|
Determine the Information Requirements
Scope and Breadth of Information
Assignments can vary from a short five-minute oral presentation to a senior project or master's thesis, with many other possibilities in between -- developing a marketing or business plan, performing an industry analysis, and writing a market research report.
Determine the scope and expectations of the project. For example:
Deliver a 15-minute PowerPoint presentation on California's wine industry
Write a 10-page report on the investment banking industry for a client
Create a Senior Project -- using a variety of technologies -- on the global economic impact of Internet-based commerce
Some assignments can be completed by consulting brief summaries or overviews, while other assignments or projects require comprehensive marketing research. Examples:
Determine how many wineries are located in SLO county - identify the ones offering unique services (e.g., wedding receptions, gourmet night)
Find basic demographic data for San Luis Obispo including age, race, employment status, education and income
Find lifestyle data for the top-ten ranked metro areas in the United States - include spending potential indexes (e.g., financial services, entertainment)
Secure an MRI MediaMark Report on energy drinks (Base=All adult 18+ ) - include all media data and market shares.
Current or Historical Data
Some assignments require that you use current, up-to-the-minute information. For example:
company news
latest mergers or acquisitions
litigation
stock quotes
IPOs
new laws or regulations
CEO change
current commodity prices
While other assignments require historical information (time series). For example:
ten years of financials on a public company (including balance sheet, income statement, ratios and growth data) in an excel spreadsheet
consumption data of frozen dinners in Chile for the past five years
annual currency exchange rates for the past three years
historical stock prices on 10 NASDAQ companies
Information Resource Types for Industrial Technology:
The Information Matrix
The following checklist serves as a guide to ensure that a variety of authoritative information resources are utilized during the research process:
Scholarly or professional journals
Examples: Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Industrial Management Review, Journal of Industrial Technology, and Industrial Marketing Management
Written by experts in the field for a specialized audience.
Government data
Examples: Annual Survey of Manufactures, Technology Patents, and Industrial Technologies Program (DOE)
Government data -- both domestic and international - provides essential authoritative ag-related and technical information especially useful for graduate research.
Trade journals
Examples: Industry Week, Machine Design, Manufacturing Automation, Industrial Distribution, and Quality and Reliability Engineering International
Written by and for people within a particular field or industry. Most trade journals include statistics, industry reports, and important industry news.
Business magazines & financial newspapers
Examples: Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Business Week, Barron's, Forbes, Fortune
Written by business people for business people. Though many do supply general news information.
Popular magazines and newspapers
Examples: Newsweek, US News and World Report, People
Popular in nature, written for a general audience, and usually do not contain abstracts, footnotes, bibliographies, etc.
Books
Examples: Integrating Kanban with MRPII: Automating a Pull System for Enhanced JIT Inventory Management; and Baldrige Winners on World-Class Quality
The Kennedy Library's online catalog (PolyCAT) allows patrons to search in-house materials as well as library holdings across the world.
Professional associations and organizations
Examples: National Association of Industrial Technology; and Institute for Industrial Technology Transfer
Professional associations secure, compile, manage and deliver/sell trade data - hard to find "inside" information - for many industries.
Case studies
Examples: Harvard Business School Cases, Corporate Cases, Government Cases
Case study method is a research technique that provides intensive investigation one or a few situations similar to the problem situation.
Cases can be secured from a variety of sources including ABI/Inform, Harvard Business School and BusinessCases.org to name a few.
Market research reports
Examples: Investext, Mulltext, Kalorama, MarketResearch.com, Reuters
Market Research Reports provide comprehensive data that examines - in detail - key industry indicators such as: market composition; projected market growth; top marketers and brands; competitive situation and profiles; new product trends, consumers; internet sales; and benchmarks.
Specialized Encyclopedias
Examples: The Wiley Encyclopedia of Packaging Technology; McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology; and International Encyclopedia of Business & Management
Specialized encyclopedias provide subject- or topic-specific information arranged for quