, though researcher bias can be an undesirable outcome if the method is not conscious of this.

Analytical cross-sectional research design looks at the why behind the outcome found in the cross-section, aligning this as a subset of qualitative research design. This understanding can be gained through emailed surveys. To gain stronger insights, group sample selection can be altered from a random selection of participants to researchers selecting participants into groups based on their differences.

Since only one cross-section is taken, this can be a cheaper and quicker way to carry out research when resources are limited. Yet, no causal relationships can be gained by comparing data across time, unlike longitudinal research design.

Longitudinal

Longitudinal research design takes multiple measures from the same participants or groups over an extended period. These repeated observations enable researchers to track variables, identify correlations and see if there are causal relationships that can confirm hypothesis predictions.

As the research design is focused on understanding the why behind the data, this is a subset of qualitative research design. However, the real-time data collection at each point in time will also require analysis based on the quantitative markers found through quantitative research design.

Researchers can incorporate longitudinal research design by using methods like panel studies for collecting primary data first-hand. The study can be retrospective (based on event data that has already occurred) or prospective (based on event data that is yet to happen).

While being the most useful method to get the data you need to address your business concern, this can be time-consuming and there can be issues with maintaining the integrity of the sample over time. Alternatively, you can use existing data sets to provide historical trends (which could be verified through a cross-sectional research design).

Mixed methods

Mixed methods aim to provide an advanced and bespoke response to solving your business problem. It combines the methods and subsets above to create a tailored method that gives researchers flexibility and options for carrying out research.

The mixed-method research design gives a thorough holistic view of the layers of data through quantitative and qualitative subset design methods. The resulting data is strengthened by the application of context and scale (quantitative) in alignment with the meaning behind behaviour (qualitative), giving a richer picture of participants.

Mixed method research design is useful for getting greater ‘texture’ to your data, resulting in precise and meaningful information for analysis. The disadvantages and boundaries of a single subset can be offset by the benefits of using another to complement the investigation.

This subset does place more responsibility on the researcher to apply the subset designs appropriately to gain the right information. The data is interpreted and assessed by the researcher for its validity to the end results, so there is potential for researcher bias if they miss out on vital information that skews results.

Image Source: Full Stack Researcher

Find the research design method(s) that work for you

No matter what information you want to find out — there’s a research design method that’s right for you.

However, it’s up to you to determine which of the methods above are the most viable and can deliver the insight you need. Remember, each research method has its advantages and disadvantages.

It’s also important to bear in mind (at all times), the key considerations before your research project:

Do you want to use a qualitative or quantitative approach?
Are there any challenges or objections to conducting your research — and if so, how can you address them?.

But if you’re unsure about where to begin, start by answering these questions with our decision tree:

Image Source: Research Gate

If you need more help, why not try speaking to one of our Qualtrics team members?

Our team of experts can help you with all your market research needs — from designing your study and finding respondents, to fielding it and reporting on the results.

[1] https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/consumer-trends/marketing-consumer-research-statistics/

eBook: How to get inclusive research design right

Related resources

Market intelligence 9 min read, qualitative research questions 11 min read, ethnographic research 11 min read, business research methods 12 min read, qualitative research design 12 min read, business research 10 min read, qualitative research interviews 11 min read, request demo.

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Business Research pp 11–40 Cite as

A Roadmap to Business Research

Merwe Oberholzer ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7180-8865 3 &
Pieter W. Buys ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5345-3594 3
First Online: 15 March 2023

506 Accesses

This chapter seeks to constitute a roadmap or framework to guide business researchers in contextualizing and planning their research efforts. A literature study was conducted to investigate the research concept, the boundary of research, and the research process’ conceptual framework. This chapter summarized research as a systematic investigation to reveal new knowledge. In guiding industry-orientated business research, it is acknowledged that management action may solve some business problems. In contrast, higher levels of organizational issues and critical reflection of business issues may require actual research .

The framework for business research is divided into four parts: the research problem, research design, empirical evidence, and conclusion. The central part of the map is the design section that organizes the philosophic approach (theoretical foundation, research philosophy, and assumptions) on the one side and the applied research methods and techniques on the other side, with the research methodology acting as a bridge between the sides. The framework constitutes a guide when embarking on the journey to solve industry-orientated business research.

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Merwe Oberholzer

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Oberholzer, M., Buys, P.W. (2023). A Roadmap to Business Research. In: Buys, P.W., Oberholzer, M. (eds) Business Research . Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9479-1_2

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What Is Market Research?

How It Works
Primary vs. Secondary
How to Conduct Research

The Bottom Line

Marketing Essentials

How to Do Market Research, Types, and Example

Joules Garcia / Investopedia

Market research examines consumer behavior and trends in the economy to help a business develop and fine-tune its business idea and strategy. It helps a business understand its target market by gathering and analyzing data.

Market research is the process of evaluating the viability of a new service or product through research conducted directly with potential customers. It allows a company to define its target market and get opinions and other feedback from consumers about their interest in a product or service.

Research may be conducted in-house or by a third party that specializes in market research. It can be done through surveys and focus groups, among other ways. Test subjects are usually compensated with product samples or a small stipend for their time.

Key Takeaways

Companies conduct market research before introducing new products to determine their appeal to potential customers.
Tools include focus groups, telephone interviews, and questionnaires.
The results of market research inform the final design of the product and determine how it will be positioned in the marketplace.
Market research usually combines primary information, gathered directly from consumers, and secondary information, which is data available from external sources.

Market Research

How market research works.

Market research is used to determine the viability of a new product or service. The results may be used to revise the product design and fine-tune the strategy for introducing it to the public. This can include information gathered for the purpose of determining market segmentation . It also informs product differentiation , which is used to tailor advertising.

A business engages in various tasks to complete the market research process. It gathers information based on the market sector being targeted by the product. This information is then analyzed and relevant data points are interpreted to draw conclusions about how the product may be optimally designed and marketed to the market segment for which it is intended.

It is a critical component in the research and development (R&D) phase of a new product or service introduction. Market research can be conducted in many different ways, including surveys, product testing, interviews, and focus groups.

Market research is a critical tool that companies use to understand what consumers want, develop products that those consumers will use, and maintain a competitive advantage over other companies in their industry.

Primary Market Research vs. Secondary Market Research

Market research usually consists of a combination of:

Primary research, gathered by the company or by an outside company that it hires
Secondary research, which draws on external sources of data

Primary Market Research

Primary research generally falls into two categories: exploratory and specific research.

Exploratory research is less structured and functions via open-ended questions. The questions may be posed in a focus group setting, telephone interviews, or questionnaires. It results in questions or issues that the company needs to address about a product that it has under development.
Specific research delves more deeply into the problems or issues identified in exploratory research.

Secondary Market Research

All market research is informed by the findings of other researchers about the needs and wants of consumers. Today, much of this research can be found online.

Secondary research can include population information from government census data , trade association research reports , polling results, and research from other businesses operating in the same market sector.

History of Market Research

Formal market research began in Germany during the 1920s. In the United States, it soon took off with the advent of the Golden Age of Radio.

Companies that created advertisements for this new entertainment medium began to look at the demographics of the audiences who listened to each of the radio plays, music programs, and comedy skits that were presented.

They had once tried to reach the widest possible audience by placing their messages on billboards or in the most popular magazines. With radio programming, they had the chance to target rural or urban consumers, teenagers or families, and judge the results by the sales numbers that followed.

Types of Market Research

Face-to-face interviews.

From their earliest days, market research companies would interview people on the street about the newspapers and magazines that they read regularly and ask whether they recalled any of the ads or brands that were published in them. Data collected from these interviews were compared to the circulation of the publication to determine the effectiveness of those ads.

Market research and surveys were adapted from these early techniques.

To get a strong understanding of your market, it’s essential to understand demand, market size, economic indicators, location, market saturation, and pricing.

Focus Groups

A focus group is a small number of representative consumers chosen to try a product or watch an advertisement.

Afterward, the group is asked for feedback on their perceptions of the product, the company’s brand, or competing products. The company then takes that information and makes decisions about what to do with the product or service, whether that's releasing it, making changes, or abandoning it altogether.

Phone Research

The man-on-the-street interview technique soon gave way to the telephone interview. A telephone interviewer could collect information in a more efficient and cost-effective fashion.

Telephone research was a preferred tactic of market researchers for many years. It has become much more difficult in recent years as landline phone service dwindles and is replaced by less accessible mobile phones.

Survey Research

As an alternative to focus groups, surveys represent a cost-effective way to determine consumer attitudes without having to interview anyone in person. Consumers are sent surveys in the mail, usually with a coupon or voucher to incentivize participation. These surveys help determine how consumers feel about the product, brand, and price point.

Online Market Research

With people spending more time online, market research activities have shifted online as well. Data collection still uses a survey-style form. But instead of companies actively seeking participants by finding them on the street or cold calling them on the phone, people can choose to sign up, take surveys, and offer opinions when they have time.

This makes the process far less intrusive and less rushed, since people can participate on their own time and of their own volition.

How to Conduct Market Research

The first step to effective market research is to determine the goals of the study. Each study should seek to answer a clear, well-defined problem. For example, a company might seek to identify consumer preferences, brand recognition, or the comparative effectiveness of different types of ad campaigns.

After that, the next step is to determine who will be included in the research. Market research is an expensive process, and a company cannot waste resources collecting unnecessary data. The firm should decide in advance which types of consumers will be included in the research, and how the data will be collected. They should also account for the probability of statistical errors or sampling bias .

The next step is to collect the data and analyze the results. If the two previous steps have been completed accurately, this should be straightforward. The researchers will collect the results of their study, keeping track of the ages, gender, and other relevant data of each respondent. This is then analyzed in a marketing report that explains the results of their research.

The last step is for company executives to use their market research to make business decisions. Depending on the results of their research, they may choose to target a different group of consumers, or they may change their price point or some product features.

The results of these changes may eventually be measured in further market research, and the process will begin all over again.

Benefits of Market Research

Market research is essential for developing brand loyalty and customer satisfaction. Since it is unlikely for a product to appeal equally to every consumer, a strong market research program can help identify the key demographics and market segments that are most likely to use a given product.

Market research is also important for developing a company’s advertising efforts. For example, if a company’s market research determines that its consumers are more likely to use Facebook than X (formerly Twitter), it can then target its advertisements to one platform instead of another. Or, if they determine that their target market is value-sensitive rather than price-sensitive, they can work on improving the product rather than reducing their prices.

Market research only works when subjects are honest and open to participating.

Example of Market Research

Many companies use market research to test new products or get information from consumers about what kinds of products or services they need and don’t currently have.

For example, a company that’s considering starting a business might conduct market research to test the viability of its product or service. If the market research confirms consumer interest, the business can proceed confidently with its business plan . If not, the company can use the results of the market research to make adjustments to the product to bring it in line with customer desires.

What Are the Main Types of Market Research?

The main types of market research are primary research and secondary research. Primary research includes focus groups, polls, and surveys. Secondary research includes academic articles, infographics, and white papers.

Qualitative research gives insights into how customers feel and think. Quantitative research uses data and statistics such as website views, social media engagement, and subscriber numbers.

What Is Online Market Research?

Online market research uses the same strategies and techniques as traditional primary and secondary market research, but it is conducted on the Internet. Potential customers may be asked to participate in a survey or give feedback on a product. The responses may help the researchers create a profile of the likely customer for a new product.

What Are Paid Market Research Surveys?

Paid market research involves rewarding individuals who agree to participate in a study. They may be offered a small payment for their time or a discount coupon in return for filling out a questionnaire or participating in a focus group.

What Is a Market Study?

A market study is an analysis of consumer demand for a product or service. It looks at all of the factors that influence demand for a product or service. These include the product’s price, location, competition, and substitutes as well as general economic factors that could influence the new product’s adoption, for better or worse.

Market research is a key component of a company’s research and development (R&D) stage. It helps companies understand in advance the viability of a new product that they have in development and to see how it might perform in the real world.

Britannica Money. “ Market Research .”

U.S. Small Business Administration. “ Market Research and Competitive Analysis .”

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Business Research: Definition, Examples

Business research examines all aspects of a business environment. It asks questions about competitors, market structure, government regulations , economic trends, technological advances, changing patterns of the business world, and numerous other factors that make up the business environment.

The emphasis of business research is on shifting decision-makers from intuitive information gathering to systematic and objective investigation.

Like other research, business research is accomplished through exploration, description, explanation, and prediction.

Let’s Understand Business Research:

What is Business Research?

Business research is a systematic and objective inquiry that provides information to guide managerial decisions, which are arrived at through planning, acquiring, analyzing, and disseminating relevant data to decision-makers to mobilize the organization to take appropriate actions to maximize business performance.

Who Business Research Works?

Business research is of recent origin and mostly supported by business organizations, while the public domain has sponsored much environmental research, some of it for hundreds of years.

The development of scientific methods in business research lags behind similar evolution in the physical sciences.

Physical scientists have been more rigorous in their concepts and research procedures. They are much more advanced in their theory development than business scientists. Business research operates in a less favorable environment in other ways, too.

Physical research is usually conducted under controlled laboratory conditions, while business research seldom is.

Business research is an important management activity that helps companies determine which products will be most profitable for companies to produce.

Several steps are necessary when conducting business research: each step must be thoroughly reviewed to ensure that the business enterprise makes the best decision.

Steps of Business Research

These steps include, among others:

Product analysis.
Market analysis.
Financial analysis.
Competitor analysis.
Growth analysis.

Product Analysis

Product analysis is the first step in business research.

Companies must find a product that meets consumer demand or exceeds consumer demand; otherwise, the product will fail in the economic marketplace.

One type of analysis is to find an existing product that can be improved through design and features.

Another kind of product analysis will find emerging markets with high demand and low supply, which allows companies to sell products to meet consumer demand.

Market Analysis

Companies will conduct a market analysis to determine how much profit may be earned from current demand.

Management will look at which stage of the business cycle the market is currently in, whether emerging, plateau, or declining. A market analysis will also determine the price points at which products can be sold.

Financial Analysis

The financial analysis determines the cost of each production item used to produce goods and services.

Management will also review the best cost application methods, ensuring that all production costs are adequately applied to each product manufactured or service rendered.

Competitor Analysis

A competitor analysis of a market is an essential part of business research. Knowing which companies have the best production methods or customer loyalty helps new companies understand how they can create a competitive advantage when entering a new market.

Growth Analysis

Growth analysis is crucial in understanding a business operation’s profitability.

Business research usually includes forecasting the growth and direction of the current industry or market. Knowing to which direction the market is headed helps companies determine the stability of new business operations.

A SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat) analysis is often undertaken to understand a market.

Based on this analysis, a business enterprise can take strategic decisions or measures in a business venture.

What are the primary objectives of business research?

Business research seeks to understand all aspects of a business environment , including competitors, market structure, government regulations, economic trends, technological advances, and changing patterns in the business world.

How does business research differ from physical sciences regarding its development and methods?

The development of scientific methods in business research lags behind that in the physical sciences. Physical scientists have been more rigorous in their concepts, research procedures, and theory development. Additionally, physical research is often conducted under controlled laboratory conditions, whereas business research usually isn’t.

What are the steps involved in conducting business research?

Business research involves several steps, including product analysis, market analysis, financial analysis, competitor analysis, and growth analysis.

Why is a SWOT analysis often undertaken in business research?

A SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat) analysis is undertaken to understand a market comprehensively. Based on this analysis, businesses can make strategic decisions or measures in their ventures.

Examples of Business Research

Here are five examples that illustrate what business research is.

Microcredit programs from institutional and non-institutional sources have been found to significantly impact raising the standard of living of rural people, especially women.

But there is ample evidence that these credit facilities are misused and misdirected in many instances.

This practice has led to a high default rate, putting institutions hesitant to finance rural people. In this context, it is imperative to examine the status of credit utilization and assess the extent and magnitude of misuse and diversion of credit in rural areas.

Human resource development has become an essential component of the development process. This is because the human factor drives any development process .

Since a firm’s human resources are an important potential source of sustained competitive advantage , managing them well helps create unique competencies that differentiate products and services and, in turn, drive competitiveness.

This link, in principle, facilitates successful corporate performance.

An increasing body of work argues that a positive relationship exists between the so-called high-performance work practices and different measures of company performance.

Such high-performance work practices include comprehensive employee recruitment and selection procedures, incentive compensation and performance management systems, and extensive employee involvement and training.

Several studies in Bangladesh and elsewhere have found a positive relationship between HRM practices and policies and different measures of company performance.

Keeping the above background in view, a research firm designed a study to focus on studying the relationship between rewards and recognition practices and firm performance, as well as between recruitment and retention systems and firm performance, using a survey instrument for traditional HRM activities (recruitment, selection, performance management, training, compensation , and employee relations) and using independently collected organizational performance data focusing on financial performance (assets, capital, deposits, and return on equity).

The researcher decided to restrict his sample to the banking industry of Bangladesh.

In one of her papers, Sultana (2012: 15) states that women entrepreneurs in SMEs have emerged as a new class both in Bangladesh’s urban and rural areas.

Though some studies were conducted on entrepreneurship development in Bangladesh, no significant research was done on women entrepreneurs’ performance, either in rural or urban areas.

Women entrepreneurship or women in business is considered a very recent phenomenon in Bangladesh. Many economists, sociologists, and political scientists have recognized entrepreneurship in small businesses as an essential gradient influencing the economic growth of a country.

Keeping this scenario in view, the author attempted to highlight the activities of women in small and medium enterprises (SMEs), particularly in urban areas, including Dhaka Metropolitan city.

The study also collected data relevant to the entrepreneurial qualities of women and their socioeconomic status to understand whether these facilitate or constrain women to emerge as successful entrepreneurs.

This example is drawn from an adventure travel survey in a US county, where many small firms operate on half-dozen rivers and provide half-day to multi-day trips to thousands of clients annually.

The managers of a group of county river basin outfitters wanted to know how to increase customers’ satisfaction and repeat business for their multi-day river trips.

They wanted to verify the hypothesis that customer satisfaction is related to concerns with the quality of food and amenities provided safety and lore about the natural and historical setting of the trips.

Financial statements, the critical parts of financial reporting , are the principal means of supplying accounting information to a wide range of users to evaluate the financial position, profitability, liquidity, and prospects of a company so that the users can make economic decisions.

The stability of the market economy largely depends on the user groups’ confidence in the fairness of the financial statements (Choudhury et el. 1996).

Generally, fair presentation refers to the ability of the economic conditions of a company. This relates to accounting accuracy and completeness (Sen, 2002).

Keeping these points in view, Jahan and Nahar (2012: 79) planned a study to examine to what extent the companies in Bangladesh follow or observe the adapted Bangladesh Accounting Standard 1 (BAS-1) and also analyze the compliance of BAS-1 in presenting the financial report of different companies in Bangladesh.

30 Accounting Research Paper Topics and Ideas for Writing

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The Top 10 Most Interesting Business Research Topics

Interesting and relevant business research topics are vital for students pursuing an MBA or an undergraduate degree in business . Aside from helping you get excellent grades in school, they can help you understand business problems and come up with solutions to vital business research questions.

Choosing a single business research paper topic can be daunting. There are tons of exciting topics to choose from. This article provides several examples of business research paper topics that can inspire your next paper or research project.

Find your bootcamp match

What makes a strong business research topic.

A strong business research paper topic is clear, concise, well-phrased, and easy to understand. It is devoid of unnecessary jargon and may contain relevant business terms and widely known abbreviations. It also lays the foundation for the entire paper, summarizing the scope and aim of the business research project.

Tips for Choosing a Business Research Topic

Brainstorm: When choosing a research topic, begin by brainstorming topics that strike your interest or that you have substantial knowledge about. Make a list of ideas as you go.
Consider keywords and hot topics: Think about trends and hot topics in your field and academic network. Skimming the table of contents in a recently published business journal can be very helpful in this regard.
Research: Next, read up on your keywords to help you form possible topics for your research paper. Conduct a literature review to see what other researchers have discovered and how your research can add to the existing body of knowledge.
Sort your ideas: After your preliminary research, take your ideas and sort them into categories. For instance, keep topics on business law separate from international business topics.
Narrow down: Finally, narrow down your options. At this stage, consider the cost of running the project, your level of expertise, your interest, and the availability of research materials. Eventually, you’ll arrive at a single ideal research topic.

What’s the Difference Between a Research Topic and a Research Question?

A research topic is a subject that forms the foundation of your research paper—for example, the impact of gender discrimination. Your topic scope here may be fairly broad.

By contrast, a research question articulates a specific problem that your research aims to solve. Answering research questions should be the objective of your study or thesis. One example of a strong research question is “How do cultural contexts affect the impact of gender discrimination in privately owned companies?”

How to Create Strong Business Research Questions

Creating strong business research questions follows the same rules as choosing strong business research topics. However, this time you have to ask the following questions: how, why, and who? Research questions should relate to your topic of study. They should be clear, straightforward, and answerable.

2. Modern Methods of Increasing Employee Productivity

Monetary incentives, healthy work environments, and excellent work-life balance keep workers motivated and improve productivity. This research can explore the pros and cons of each method and its potential implications on employee motivation and morale. You can use data analytics methods to assess the effectiveness of these strategies.

3. Brand Influencing and Social Media Marketing Strategies

The International Chamber of Commerce formulated the international code of conduct on direct selling to guide local and international business marketing operations to ensure fairness in highly competitive business environments. Such online marketing operations include social media marketing and brand influencing.

4. Analyzing the Role of Copyrights and Trademarks in Business Transactions

Copyright, patent, and trademark policy are essential legal doctrines that prevent business people from unfairly profiting from others’ creations. When two businesses enter into a transaction, several potential issues could arise. One such issue is the protection of intellectual property. The purpose of this research is to explore the role copyrights and trademarks play in maintaining fair business transactions.

5. Analyzing the Structure of Transactions and the Role of a Director’s Guarantee in Business Law

Transactions, specifically in business law, play a significant role in the stability of companies. This paper on business law aims to analyze business laws and the structure of transactions. It will also recognize the role of a director’s guarantee in ensuring these aspects function to maintain the stability of companies in the American business sector.

6. Challenges to Transforming Small Local Businesses into Global Business Brands

Scaling a start-up or a small family business into a global brand involves several factors, including financing and financial management , technology, management, and the business environment. By studying international brands like Walmart and Spanx, you can identify core challenges that impede scaling and suggest solutions ranging from innovation management and technological innovation to a possible change in government policies.

7. Ethical Issues in Modern Business Management

Business ethics is a core aspect of business management . It defines the right and wrong ways of conducting business and guides business managers in the day-to-day running of their enterprises. With this research topic, you can explore ethical issues a business leader faces in the modern era, such as business corruption, harassment, and discrimination.

8. The Economic Development of Developing Economies in the Emerging Digital Economy

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s 2021 report revealed a fast-rising global data-driven digital economy. It also sparked several questions regarding the divide between developing economies and their developed counterparts. Some areas of focus were poor internet connection and lack of technological infrastructure.

9. The Role of Business Negotiation in Driving Sales Performance

With this topic, you can focus on the role of different negotiation tactics in achieving desired outcomes for both the organization and the customer. Managers can use these findings to help their team members negotiate more effectively and achieve better results.

10. The Role of Social Entrepreneurship in Societal Transformation

Social entrepreneurs are business start-ups formed with the primary aim of solving a societal problem and upholding moral principles, turning profit-making into a lower priority than it might be otherwise. You can study the business plans and business models of these kinds of ventures and highlight their roles in bringing about sustainable development and other forms of positive social change.

Business Research Questions

Do employee diversity and internal business communication play an essential role in productivity?
How can small companies impact global change?
What are effective strategies for maintaining vastly diversified organizations?
What role does human resource management play in ensuring proper crisis management in small businesses?
What is the role of start-ups in global business?

Choosing the Right Business Research Topic

Choosing the right business topic can be challenging, but it is essential to writing a compelling paper. Make sure to pick a topic that interests you. Also, ensure that your topic meets your professor’s requirements for the assignment.

Having a good research topic is the first step to writing an excellent research paper because it lays the foundation for the entire piece. Conduct in-depth research and take advantage of any resources available to you to facilitate the process.

Business Research Topics FAQ

The difference between quantitative research and qualitative research is that quantitative research uses numerical data to analyze problems, and it relies on statistical sampling and mathematical models to arrive at conclusions. On the other hand, qualitative business research collects data through interviews, focus groups, and observations.

You can find strong business communication research paper topics on research websites like Google Scholar and ResearchGate. You can also check many other online resources for suggestions on dissertation topics in business communication.

When starting a business, you should research your industry, target market, and competitors. It is also necessary to study business law, organizational behavior, and financial management.

Some examples of business research questions on racial and gender discrimination in the workplace include:

How does implicit bias impact employees and businesses?
What can companies do to prevent or mitigate discrimination in the workplace?
How can we create a more inclusive workplace for all employees?
What are the best practices for handling discrimination complaints?

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Business Research Topics For Students

When pursuing business programs in colleges and universities, students are required to write papers or do my thesis on business research topics. The major challenge for most students is choosing topics for their papers. A vast majority of them are stuck in this step because they fear choosing a topic that is not interesting or too broad and end up with poor grades.

Nevertheless, many inspirations in the contemporary can guide you when choosing business topics for a research paper. Whether you are pursuing a bachelor’s degree or preparing for your Ph.D. defense, there are many topics that you can write about. You just need to choose a topic that you will be interested in researching and writing a paper about.

How to Find Business Research Topics

Best business research paper topics, examples of business-related research topics, business management research topics, business law topics for research paper, international business research paper, business administration topics, argumentative business topics, business communication topics for presentation, business persuasive and informative speech topics, business debate topics, qualitative research titles about business for your dissertation, mba research paper topics, entrepreneurial research topics, business intelligence topics, the most asked business research paper questions, where to get help with business research topics.

There are many factors to consider when choosing a topic for a research paper about business. They include the following:

Whether your professor provides the topic scope and if you are permitted to change it.
Whether you have been given a thematic area within which to choose a topic.
Whether you have specialized in a specific subject.
If you have the total freedom to choose your topic

If you have complete freedom to choose your topic, start with a little research. For instance, you can read news websites, analyze successful companies and corporations, or track problems that other people write about. If you still don’t find a topic after doing this, consider the examples of business research topics provided here.

Your choice of the best topic for your business paper should depend on the field you are interested in. Additionally, your topic should be engaging and related to your study program. It should also enable you to conduct extensive research and come up with facts to back up your argument. What’s more, the best business topics for research papers grab the readers’ attention.

This explains why many students get nervous or struggle when required to choose topics for their business papers. Nevertheless, students cover many topics and subjects during their studies. What you learn in class can, therefore, be your inspiration when choosing topics for business research papers. But, if you find it hard to come up with a topic for your research paper, the internet has many samples that you can consider.

Though there are many sample topics to consider when writing a business research paper, your choice should depend on your study level, the field of interest, and assignment requirements. Here are different categories of business research topics for college students and their examples.

Business Ethics Research Paper Topics

Business ethics is a study field that gives students the freedom to choose from different topics. For instance, a student can choose a topic in this field around duties, morality, integrity, and business behavior. The increasing business ethics issues widen the range of the topics students can choose from in this category. What’s more, business ethics cover ethical conflicts between individuals and groups of employers, employees, customers, and the surrounding. Here are examples of topics for research papers in this category.

Effects of Moral Principles on Business Decisions
Causes of Unethical Conducts in Workplaces
Should Businesses Be Honest with their Customers All the Time?
The Psychology and History of Business Ethics
Examples of Moral Judgment that Doesn’t Work in Business
How Ethical Mistakes can Lead to Business Bankruptcy
Are Business Ethics the Same for the Manager and the Personnel?
How to Avoid Sexual Harassment at the Workplace
Why is an Ethical Code Important for Companies?
Taking Responsibility for the Corporate Ethics of a Company

The fact that people engage in different businesses creates a chance to research common topics like workplace honesty and general topics like environmental protection.

When writing a business management research paper, it’s important to come up with a researchable and interesting question. This can be a challenging task because there are many facets and resources in the business management field. Nevertheless, it’s still possible to find a focused, narrow question that forms the topic of a research paper. Here are examples of topics for business management research papers.

Conflict Management in a Work Team
The Role of Women in Business Management
Issues that Affect Management of Business Startups
Consequences of Excessive Work in Business
Why You Should Start a New Business After One Fails
Importance of Inter-organizational Leadership and Networks
How to Manage Organizational Crisis in Business
Product and Service Development in a Strategic Alliance
Innovation and Network Markets as a Business Strategy
Social Enterprise and Entrepreneurship

Business management research paper topics should not be too narrow or too broad. Nevertheless, there are many topics on enterprise, trade, commerce, and other subjects that you can explore because they all require extensive research.

A business law topic is not easy to find. That’s because your topic should attract the attention of your reader and relate to the broad field of business law. As such, you should narrow down your topic to something more focused. Here are examples of topics for business law papers.

How Do You Define Authority Before You Start Business Negotiations?
Insider Trading- What Does it Mean in the Contemporary World?
Are Alcohol Consumption and Sale Laws Beneficial to the Public’s Wellbeing?
Should Some Corporate Crimes Warrant Death Penalty?
Can State Officials Succeed when Dismissed for their Implication in Corruption Cases?
How Marijuana-Based Businesses Interact with the Federal and State Law
What Should a Business Do to Ensure that Its Former Employees Do Not Join Its Rival Firm?
Should Author Protection for Written Work Be Done with Nom de Plumes or Legal Names?
How can Non-Disclosure Agreements save a Company from Disgruntled former Employees?
How is Copyright Law Favorable to an Artist or a Singer when the Recording Company represents it?

Though there are many business law research topics , it’s important to choose a topic that you are personally interested in to make writing your paper an interesting task.

International topics allow students to explore global business subjects. These topics can be more complex though lucrative. It’s not surprising that this category comprises mostly of business research topics for MBA students. Here are examples of international topics for research papers.

Is Social Media Presence Important for Companies Around the World?
How Does War between Countries Affect Businesses?
Examples of Companies that Have Failed in the International Markets and Why How Do You Spot a Small Business that is Likely to Become a Successful Multi-National?
What Languages are Likely to Be International Business Languages in the Future?
Should international companies be forced to supply healthcare services to full-time employees?
Should maternity leave in international business be increased?
Should recruiters be allowed to ask questions about an applicant’s personal life?
Should we attempt for an equal representation of male and feminine leaders within the workplace?
Should social media sites be blocked at work?
Casual dress codes and the corporate world.
International businesses and their influence on national businesses.

International topics for research papers should be current. They can’t be too general or too narrow. If your topic is too general or too narrow, you will be writing a paper that won’t delve deep or say much. This won’t earn you the grade you desire.

Topics on business administration give students a chance to explore something innovative. However, choosing a topic in this category can frustrating because there are many options available. Here are examples of business administration topics.

How Advertisement Affects Consumer Behavior
How Wages Affect Employees’ Productivity
How Staff Motivation Affects Productivity
How to Measure Employee Retention Rate
Customer follow-up techniques as after-sales methods.
Why business will harden you
Emotional intelligence
Equal opportunities for both sexes
Good governance ethics and social responsibility.
The way to cope with a breach of contract.
The various external factors affecting employee retention.

When writing a business administration research paper, it’s important to choose an effective topic that you can research and present properly. It’s also important to consider the field you are interested in and the goal of writing your paper. An ideal business administration topic is one that you are interested to learn more about.

Argumentative business papers use the existing, published materials and literature. So, when choosing business research proposal topics in this category, students should explore the existing information first. This will enable them to use the existing data when presenting their understanding of the topics argumentatively. The major challenge is to choose a topic that relates to your field of business study. Here are examples of argumentative business topics.

Acquisition vs. merger- Which one is better?
Businesses that Focus on Market Vs. Businesses that Focus on Products
Is Offering Better Value to New Employees a Wise Move?
Can Business Develop Leadership through Practice and Learning?
Is it Wise for a Company to Exploit Labor in Maximizing Profits?
Investing in Digital Marketing and Social Media Campaigns- Does it Capture the Audience Attention?
Monetary Incentives Versus Personal Acknowledgement and Fringe Benefits
Is having a crypto investment risk for businesses?
Is there a bias against the workplace?
Is it possible to work while stressed?
Why are there corporate loans and special grants for females’ start-ups?

Before you decide to write a paper on an argumentative business topic, it’s important to establish your position. Make sure that you have evidence or you can find facts to support your position. Your idea should be put on a pedestal when making your argument.

Business communication is solely the act of sharing and distributing information between people within and outdoors a corporation and how the staff and management communicate to assist out organizational problems. The best researchable business communication topics for presentation include:

Social media usage
Non-verbal communication
Giving proper feedback
Communicating decisions during an issue or crisis
Business and email etiquettes and manners
Usage of company blogs
Role of influencers for building a brand
Impact of social media for workers
Differences between qualitative and quantitative data analysis
Secrets of advertising and marketing

You would have to note that these are two different things; informative speeches support educating and training. In persuasive speeches, you’re imploring that they participate in something or buy something. Some business persuasive and informative speech topics include:

Ergonomics in the workspace
Standards in creative and financial accounting
Understanding business copyright protection
What are the categories of insurance?
How to develop healthy work skills
How safety programs and dealing conditions relate to productivity
Conflict Management Strategies
How to create a comprehensive and viable business plan
Opportunities of internet advertising.
Internal control of resources.
What is a career break?
What impact do oil price fluctuations have on businesses?
Ways to draw in customer attention.
Time management
New fathers’ paternity leave.

Debate may be a valuable way of communicating and also persuading people. Interesting business debate topics for you include:

Can companies be trusted?
Are our casual dress codes beneficial for the company?
Employee drug test: yes, or no?
Should dating within the workplace be allowed?
Should companies spy on employees on social media?
Companies should be forced to produce health care for full-time employees.
Are employees that employment from home productive?
Does job satisfaction help in productivity?
Men should stay longer off for paternity leave.
Non-financial incentives and financial incentives – which is better?
How to put in place strict work policies.

Qualitative business research has to do with the creative and investigative analysis of intangible and inexact data. Here are some qualitative research titles about business for your dissertation.

Handling backlash during a project program
Ways to relieve pressure for strict work deadlines
Time management essence in goal setting
Managers should be flexible in their decisions.
How to manage an organizational crisis in business and work
What is a product development and how to do it the right way?
Major types of business insurance
Ways to enhance short and long run career plans
Networking for a successful manager
Harassment within the workplace.
Telemarketing ideas for tiny companies.

MBA is a prestigious postgraduate qualification outlining key business practices and is valued by top employers. Great MBA research paper topics include:

Gender representation in advertising
Impact of workplace diversity on company culture
Result of emotional branding on customer loyalty
Steps to run a successful retail business.
Molestation should be taken more seriously within the workplace.
Should business strikers be fired?
Strong unions are necessary for the economic process.
How do team-building events foster unity in the workplace?
To be a business owner, you need to learn to be organized.
Top ten strategic e-marketing issues.
Business and politics: should they be mixed?

This develops methods and tools for founders, which are given to start-up companies. To go in-depth, here are some entrepreneurial research topics:

Entrepreneurship skills acquisition and product innovation
Determining the impact of technological advancement on entrepreneurship in a company
Determinants of entrepreneurial innovation in an organization
Role of entrepreneurship in solving unemployment
To be a good business owner, you must learn to be well-organized
A way to promote the business without a marketing budget?
The right technique to write effective business letters
Important business ethics for running a startup
Negotiation techniques every manager must-have.
Recruitment and staffing decisions are crucial to the success of any business.
How performance-related pay can enhance motivation in the workplace.

Business intelligence ensures business owners and employees are at the top of their game at all times. Business intelligence topics worthy of consideration include:

Role of human resources in company development
Impact of organizational culture on employee performance
Evaluating the impact of strategy and leadership for organizational development
Factors influencing employee motivation.
SMEs and their risk management approach.
Ageism within the workplace
Impact of advertisement strategy on consumer behavior.
Data analysis implementation for business intelligence
Knowledge management for organizational knowledge generation
Research on knowledge extraction using data processing for business operations
How poor leadership can bankrupt a business.

A great business research paper requires a relevant subject and one that may distinguish it from other papers. Frequently asked business research paper questions include:

Repackaging a product: is it possible to avoid copyright infringement?
Is it possible for a father to require paternity leave at work?
What are the best methods of identifying bankruptcy and fraud?
Can discrimination affect the work environment?
Should companies provide penalties for smoking employers?
How does piracy influence the gaming business?
Is there anything like the law of molestation at the workplace?
What causes favoritism in the workplace?
15 Ways to start an e-business successfully
How is the worldwide pandemic changing international business strategies concerning different sectors?
What are the best training and development tactics in the office?

Topics for business papers fall into different categories. The choice of your topic should reflect your subject area or study field. But, above all, your topic should capture the readers’ attention from the moment they come across it. It should also be straightforward, original, and specific. That means you should understand your study field well to select a good topic. Therefore, conduct some research before you choose a topic for your business thesis or research paper. Besides, providing good topics for you, we can also help you with your business research paper topics.

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417 Business Topics & Research Titles about Business

The corporate world is the world of the future – there’s no doubt about that. And education in ABM will help you conquer it!

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What is ABM strand, exactly?

ABM stands for Accountancy, Business, and Management. Future leaders and entrepreneurs pursue education in this field to learn the skills essential for their careers. They study how to run a business. How to talk to clients. And, of course, how to come up with strategies to earn money.

Looking for exciting business topics to write about in a paper or dissertation? Here you’ll find a list of research titles about business, as well as ABM qualitative and quantitative research ideas collected by Custom-writing.org experts. We hope that these business and management research topics will inspire you for your own project or for a heated discussion.

❣️ Choosing an ABM Qualitative or Quantitative Research Topic

👔 business topics to write about, 💸 business topics on marketing, 📈 accounting research titles about business, 💫 business management research topics, 👷 business topics on hr, 🤔 abm strand research faq, 🔍 references.

The key part of acquiring any education is writing a research paper . Why do it? First, it’s a test of a student’s analytical, writing, and research skills. Second, being able to conduct business research is paramount to its success.

It helps you communicate with customers.
It helps you scan the marketplace for threats and opportunities.
It helps you understand how to minimize risks.
It helps you plan your investments effectively.
It helps you keep your hand on the pulse of the current trends in the market.

The obtained skills will guide you through the entirety of your professional career. It’s an experience that can’t be skipped. We’ve hand-picked 417 research topics related to the ABM strand, just for you. Here, you will find the best ideas for your future ABM research paper masterpiece.

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The first step in writing an ABM research paper is choosing a topic. With the abundance of ABM research topics ideas on the Internet, it’s not an easy task. Simply picking one won’t do the trick. You will need to juggle relevance, applicability, and your own personal interest in the subject.

There are two main types of AMB research methods: qualitative and quantitative.

Qualitative research answers the why and the how questions. It tests customers’ reaction to new products and studies consumer behaviors. Case studies, interviews, and focus groups are the common methods of collecting such data.
Quantitative research collects numerical data and analyzes stats. The common methods include various surveys in target groups.

What ABM fields to explore are out there?

Financial accounting (aka accountancy) is creating financial statements to be distributed within and outside of a company.
Management accounting is creating operational reports to be distributed only within a company.
Banking and finance are all about financial services provided to customers, and the laws of investment.
Business administration is supervising and overseeing various business operations.
Marketing is all about the promotion of buying and selling services and products.
Entrepreneurship is all about the process of coming up with, starting and managing a new business.
Human resource development management is all about reaching the top potential of the employees.
Hospitality management is overseeing and supervising various administrative tasks of a resort or hotel.
Tourism is all about attracting, housing, and entertaining tourists, and organizing tours for them.

Getting lost in this embarrassment of riches? Let’s single out the five of the trendiest areas of ABM research. They are: business, marketing, accounting, project management, and human resources. Want to see more examples of research titles about ABM strand? More on them down below!

Decided to go with a business-related topic for your ABM research paper?

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Here are some of the freshest ideas for a relevant business research paper. Enjoy our selection of business research topics and research titles for ABM students. Choose one and prove that your finger is on the pulse of the modern market world!

Is poverty a concern of a corporation? How can corporations contribute to social development? Should they concern themselves with it in the first place, and to what degree? How can corporate social responsibility result in the betterment of the market? How can a corporation’s perceived awareness produce a positive image for the customers?
Labor relations : the latest tendencies and the predictions for the future. Analyze the contemporary trends in the labor-corporate relationship. What issues are likely to emerge in 2025-2030? Back up your conclusion with real-life examples.
Diversity as a contemporary working reality. Due to globalization, people of various backgrounds tend to work together, more and more so. Does it influence the working process at all? Does the difference between genders, ages, and ethnicities hinder or facilitate business? Should the companies ensure that there’s diversity among their employees , and why? How should the work environments be organized to maximize efficiency?
Personal networking : labor-corporate communication tool. How does the number of people you know correlate with the chances of finding the best partners, workers, and customers? Is it an exponential or a sine curve? Produce real-life examples.
E-business: the world-wide globalization process. Some of the most successful modern businesses operate almost exclusively online. What are the examples? Assess the role of integration in their workflow. What are the overall perspectives of SCM (supply-chain management) in the realities of e-business?
Leadership and business in the modern world. Is there a significant difference in the styles and strategies implemented by the leaders in the 21 century as compared to the earlier eras? How do modern leaders adjust to contemporary business realia? What are the challenges and opportunities? What are the global trends? Produce real-life examples.
Copyright law : is it on the side of the artist or the company representing them? How has copyright law evolved through the times? What drove it so? To what extent does it protect modern artists? How can a copyright corporation exploit it, and to what degree? Produce real-life examples. Are there any court precedents?
Advertisement and consumer behavior . What types of advertisements prove to be the most effective? Back up your data with research results. What are the latest trends in the world of advertisement? What are the advantages and disadvantages of online and offline advertising? What mistakes can be made by a brand that is trying to produce a positive image through advertisement?
Apple : how to turn your brand into a religion. What are the factors behind the success of the Apple corporation? Is it just clever advertising, or is there something more to that? How does Apple build a following of brand loyalists? Does Apple face any difficulties in the realities of the modern harsh brand competition? What are your predictions for the nearest future of Apple corporation?
Word of mouth: a fossil or a gem? Who usually relies on this form of advertisement the most? How can an already well-established corporation benefit from it? How does word of mouth differ from other types of advertisement? What are the advantages and disadvantages? Produce real-life examples of a brand’s or organization’s success due to word of mouth.
Facebook and business . How can Facebook be used as a modern platform for conducting business? Does it have any advantages as compared to other online platforms? What are the disadvantages? What successful companies use Facebook as a business platform?

Pay for performance: a source of loyalty or displeasure ? What’s the best strategy for an employer to link pay and performance? Should pay increases be dependent on just the performance of an employee, or should other factors also be considered? Back up your reasoning with research results.
Local customization vs. global standardization. What are the pros and cons of each of the approaches? What companies are known to implement both strategies successfully? Give examples.
External recruiting vs. Internal promotions . What are the pros and cons of each of the approaches? How can a company implement both strategies successfully? Which is a more cost-effective approach? Why is it impossible to stick to just one of the strategies?
Does a multinational corporation have a motherland? Is it obligatory for a multinational corporation to have a strong presence in its home country? What are the economic benefits or downsides of it? Produce real-life examples.
Management by walking around (MBWA). What is the reasoning behind it, and how is it implemented? Is it a boost for productivity or a stress for employees? Who needs it more – the employees or the manager? Is it effective? Illustrate your point with research results.
The AIDA formula in advertising. What exactly is the AIDA formula? Why is it popular nowadays, and how does it compare to the other formulas for creating advertisements? Is it the key to a successful message broadcasting or a hindrance to creativity?
Free market : an achievable goal or a utopia? What exactly is the concept of a free market? What are the advantages of such a system? What are the disadvantages? Are there any real-life examples, and what can be learned from them?
Family business : pros and cons. Are there any modern examples of a successful family business? What might be the downsides of such a business model? What are the advantages? What can be learned from the examples of exercising interpersonal relations in business?
Franchises vs. “from scratch” businesses. Why having a franchise is a go-to option for a lot of corporations? What benefits does it produce? Are there any downsides? Which business model is easier to maintain? Which business model is more cost-effective?
Marijuana business in the US: state law vs. federal law. What is the current stand of federal law on the issue? What about state law? What is your prediction for the marijuana-based businesses for the nearest future?
Governments vs. private businesses. How does the government manage private businesses in your country? What is the best strategy for a government-private business relationship? How does this relationship reflect on the economy of the country?
The Internet and consumer behavior . How does the Internet shape consumer behavior in modern days? Are there any drastic changes in consumer behavior as compared to ten years ago? Is the Internet just a new platform for advertising, or is there more to that? Produce real-life examples.
The culture of consumerism . What exactly is this phenomenon? Is it really a thing or just a popular penny dreadful? Is it a natural occurrence or an artificial design created by the major companies for increasing profit? What proofs of the latter can be produced?
The best countries to invest into in 2020. How can a country be invested into? Why would some corporations choose to do it? What are the criteria? Is it cost-effective? What are the real-life examples?

Here are some more business research topics to explore:

Outsourcing: its advantages and disadvantages for a business. Is it ethical?
Authors and copyright: which works better, legal names or nom de plumes?
Negotiation tactics : understanding authority.
Oil prices impacts on consumer behavior in Turkey .
Corruption cases: do state officials have a higher chance of succeeding with a request for dismissal?
Juicy Fruit: business strategies and product promotion .
Insider trading : how the nature of the offence and the punishment for it has changed through the decades.
American Airlines: the secret of success .
Alcohol: the advantages of the sale and consumption laws for the society’s well-being.
Organizational change capacity concept .
Death penalty : should it apply for the most severe corporate crimes?
The correlation between wages and employee productivity.
The correlation between strategic management and employee productivity .
The impact of staff motivation on employee productivity.
Managing employee retention .
Low-cost economy: companies benefits and drawbacks .
Sales letter vs. waste bin: how to avoid spam folder?
Startups: how to.
L’Oreal and Procter & Gamble: financial analysis .
Teenagers vs. business: the phenomenon of teenage business.
Logistical system: private and public warehouses combining .
Small business : the basis of economics.
Coca-Cola and PepsiCo: Comparative Analysis .
Third-world countries: how is business done there?
Taxes : types and uses.
The role of corporate lobbyists in American future .
Business ethics: is there a difference from general ethics? What are the laws?
What are the cultural differences of doing business in different countries?
Roadrunner Sport: social and digital media strategies .
The target audience : how to define it and how to attract it?
Crisis management in business.
Call centers outside the US: pros & cons .
Risks: how to calculate them in your business endeavor.
Monopolies : how do they impact the market?
Business dynasties: how does family business operate?
Copyright law : how does it operate?
A gaming lounge: business plan .
Services: what are the most and least popular in the market?
Dell Company: global strategies .
Charity: is it a good advertisement strategy for a business?
How to balance ecology and increasing production.
SunTrust: business strategies in banking industry .
Corporate culture : what company rituals are common in business?
Negotiation and diplomacy in business.
TransGlobal Airlines as a monopoly .
A healthy working environment and its importance in business
Google’s success: a case study .
Brands: what’s their place in the modern market?
American Airlines’ and US Airways merger .
Military crisis: a hindrance or a boost for business?
Small enterprises: what are the challenges?
British Petroleum: the corruption case .
Internet advertisement: is it overtaking the world of advertising?

The psychology behind people’s decision to buy a more expensive product or a higher quantity of it.
Feminism: how does it influence the way women consume?
Hilton’s investments into the Italian tourism sector: causes and effects .
Teenagers and brands: what brands are the most popular among modern teenagers?
Mandatory recycling: how would it affect the prices? Would it be cost-effective in the long term?
Advertising in schools: is it acceptable?
Social media: what marketing strategies are used there? Does it influence offline advertisement?
Tariffs on car imports in Ukraine .
Employee stress : does every company need to offer services of a psychologist?
Sports and art: do corporate extracurricular classes enhance employees’ creativity and result in a healthy work environment?
Walmart company: environmental sustainability .
Eco-friendliness: how can more eco-friendly policies be encouraged in companies and businesses?
The concept of perfect competition .
Personal guns: does the successful handgun production industry depend on their free distribution?
BMW group sustainability plan .
Minimum wage : should it be canceled? Why?
Starbucks, Toyota and Google: missions comparison .
Commerce and retail: what is the future? Will shopping activity move completely to the Internet?
Toyota and Plexus: pricing strategies .
Internet advertising: is it more effective than other types of advertisement?
Tobacco production: should higher taxes apply to the tobacco companies? Should they be obliged to donate to cancer treatment centers?
Alcohol production: should higher taxes apply to alcohol companies? Should they be obliged to donate to alcohol treatment centers?
Xerox: company profile and overview .
Business ethics: how does it influence important decisions made by a company?
Ethics and morality in a business-oriented world.
The rise and fall of Eastman Kodak .
A museum exhibition: how can it be made marketable?
The business guide to sustainability .
Mobile phones: what has facilitated their high sales rates in recent years?
Under Armour: company analysis and strategic alternatives .
International human resources : what are the major challenges and pitfalls?
Corporate rituals: what are the oldest and most rigid ones that are still practiced in companies?
Brainstorming: how effective is it in producing ideas and business solutions?
Healthy work environment: what does it look like, and how can it be created?
Financial crisis: how does it affect business in the US and worldwide?
Famous brands: what are the associated advantages of owning a product of a recognizable and respectable brand? Why are consumers often willing to pay for it more than for a less well-known alternative?
Image: how does it affect the modern business culture and consumer behavior?
Gender: does it influence the ability to manage small and large teams?
Hiring youth: why certain niche companies prefer to employ young people? What are the examples?
Differences in ethnic cultures: how do they influence team-building?
Differences in ages: do they create difficulties in departmental cross-functional cooperation?
Gender: why certain companies prefer to employ more women than men and vice versa? Are efficiency stereotypes empirically and numerically confirmed?
Fitness franchises : why are they more and more popular?
Franchise models: what types are out there? Which would you choose for a coffee house? Other examples are welcome.
Franchise promotion: is it the responsibility of the franchisee or of the franchise holder?
Franchise agreement: which items should be included to save from excessive spending with no reward?
What factors must be considered when choosing the market for business expansion ?
Globalization and consumer behavior: how does one affect the other?
Chinese market: how does it benefit from globalization?
Globalization: will it continue to spread, or will it cease to decrease?
Business clusters: how do they move globalization?
Bank mergers : a wise strategy or a result of failure? When should a bank consider this move?
Bankruptcy : what are the most common reasons for it? Does it necessarily spell the end for a business?
Big-box stores : how to ensure the success of a big-box retailer?
Brand awareness: how to make people remember and recognize your brand?
Competitive intelligence : what are the best ways to gather and analyze information about the business environment?
Consumer loyalty: how to make a consumer develop a behavioral tendency of favoring one brand’s products over the other?
Consumer risk management: what are the best ways to minimize the potential risk of a product not meeting quality standards entering the marketplace? How to make it cost-effective?
Copycat products: why do they enter the market so easily, and what are the ways for a brand to fight for its copyright?
Corporate crime : how is it best for a company to redeem its reputation after being compromised?
Corporate social responsibility : how does this business model help make a company be socially accountable?
People Water: corporate social responsibility .
Customer competencies: how to enable your customers to learn and engage in an active dialogue?
Data security : how to protect data from unauthorized access and data corruption?
Downtown revitalization: how can it be beneficial for a business?
Ruth’s Chris restaurants: SWOT analysis .
Employee coaching: how is it different from managing? How is it best to organize employee coaching in a big / small company?
The “Do no harm” ethical principle in business.
Green products : are they good for a business? How can a company use less packaging, and reduce the amount of disposed toxics?
Industry disruptor: what is a disruptive innovation in business?
Intellectual capital: what are the components and what is the best way to unlock their potential?
Job sculpting: what is the best way to match a person to a job that unlocks their potential to the fullest degree?
Marketing ethics : what are the moral principles behind the regulation and operation of marketing in your country?
Mergers : what are the types, and why do businesses do it?
Organigraphs: how to graphically represent a company’s structure and processes? How are organigraphs different from a traditional organizational chart?
Philanthropy: what are the competitive advantages of corporate philanthropy?
Quality circles: how does it influence business positively?
Regional planning: how to place infrastructure across a large area of land efficiently?
Customer service initiatives: how to learn what your customers dislike, tolerate, and actively appreciate?
Bagel Store vs. Subway: comparative analysis .
Shared services model: why are they cost-efficient?
Short-term financing: in what types of businesses does it apply best?
Starbucks Effect: how does a Starbucks store affect home and property values?
Groupon: daily deal or lasting success ?
Strategic planning : how to establish the direction of a small business?
IBM Corporation: business strategies .
Labour strikes: what causes them? What are the consequences for a business in particular and for the economy in general?
Companies’ ethics: concepts and cases .
Subliminal advertising: how do they work?
Telemarketing: a thing from the past or a relevant method of advertising?
Underage workers: how does employment of minors work?
Underwriting: who provides underwriting services and who receives them?
Undocumented workers: do they have rights, and what are the risks?
Unions: what is their stand in your country?
Whistle blowing: is it regarded ethical in modern business practice?
Work ethic : what kind of belief system is that? Does it have any downsides?
Work-life balance : what are the ways of encouraging and maintaining it?
Business leadership: is it a skill that can be learned?
Stakeholders : what is their impact on the success of a business?
Global unemployment: why is it a worldwide phenomenon? What are the solutions to the problem?
International investment : why is it important to educate the public on its benefits?
International competition: what are the strategic measures of survival for local companies?
Job creation : how can big and small businesses create jobs?
Businesses and oceans: why is it crucial to institute and implement environmentally-friendly approaches?
Ethical conflicts: how to avoid cultural, religious, and political arguments at work?
Organizational environmental pollution: how does it affect consumer trust levels?
Business negotiation: what are the styles of intercultural dialogue?
Excessive work: what are the consequences of overworking ?

Marketing is one of the most prominent entities that govern our world. It’s the cornerstone of business, serving to identify and satisfy customers’ wants and needs. Without marketing, there is no business!

Here are some of the most relevant marketing research paper topics and ideas. Choose one, and you are bound to impress your professor!

Get an originally-written paper according to your instructions!

Coronavirus: a case study. How has COVID-19 affected consumer behavior worldwide ? What about your own country? Are there any glaring examples of inadequate consumer behavior? What are the reasons behind them? How do different businesses deal with the consequences of quarantine? Produce examples of marketing centered around Coronavirus.
Zoom: a case study. How did Zoom manage to become a go-to platform during the Coronavirus outbreak ? Was it the brand’s clever marketing, or did something else influence the consumer choice? How did Zoom manage to outperform the dozens of rival video conferencing services? What are the numbers? Make your predictions on whether the company will be able to sustain its success after quarantine is over.
Gillette #MeToo commercial: a case study. How did the brand express its political stand on a pressing social subject? Did the campaign ultimately succeed in its goal? Did the backlash harm Gillette’s reputation, or was it a sign of successful branding? How did it ultimately reflect on sales? What can be learned from the data?
Xbox Series X: a case study. The Xbox Series X is the successor of the popular Xbox One home video game console. It is scheduled for release in late 2020. How is it advertised? How does its marketing campaign impact user behavior? Is it a fast process? Analyze the concept and the marketing campaign of the product.
Colin Kaepernick in a Nike commercial: a case study. How did the brand use an existing political situation to its advantage? Did the campaign ultimately succeed in its goal, or did it merely taint Nike’s reputation? Was it marketing genius or brand failure? What do the numbers say? What can be learned from the data?
Brexit and consumer behavior. How has Brexit affected consumer buying behavior in the UK? What about the EU? How did it impact currency exchange rate? What businesses benefited from it? What can be learned from the data?
Same product, different branding: a comparison. Two companies are selling the same product – only branding and packaging are different. What influences customers’ choice? Is the price relevant in this equation? What can be learned from the data?
Addictive consumer behavior. What brands are known to inspire addictive consumer behavior? What marketing tools do they employ? Are there any downsides for a business? Should companies be held liable for maniacal consumer behavior?
Corporate social responsibility as a brand marketing tool. How effective is it? Produce examples of brands whose sales increased after a charity or awareness campaign. What can be learned from the data? What are the pitfalls of the CPR approach?
The ROI in athletics. What exactly is return on investment? How is it calculated? Why is there close public attention to the ROI factor in athletics? How can ROI be used as a marketing tool? Produce real-life examples.

Slack: a case study. How popular is Slack as compared to rival platforms offering similar services? How much of its success can be attributed to marketing? Is its success currently on the rise or on the decline?
Uber : a case study. How has Uber become the leading company in its field? Analyze its history. What role did marketing play in its success? Analyze the company’s exit from the Chinese, Russian, and South Asian markets. Why did the company choose to do it? What benefits did it gain by doing so? What’s the current stand of the company?
Facebook : a case study. Facebook has faced a lot of backlash in recent years. How did the company manage it? What are the examples of Facebook’s different takes on marketing influenced by the company’s negative publicity?
Marketing in recession : a case study. The 2008 global financial crisis took a great toll on the markets worldwide. Nevertheless, there are stories of success for new products introduced to the market at the time. What companies managed to successfully roll out a product in the time following the 2008 global financial crisis? Give a case study of such a company.
Microsoft : a case study. How does Microsoft advertise its products? How are traditional storefronts doing market-wise as compared to the recent advertising trend, mobile phone marketing? What choices does the IT giant make concerning mobile ad targeting? Is it successful?
Black Friday : what’s the secret behind the phenomenon? Does it offer real value for money or is it simply a psychological trick of clever marketing?
Digital transformation: how to create an effective digital marketing budget?
Production expenditure: how does marketing affect it?
Jeep company’s marketing .
The Internet of things : what exactly is IoT? What are the examples? How can marketing be incorporated into it?
Volkswagen company’s information technology .
Volkswagen in America: managing IT priorities .
Relationship banking: how has it been influenced by digital promotion and mobile money accessibility? How is mobile banking redefining the customer-bank relationship?
Apple Computer Inc.: maintaining the music business .
Credit card responsibility: how to limit compulsive buying behaviors for credit card holders?
Corporate social responsibility: how do organizations use CSR to reinforce brand equity?
Servus Credit Union Ltd: marketing strategies .
Marketing manipulation tactics: what do brands do to get more customers?
Herfy’s marketing strategy in India .
Social media marketing as an image builder: different ways of communicating your brand image on the YouTube, Tik Tok, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram platforms.
Consumer motivation on the BevCo example .
Influencers: how can Internet-famous people impact the buying choices of consumers ?

Marketing strategy connting digital devices.

A Coffee shop marketing strategy .
Direct marketing strategies: are consumers equipped enough to shield themselves from it?
The “Do no harm” ethical principle in business .
Maternity: what is the best way to market baby products?
Family orientation: how does it affect marketing in general?
Online shopping : what do buyers look for when shopping online? What attributes do they compare when choosing the product?
Harley Davidson, Naked Juice, and Tropicana Juice: brand perception analysis .
Global marketing: how does it incorporate standardization?
Social class differentiation: how do financial institutions market their products and services differently on the basis of social class?
Snapple Juice: marketing strategies .
Internet marketing: what trends can be expected to dominate the online world in the future?
Marketing and culture : how do advertising strategies vary across different cultures?
The Green Motor Car Company: marketing strategy .
Political campaigns : how can they impact advertising? Produce real-life examples.
Impulsive buying : how does it occur, and how do brands exploit it?
American Marketing Association: promotion strategy .
Loyalty cards: do they boost sales and encourage customer loyalty?
Brand trust: is it possible for well-marketed brands to get away with selling products of substandard quality?
Trust as the way to develop proper company-clients relationships .
Globalization : what is its impact on consumer behavior?
Customer loyalty : what brand attributes result in it?
Market monopoly: what are some of the successful marketing approaches that can help break through it?
Cause marketing : how does it impact a brand’s affinity with its target audience?
Brand equity : what is the effect of discount offerings and consumer promotions on it?
The outcomes of advertising in a recession
Top-of-mind awareness: how is it best achieved in modern times? Produce real-life data.
Event sponsorships and customer perceptions: how to?
Mobile ad targeting: pros and cons of mobile ad targeting based on users’ browser and app history.
Mortgage marketing: how to make customers be able to differentiate between various mortgage options offered by competing banks?
Drones production company marketing plan .
Click baiting: a promising novelty in sponsored posts promotion or a brand-compromising nuisance, best to be avoided for fear of bad associations with the brand?
Who are the consumers of Nivea?
Celebrity endorsement : what’s its impact on ROI for CPG brands?
Comparison advertising: is it effective in building brand equity?
Do consumers prefer purchasing routine grocery products online?
Is earned media perceived to be as important as it appears to be?
Word of mouth: what makes people want to forward content to their friends?
Viral content: how to?
Evolving family structures: what has changed and how to address it with marketing?
Augmented reality : how is it enhancing marketing experiences?
Artificial intelligence: what role does it play in modern marketing?
Advertising to children : how to? What are the pitfalls?
Brand salience: how to?
Humour in advertising: what’s the impact, and what’s the customer response?

As you are very well aware, accounting is all about numbers and measurements. It’s even been called the language of business! That’s why writing a research paper on one of the accounting research paper topics is such a good idea. You are going to master it in no time!

What are the main fields of accounting?

Financial Accounting
Management Accounting
Accounting Information Systems
Tax Accounting

There are carefully selected topics down below that explore each of those fields. Just go there and choose one – it’s that easy!

Taxes and politics. How do organizations fight for the reduction of the taxes they have to pay? How can politicians influence the tax rate in different spheres? Are there any real-life examples of that? How can this situation be curbed?
Financial markets. What are commodities and stocks? What is the role of financial markets in the global economy? Why are there few people who understand financial markets? What issues does it raise? What can be done about it?
Accounting information systems . What are the most popular accounting systems used by businesses nowadays? What are the most modern ones? How rapid is the flow of information today? How does it influence modern accounting? What can be done to advance it even further?
Managing and accounting. How can managerial accounting help a company make better decisions? How does it work? What are the possible examples of successful and unsuccessful decisions made in a company based on the managerial accounting reports?
Personal finances . Why should individuals hire personal accountants? How can this practice be systematized? What are the alternatives? Produce examples of modern mobile accounting applications and free online services. What are the pitfalls to be aware of?
Debt management. Why does such a serious issue exist in the modern world? Produce the current numbers of people for whom debt is a life-governing factor. What is the reason behind the prevalence of this problem? Who may benefit from this situation? How can this be fixed?
Auditing collusion. What is employee / auditing collusion? How can it result in an unfair marketing advantage? Why is it illegal? Produce real-life examples of auditing collusion disrupting marketing equilibrium. What can be done to anticipate and prevent such occurrences in companies?

Below are some other accounting research topics to explore:

Accounting decisions: what are the criteria for making them correctly?
General principles of accounting .

Forensic accounting : how does the investigation process go? What are the role and essential skills of forensic accountants?
Accounting theory: how is it influenced by culture?
Tax assessment: how to correctly assess the tax on organizational earnings?
The 2008 global financial crisis : what factors were the primary cause?
What are the steps on the way to becoming a certified accountant ?
Accounting ethics: what are the modern dilemmas?
Accounting history : what are the historical prospects for the best accounting practices?
Accounting systems: what are the risks in the process of developing their design?
Earnings management: what are the perspectives?
Tax reduction : what are the most effective ways of doing it for organizations?
Managerial accounting: what are the effects of financial markets on management accounting?
Financial fraud : what are the ways to escape it?
Accounting theories: what is their meaning for business?
Nortel Networks Corporation Accounting Theory .
Normative theories: what are the issues with normative theorizing in accounting?
Theoretical concepts: how to implement them in practical accounting?
Earnings management: how to best organize it in a company?
Cash flow: what is the effect of external factors on cash flow in an organization?
Online accounting: can accountancy be effectively based on the Internet?
Offshore accounting: how does it work? What are the pros and cons?
Accounting systems: which are the most effective for accountants?
Tax code: how to?
Islamic banking : how is it different from the European approach?
Financial markets: what are the known commodities?
Financial markets: what is their role in the global economy?
Financial transparency: what are the strategies to make organizational finances transparent?
Cloud computing : what is its role in data management for accounting information systems?
Personal investment: important factors .
The ideal framework for AIS: what does an ideal framework for an accounting information system in multinational cooperatives look like?
Food production company: a financial plan .
Decision-making process: what is the role of AIS in the decision making process for medium / large economic enterprises?
Accounting frauds: analyze three major accounting frauds of the last decade in detail. Why is ethical judgment needed in accounting at all times?
Intellectual capital: how do two major business companies (of your choice) build a relationship between their financial statements and their intellectual capital?
Education for senior executives: how can business education for senior executives influence hedging behavior?
Non-profit accounting: what are its financial reporting requirements?

Project management is the cornerstone of doing business. After all, how can you do anything without organizing it first? You may think, “Oh, but that’s easy… I just do it!” But that’s not how it works in modern business.

In big corporations, the way you organize a project is often synonymous with its eventual success or failure. Project managers need all of their knowledge, skills, and techniques to make projects meet the requirements. Want to look deeper into the processes and secrets behind project management? The idea for your perfect project management research paper is waiting for you down below!

Project management software . Which project management tools dominate the market today? Are they cost-effective? What do they primarily focus on (e.g., cost, scheduling time, etc.)? Analyze different project management software and find out whether they really lead to project success and increase productivity or not.
Humanitarian logistics. How do system dynamics and project management principles affect logistics operations? The need for humanitarian logistics has increased around the world due to the rise in environmental disasters (earthquakes, tsunamis, etc.). How can the sustained damages be reduced? Analyze the collaboration between system dynamics and humanitarian logistics. How does it impact flows in the supply chain, stakeholders, and responses? What are the best adaptations of project management theories?
Project delay causes. Identify the leading symptoms and causes of project delays. How does it impact the project life cycle? How do global construction companies cope with it? What strategies have they devised to deal with the issue?
Factors of project selection. What are the primary factors that affect selecting a project? Analyze the shift of project benefits approach towards customer-centricity. What is the reason for it? What is the difference between the two approaches? Which is more effective in modern business?
IT industry and agile project management . What is the impact of agile project management on productivity in IT companies? Analyze it using quantitative research techniques. Measure improvement of productivity, customer satisfaction, and employee satisfaction. Analyze and report the outputs of the data using empirical hypothesis testing methods.
Implementation of project management practices . What is the impact of an organization on how project management practices are implemented? Analyze the more informal and people-focused project management practices that are used in small and medium-sized enterprises. Use mixed methods research techniques such as interviews and surveys. Choose companies from a specific sphere to collect data. Examine the size of the company and how it impacts project management practices.
Communication and quality. How significant is communication in maintaining timely delivery and quality of project activities? Analyze the importance of communication between the organization of a project and its stakeholders (external and internal). How does efficient communication help an organization meet the expectations?
Team conflict dynamics model: what conflict types and team conflict profiles are there? How can they produce resolutions that can lead a project to success?
Culture and conflict management: how different cultures of project managers may influence the methods of conflict resolution they implement? How does a project manager’s background affect the way they identify misdeeds and the way they try to deal with conflicts that arise in their project?
Project misalignment with business objectives: how does it affect the overall project performance?
Project management soft skills : how important are they in the context of project success rates? What is the cost of training, and what are the benefits? How do they help the project achieve the desired outcome?
Psychosocial stressors: how do they impact project manager performance? What types of psychosocial stressors are there? Does organizational culture have any mediating effect? Use real-life data.

Project management research trends: how do they influence project success? What is the relationship between project management research trends and social-economic trends?
Project management maturity factors: how do they influence project success in large enterprises? How come the role of projects has increased worldwide, but the overall number of successful projects hasn’t changed? What is the relationship between project performance factors and organizational project management maturity?
Agile-scrum beyond IT: how can it bring managerial benefits to other sectors? Analyze its potential for the healthcare industry. Illustrate how it may be applied to develop frameworks for quality and timeliness improvement. How can it help deliver healthcare in a large-scale patient setting?
Project completion rate: how do organizational characteristics influence it in the construction industry? Analyze data on project performance using key performance indicators (KPIs). Use social network analysis tools to document organizational characteristics.
Leadership style as a mediator: how to connect collaboration satisfaction and emotional intelligence? What leadership styles are there? What are their roles as mediators between emotional intelligence and collaboration satisfaction?
Effective project scheduling system: what are the effects of the application of this planning and scheduling style in construction projects? Use the critical path method (CPM) in the analysis of drafting and subsequent implementation of an effective project scheduling system for manufacturing renewable energy plants.
Effective project manager appointment guidelines: how to design and implement them for construction companies in XYZ? How do two types of leadership styles, person-centered and team-centered, differ when used by project managers? How can one balance them? What does Archer say on the topic in her Realist social theory? Use the data from your analysis for designing effective project manager appointment guidelines to be implemented in XYZ construction companies.
Controlling costs in project management: a systems approach. Analyze the work of the research and development departments for a US-based consumer goods manufacturer.
Management: power, authority, and influence .
Culture, project performance, and IT industry: what might be the causes of delay and failure due to cultural factors?
CISCO Systems Inc: strategies and management .
Initiation stage of a project: a review. Analyze the work of the US medicine sector.
Similar but different: review the similarities and differences in how people practice project management across the world.
Effective teamwork role for organizations performance .
Competitive advantage: does a company gain a competitive advantage by implementing expert management in a project?
Canbide Corporation: operations management tools .
Critical path analysis: how do project managers plan for it and assess it?
Diversity: management practices and principles .
The uncertainty: how valid is it in lengthy and difficult projects in the US construction industry?
Transformational and transactional leadership models .
The history: investigate and analyze the development and evolution of project management across the past 20 years.
The qualities of an efficient leader .
Understanding the intricacies: how important is the grasp of the project’s intricate nature for its effective management?
McDonalds: management effectiveness .
Benchmarking project management maturity: analyze the benchmark standard of measuring maturity in project management.
Shangri-La Hotels: company management .
Agile project management: how does academic literature help develop its understanding?
The organization of international business .
The PMBOK guidelines: do they prepare managers for handling project risks successfully?
Information management system: practical solutions .
Project management methodologies: how do various prevailing project management methodologies correspond with efficacy? Review the US market.
Subway in the US: management strategies in food industry .
Software development methodologies: how do organizations justify their choices?
Teamwork on project management : how important is it in the US healthcare system?
The concept of change in management .
Software tools: how do different project management software tools correspond with efficacy in the developed world?
Establishment of Ruth’s Chris Steak House in London: how to make a restaurant chain international?
Attitude towards risk: how does project management handle possible risks in the US oil and gas sector?

Package role in design and planning process .
Public procurement: what are the associated challenges for project management in the US IT sector?
Humility and its impact in leadership .
The stakeholder approach: how does a global perspective picture its overall success in adoption and completion of projects?
Management: Holistic Response to Client Issues .
Captiva Conglomerate: management strategies .
Best project management practices: what does the European financial sector tell us about them?
Hewlett-Packard: global supply chain management .
Leadership qualities: does successful project management need them?

Human resource management is one of the most interesting spheres of business. After all, it’s all about people!

There are three major areas of a human resource manager’s responsibilities. They are: staffing, allocating compensation and benefits for employees, and administrating work.

There’s so much you can do as an HR specialist. It’s as people-oriented as a profession can get. It’s always a continuous process, too. You’ll never get bored!

There are a number of questions an HR specialist needs to know the answer to. How to select the best recruits? How to encourage team spirit and teamwork among the employees? How to motivate people? How to appraise and how to punish? All of those questions and more are raised in our selection of human resources research topics!

Training of employees as a performance enhancer. How does training of employees correspond with their performance? Produce real-life data. Use a questionnaire to identify and determine the workforce needs in an organization. Analyze the data by calculating a simple percentage analysis. How much did employee training influence their performance? Was it cost-effective?
Performance evaluation and its impact on productivity. How does performance evaluation impact employee productivity? What is its purpose? What is the difference between formal and informal evaluations? How should a performance evaluation be carried out? Describe each of the steps. What is the influence of a poor evaluation on an employee’s morale and their absenteeism rate? Produce real-life data.
Motivation and its impact on morale. What motivation theories are there? Which are the most popular to utilize in organizations today? What does the process of staff motivation look like? Does it influence employee performance? Produce real-life data. Analyze the data by calculating a simple percentage analysis.
Performance appraisal and its impact on productivity. What is performance appraisal, and how is it different from performance evaluation / employee motivation? Why is it considered to be crucial for the growth and survival of an organization? What is the role of performance appraisal as a strategic factor? Describe what performance appraisal techniques are used in an organization. How does it impact employee productivity? Produce real-life data.
Human resource and its relevance in modern business. Why are the effective acquisition, utilization, and maintenance of human resources considered to be central to the growth of an organization? How can executive initiative utilize human resources profitably for an organization? What are the techniques of sustaining and developing human resources in an organization? How to achieve maximum cooperation between staff and management?
Stress and its impact on the employee performance. What is the effect of stress on workers’ performance? Produce real-life data. Collect data using questionnaires and descriptive survey research design. Present the collected data in tables. Analyze it using simple percentages and frequencies.
Staff training in business organizations. How to identify the training needs of an organization? What is the role of management in staff training and development? What types of training methods are there? What are the effects of training on employee performance? Produce real-life data.

Here are some of the simpler human resources topics to explore:

Employee loyalty: what are the main factors that can increase it?
The cost of prejudice and discrimination on the wprkplace .
Conflicts in the workplace : how to resolve them? What are the most typical ones?
Cultural differences: how can human resource managers work around cultural differences in an international company?

Recruiting students: what are the pros and cons?
Compensation and benefits are the parts of employment relationship .
Employees’ education : should a company pay for it?
Harmful outsourcing of United States jobs .
Outsourcing and freelance workers: what are the pros and cons?
Recruitment : what are the opportunities and risks of recruiting new team members?
How to motivate employees effectively?
HR managers: how to select, recruit, hire, and educate human resource managers?
Legal aspects of human resource management .
Overqualified employees: how should an HR manager deal with an overqualified employee?
Google company: workforce diversity policy .
Talent hunting and management: what’s the human resource manager’s role in this process?
Character types: what character types are there, and how do they affect the team-building process in a company?
Workplace harassment and bullying: how should a human resource manager deal with such challenges? What strategies of prevention are to be employed?
Diversity : how can a company encourage it? What is its impact on the dynamics in the workplace?
Communication: how to make it effective? How does it affect a company’s success?
Wages : do they affect employee productivity? How to increase employees’ motivation and make it cost-effective?
Assessing employee performance : what are the best ways to do it? What tools and criteria are there?
The role of diversity in the workplace .
Labor laws : what are the most critical issues to be resolved?
Company data : how to protect it in the age of technology?
Equal pay : are staff members paid equally, and how can HR managers address this issue?
Leadership styles .
Health problems: how can they affect employees’ productivity, and how can HR managers address this issue?
Riordan Manufacturing: HR marketing services .
Workplace motivation: what motivates people to work more?
Mergers and acquisitions : what is the role of an HR specialist in these processes?
Managing a diverse workforce .
Employee loyalty: how can HR specialists encourage employee loyalty through developing the job satisfaction factor?
Organizational burnout of employees .
Employee retention: which factors contribute to it?
Salary bonuses: what are their additional benefits? How can an HR specialist identify who is eligible for getting them?
Strategic human resources : is there global competitiveness on it, and why?
Human resources market: describe its demand and supply circle.
Daily childcare: how can it enhance the performance of employees in the company?
Compensation packages : what are they and what is their function? How can an HR specialist identify who is eligible for getting them?
Career planning : should it be more people-oriented, or is it to be centered around companies?
Professional qualities vs. fitting personality: which is more important?
Performance tests: how are they to be conducted?
Do remote interviews match in their effectiveness with personal ones?

The Accountancy , Business , and Management (ABM) research focuses on the basic concepts of financial, marketing, and business management. ABM research explores various strategies employed in the business, marketing, and accounting spheres. It helps specialists in the sphere discern which business theories work best when put to practice.

Qualitative research gathers non-numerical data used to uncover customers’ opinions, thoughts, and trends. ABM qualitative studies use focus groups, observations, and interviews. The importance of the qualitative method have been increasingly recognized in the ABM field as a rich in detail and insightful way of analyzing the current market situation.

The nature of business research is the collection, study, and analysis of various business-related data to acquire detailed information and use it to maximize sales and profit of a business. The employed research methods include qualitative and quantitative types. The importance and benefits of business research can’t be overrated.

A marketing research topic is an issue that a researcher is investigating in their marketing research paper. The topic needs to be specific and well-defined to ensure the success of a research project on market and marketing. Selecting a topic is a challenging part of the marketing research.

Learn more on this topic:

280 Good Nursing Research Topics & Questions
256 Research Topics on Criminal Justice & Criminology
224 Research Topics on Technology & Computer Science
178 Best Research Titles about Cookery & Food
507 Interesting History Topics to Research
193 Best Education Research Topics & Ideas
120+ Micro- & Macroeconomics Research Topics
201 Research Topics on Psychology & Communication
512 Research Topics on HumSS
301 Best Health & Medical Research Topics
521 Research Questions & Titles about Science
A List of Research Topics for Students. Unique and Interesting
Good Research Topics, Titles and Ideas for Your Paper
Gale Databases: Gale
Writing a Research Paper: Purdue OWL
What are the Topics used in Research Starters – Business? EBSCO Connect
What should be a good topic for research related to Accountancy, Business, and Management? Quora
The difference between quantitative vs. qualitative research: SurveyMonkey
Understanding Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research: Medium.com
PhDs in Business & Management: Five Hot Research Topics (TopUniversities)
All Topics: Harvard Business Review
Research topics and projects: QUIT Business School
Browse All Topics: Harvard Business School
Market Research: Entrepreneur
Management Accounting Research: Elsevier
Accounting Research Tutorial: UF Libraries
What Is Management Research Actually Good For? Harvard Business Review
What is Management Research? University of Toronto
The value of management research to managers: The Conversation
Human Resources: Harvard Business School
Research & Surveys: SHRM
Human Resources in Research: UOttawa
BA (Hons) Business Studies: University of Stirling
BA Research: University of Newcastle
Education Studies BA: UCL Institute of Education
Areas of Research: PhD in Management, Michigan State University
Research focus areas in business and government: Victoria University of Wellington
PhD Subject Groups: Business School, University of Edinburgh
Research areas: The University of Sydney Business School
Research topics: Leeds University Business School
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Research Proposal Topics: 503 Ideas, Sample, & Guide [2024]

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A Better Approach to Mergers and Acquisitions

Far more mergers succeed today than in the past. Here’s how to post a win.

But today those odds have inverted. According to new research by Bain, over the past 20 years firms have done more than 660,000 acquisitions, worth a total of $56 trillion, with deals reaching a peak in 2021. And close to 70% of them have succeeded. Even among the roughly 30% that were less successful, many of the deals still created some value.

What has changed? This article presents four explanations for the turnabout.

Twenty years ago, consultants at Bain & Company published a book that explored a dispiriting reality: Although companies spent billions of dollars a year pursuing deals, 70% of mergers and acquisitions wound up as failures. The book, Mastering the Merger , was released in the wake of a series of corporate marriages that ended badly, including AOL and Time Warner, Daimler and Chrysler, and Citicorp and Travelers. This wasn’t a new phenomenon. Academic studies dating back to the 1970s had concluded that most acquisitions don’t play out the way the investment bankers promise. Even among deals that appeared profitable from investors’ perspective, Bain’s surveys of executives showed that many fell short of the internal projections made to justify the purchase.

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Coding and programming questions

Coding is an essential skill for data science roles, regardless of the company in which you're working. As a result, interviewers will likely ask you about your prior experience with common programming languages like Python, R, and SQL. Typically, these questions involve data manipulation using code devised to test your programming, problem-solving, and innovation skills. During the interview, you'll likely be required to use a computer or whiteboard to complete the questions, or you may be asked to talk through the problem verbally and explain your thought process. Here are some potential coding and programming questions you could be asked:

"What would you do if a categorisation, an aggregation, and a ratio came up in the same query?"

"Calculate the Jaccard similarity between two sets: the size of the intersection divided by the size of the union."

"Write a program that prints numbers from one through to 50 in a language of your choice."

"List all orders, including customer information, using a basic SQL query."

Data modelling techniques questions

After coding, questions on data modelling techniques will likely be asked during your job interview. In particular, interviewers will likely want to know if you're familiar with different data models and their uses. Interviewers ask questions of this type to test your knowledge of building statistical models and implementing machine learning models, such as linear regression models, logistic regression models, and decision tree models. During your interview, here are some questions that you might encounter:

"How should you maintain a deployed model?"

"Can you name a disadvantage of using the linear model?"

"What is regularisation in regression?"

"What is a confusion matrix?"

Questions on algorithms

Algorithms undergird much of the work that you'll be doing as a data scientist. Questions on algorithms are primarily designed to test how you think about a problem and demonstrate your knowledge. During your interview, you'll likely be asked to explain the purposes of different algorithms, how they might help solve other problems, and demonstrate your knowledge of various machine learning algorithms. As a result, you should brush up on your knowledge of common algorithms such as linear regression and logistic regression. While the exact questions you'll be asked will vary from one interview to another, here are some of the most common forms they may take:

"How would you reverse a linked list?"

"The recommendations, 'People who bought this also bought…' seen on many e-commerce sites, resulting from which algorithm?"

"If we are looking to predict the probability of death from heart disease based on three risk factors: age, gender, and high cholesterol levels, what is the most appropriate algorithm to use?"

"How often should an algorithm be updated?"

Statistics and probability questions

Statistics are a cornerstone concept in data science. Unsurprisingly, interviewers ask questions about statistics in a data science interview to test your knowledge of statistical theory and associated principles. This is your chance to showcase your knowledge of common statistical analysis methods and concepts to refresh your knowledge before the big day. Some common topics to review include random sampling, systematic sampling, and probability distribution. During your interview, questions of this type may take the following forms:

"What is the law of large numbers?"

"What is selection bias?"

"What is the process of working towards a random forest?"

"What is an example of a data type with a non-Gaussian distribution?"

Questions on product sense and business applications

Many employers are more interested in effective data scientists' impact on their bottom line than in exploring the field academically. In effect, you should be asked how your work contributes to the growth of the business and the development of the goods or services it sells. These questions are specific to the industry and how you use data science. Answering them effectively can show that you can apply your data science knowledge to a business capacity rather than just understanding theory. Questions will likely be particular to the role, but use the following as a guide:

"We are looking to improve a new feature for our product. What metrics would you track to ensure it’s a good idea?"

"If we were looking to grow X metric on X feature, how might we achieve that?"

"Tell me about a time you set about aligning data projects with company goals."

"When measuring the impact of a search toolbar change, which metric would you use?"

Tips for preparing for your data science interview

Thoroughly practising for your interview is the best way to ensure its success. To help you prepare for the big day, here are some ways to ensure you are ready for whatever comes up.

1. Research the position and the company

If you want to know what may be asked in your data science interview, the best place to start is by researching the role you are applying for and the company itself.

Check out company websites, social media pages, reviews, and even speak to people working there. The more you can learn about the work culture, the company’s values, and the methods and systems they use, the better you can tailor your answers and demonstrate that you are fully aligned with their goals.

By researching your role, you can also better predict some of the questions you may encounter. Go through the job description and see what is expected, as this will likely be what you are evaluated on. Ensure you have an example prepared for each point and a good bank of potential answers to any question.

2. Understand the job description roles, and responsibilities

As you review the job description and responsibilities, try to get a clear sense of what will be expected of you. If there is anything in the job description that you don’t understand, search the internet, look up the terms, or call the company and ask for clarification.

If you fully understand expectations, tailoring your answers and giving highly relevant examples will be easier. Demonstrating the value you will add to the business with clear responses and concrete examples will highlight your qualifications for the position and the real-world effects of your work.

3. Practice answering commonly asked questions

After finishing the research, and with some help from the questions in this article, you should know what to expect in the interview. Write down these questions and practice your answers. It might feel strange, but the best way to do this is to speak out loud as if you are talking to the interviewer. Doing it aloud means you can hear how your answers will sound and help you practice your volume, speed, and body language. The more you practice, the easier the answers will come to you and the more prepared you will be to recall the information during the interview.

Have your questions ready

While it’s important to think about the questions you’ll have to answer, it’s also essential to have some questions ready that you will ask at the end of the interview.

Many overlook this, but it is an excellent way to learn more about the role, decide whether it is for you, and show interest in the position and company. Some examples of questions include:

• What is the metric on which my performance will be evaluated?

• How will the projects I work on align with key business goals?

• What are the top three reasons you like working here?

• What are the most immediate projects that need to be addressed?

Further support

Regardless of your experience level, interviews can be nerve-wracking undertakings that have the potential to shake your self-confidence. Through preparation, you can enter your following interview with your head held high.

As you're looking for your next data science job, consider taking a cost-effective online course through Coursera to prepare for your next interview. For example, Big Interview’s The Art of the Job Interview will teach proven techniques in five beginner-friendly classes to help you turn your job interviews into job offers.

Keep reading

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Coursera’s editorial team is comprised of highly experienced professional editors, writers, and fact...

This content has been made available for informational purposes only. Learners are advised to conduct additional research to ensure that courses and other credentials pursued meet their personal, professional, and financial goals.

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Project Management

10 executive summary examples and how to write one yourself (with ai).

February 14, 2024

In a world where people have the attention span of a goldfish (or less), we don’t make time to read long, detailed documents unless they are valuable to us. So, how do we convince the reader that the document is valuable? That’s where the executive summary comes in.

What is an Executive Summary?

1. identify the story, 2. bring the data, 3. expand on the benefits, 4. conclude powerfully, best practices for writing executive summary, 1. board report executive summary, 2. research report executive summary example from mckinsey, 3. study report executive summary by the un, 4. project performance report executive summary, 5. payroll report executive summary template, 6. mailchimp content style guide’s tl;dr, 7. clickup release notes, 8. the title and description of a new yorker article, 9. survey report executive summary by harvard, 10. meta executive summary with clickup ai.

An executive summary is a shorter version of a longer corporate document. It summarizes the salient points of a business plan, proposal, or report so executives can get the gist and read further about what matters to them.

In other words, the tl;dr (too long; didn’t read) version.

A typical executive summary includes:

Problem statement
Proposed solution
Expected outcomes

This might vary depending on what you write an executive summary for. Let’s take the example of a project report. You might have to replace the proposed solution and expected outcomes with execution solutions and actual outcomes achieved, respectively. Or, if you’re writing a business plan, research proposal, or market analysis, you might include your methodology, too.

Now that you know the purpose of an executive summary, let’s see how to write one.

How to Write Executive Summaries and Examples

While an executive summary is just a condensed version of a longer report, it isn’t easy to write. It needs to capture the essence of the report, outline the salient points, and tell a story as compelling as the full report. Here are some ways you can achieve that.

Just stating facts and data wouldn’t be a compelling read for anyone. So, identify the story that really impacts people’s lives. While industry terms like workflow optimization or cost control capture people’s attention, they don’t tell the real story behind your efforts. Focus on the latter.

If you’re writing the project executive summary in software development, you might begin with what matters to the reader as follows.

In 2020, the retail major was managing its inventory on spreadsheets. So, whenever a customer asked whether a product was in stock, a staff member had to walk across the 5000 sq. ft. store to check, often with the customer in tow. The new ABC digital inventory management system records stock in and out online in real time. The staff member can check and confirm in a flash. More pertinently, the customers themselves can check at any of the 25 kiosks throughout the store.

While the story is more important, data isn’t useless. Accurate and relevant data helps establish credibility. Your next section might say the following in the ABC digital inventory management system example.

Since the implementation of the ABC inventory management system, the retail major has seen: 85% decrease in time taken to check stock 75% decrease in time taken to find where stock is placed

The data demonstrates that there has been real improvement. However, for the reader to understand its impact, you must explain the benefits. This can be done with real-life scenarios or even quotes. For example,

Adrian, the customer service manager at the Central Park store, says, “Now, from anywhere—a kiosk, the checkout counter, or my mobile phone—I can quickly check stock and confirm we have the products the customer needs. I see that customers are delighted at getting their answers instantly.”

You can also use data to do this. For example, you can explain how the decreased time taken to check stock has increased staff productivity, customer satisfaction, or company revenue. Or you can include your suggestions here. Based on your observations, explain the process improvement methodologies you recommend.

This is the time to complete the story. Here, talk about how your project has delivered the changes in the present and sets up for an even more prosperous future. This could be something like:

The ABC inventory management system marks the first step in the retail major’s digital transformation journey. By Q2 next year, we will link the store solution to the e-commerce inventory platform to give 360-degree visibility into the stock situation. This would also enable a new sales channel in the form of Buy Online, Pick Up in Store (BOPIS), enabling same-day fulfillment.

While you write your executive summary, here are some best practices to remember.

Keep it short and simple : The length might depend on the report you’re summarizing, but it’s best to keep it under one page for quick reading. Also, avoid cliches and jargon; make it easy to read. A quick business plan under one page is the best first impression you can make.

Focus on the target audience : Not all executive summaries are read by business executives. Often, you might want to address your summary to peers, vendors, partners, or even teens. Know your target audience and customize your executive summary accordingly.

Use the right tool : You can, of course, use Notepad or Word doc to write your executive summaries. But give it a boost with modern document software like ClickUp Docs .

Use rich formatting features without jumping through hoops
Style the critical information with color-coded banners, buttons, and more
Collaborate in real time with comments, action items, and trackable tasks
Securely share with anyone with appropriate access controls

Pick a suitable template : If it’s your first time writing an executive summary, we’ve got your back. Fire up one of ClickUp’s executive summary templates or content writing templates , and kickstart your work.

Get the AI boost : If you’ve thoughtfully created your report, you can write your executive summary much quicker with one of the many AI writing tools . For instance, ClickUp AI offers a single-click summarize option right on ClickUp Docs.

What’s more? ClickUp AI supports you in brainstorming new ideas, writing the first drafts of your executive summaries, and proofreading them for good measure.

10 Executive Summary Examples

Now that we have discussed the theory of executive summary writing, let’s look at some examples to see what it looks like in practice. Here are ten to learn from or emulate.

Periodically, the board would expect to see a report on the organization’s performance. Various departments typically write their reports, which are consolidated into a board report. An effective executive summary of this would include the following.

Revenue and expenditure
Key areas of focus
Critical success factors
Financial information
Challenges and roadblocks

This ClickUp Board Report Summary Template brings all these aspects together to get you started on your executive summary right away. You can customize this free executive summary template to suit your needs and fill in the data as appropriate.

McKinsey, one of the world’s leading consulting firms, publishes dozens of research reports annually. For every one of them, they write executive summaries, often called ‘in brief.’

In this report titled, ‘ Performance through people: Transforming human capital into competitive advantage ,’ the executive summary takes a two-pronged approach. It presents key insights in text on one page and data in infographics on the next.

Insights in text : The report begins by directly addressing the primary purpose of the research. Below are the first few sentences.

How does developing talent affect financial returns for firms? This research finds that companies with a dual focus on developing human capital and managing it well have a performance edge.

This section summarizes the key insights from the research. The headlines of each section are presented in bold, making it easy for the reader to skim.

Data in visuals : The text section is followed by an infographic of the key findings from the data. Within one page, it presents all the graphs relevant to the reader engagingly.

Within two pages, McKinsey gives the reader a bird’s eye view of what to expect, customized for the target market, from the 40-page document.

You can read the executive summary of this report on McKinsey’s website .

The Adaptation Gap Report 2023 by the United Nations Environment Programme is a 112-page report with a rather detailed executive summary, stretching eight pages. The depth of information and seriousness of the topics covered demand an extended executive summary.

Yet, the writers make every effort to make it engaging with a combination of typography, design, and graphs. It begins with the following.

Despite the clear signs of accelerating climate risks and impacts worldwide, the adaptation finance gap is widening and now stands at between US$194 billion and US$366 billion per year. Adaptation finance needs are 10–18 times as great as current international public adaptation finance flows – at least 50 percent higher than previously estimated.

In the following pages, it presents graphs to demonstrate the underpinnings of these key findings.

Every project manager creates performance reports at the end of each week, month, or quarter. This typically includes the tasks tracking , burn up, burn down, hours spent, etc.

While this can be written down in a list, presenting this information as a slide with visual elements is far more effective.

One way to achieve this is to use ClickUp’s project summary templates , which offer custom-designed templates for various project management purposes.

The other way is to use the dynamic reports on the ClickUp Dashboard , which brings together all the key metrics and keeps them updated in real time for you to share with anyone you’d like to.

Human resources or people management teams create payroll reports, typically in spreadsheets, for every payment period—bi-weekly or monthly. This data is also helpful for building financial projections. For the senior finance leaders, they often create an executive summary of critical information, such as:

Total salaries paid
Deductions across categories
Year-to-date salary expenses
Paid time off credits
Net pay summary

ClickUp’s Payroll Summary Report Template can save time by automatically gathering all relevant data from the platform. When data is unavailable on ClickUp, you can highlight any text to @mention team members who can fill in the correct information.

Once complete, you can update the Doc’s settings for access control and share it with the management team instantly.

A company description or how it projects itself is often important to stand out in a crowded market. Mailchimp stood out with its style guide. The guide is comprehensive and widely used by smaller content teams that don’t yet have their own.

Mailchimp has made it public and available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license for anyone to adapt to their needs.

While every section in this style guide is engaging and valuable, for the purposes of this article, we want to draw your attention to the tl;dr section , which acts as a quasi-executive summary.

It is a bulleted list of seven sub-sections, highlighting the foundations of Mailchimp’s writing style.

The striking thing about this tl;dr version is its simplicity. Even without any visual elements, infographics, or charts, this page gives readers a real and actionable summary of the entire style guide.

When we speak of executive summary, we almost always think of a smaller version of an entire document. It need not be so.

For a software engineering team, the release notes are a kind of executive summary of all the changes/upgrades made in the latest version.

Take the example of ClickUp’s release notes 3.04 . Each release gets:

An organized yet concise summary of all the changes that have been made
“ClickTips” to help readers make the best use of new features
Visuals and app images to show how the changes look
Links to help pages of each of those features so the reader can learn more
A list of bugs fixed
And any other resources, such as on-demand webinars or training

These release notes inform users and developers of the latest upgrades to the ClickUp platform without overwhelming them with the details.

The New Yorker Magazine wrote a 10,000-word profile of Geoffrey Hinton , a computer scientist and cognitive psychologist, for their November 20, 2023 issue, titled ‘Metamorphosis.’ Even in podcast form, it’s over 60 minutes long.

When it was published online, they needed a title and description that summarized the article in a way that attracted a lay reader’s attention to click and read. The headline captures the primary conflict explored in the article. The description introduces the protagonist.

While this is typically not what we’d categorize as an executive summary, it is a fantastic example of capturing the essence of a long article in a few powerful words.

This executive summary serves as an inspiration for writers, irrespective of what you’re writing about, to summarize their main points not just briefly but also powerfully and attractively.

In the spring of 2019, Harvard University conducted its first-ever survey about campus culture. The executive summary of the report on these survey responses makes for great reading. It is also a great example of how to honestly and authentically present key findings, even unpleasant ones.

The executive summary is honest on multiple fronts. It admits that:

2019 was the first time in history that Harvard surveyed campus culture
Three in ten of the Harvard community don’t feel like they belong
34% of students disagreed with the belief that Harvard will take appropriate action against incidents of harassment and discrimination
Those from historically underrepresented and disadvantaged groups reported less positive views

At the end of this, the executive summary outlines the specific steps Harvard will take to address these responses from the community.

Project managers can use this as inspiration for handling executive summaries of projects that have gone awry. It helps leaders take responsibility for what has occurred and build systems to prevent future mistakes.

Not all executive summaries have to be written manually by you. A free executive summary template is also something to explore. Plenty of tools offer it. Dozens of AI tools for automation can summarize text in seconds. Here’s what ClickUp AI returned when we inserted the article above and asked for a summary.

The article discusses the purpose and importance of an executive summary, which provides a brief overview of detailed documents, making them more palatable for readers with limited time. Executive summaries typically include problem statements, proposed solutions, expected outcomes, and a conclusion. To create a compelling summary, it’s crucial to identify the main story, incorporate relevant data, expand on benefits, and conclude powerfully. The use of modern document software like ClickUp Docs and AI tools like ClickUp AI can enhance the quality and efficiency of writing executive summaries. The article also provides practical examples of executive summaries across different fields, showcasing their versatility and applicability. This provides a great starting point for those who fear the blank page. You can now edit this to add details, add images, or insert a quote.

With ClickUp AI, you can choose the tone (from professional, straightforward, inspirational, optimistic, casual, confident, friendly, or humorous) and creativity (low, medium, and high) to customize the summary to your needs.

That’s not all! For project managers and business leaders, ClickUp AI offers a wide range of writing and summarizing tools for scope documents, project briefs, meeting agendas, statements of work, survey questions, and more.

You can tag people to invite input or feedback. You can also convert comments into tasks and manage them effortlessly, all in one place.

Never used AI for writing before? No worries there, too. Here are AI prompt templates that will get you started instantly.

With a custom-built AI assistant tailored to your role, you can work faster, write better, spark creativity, and be significantly more productive.

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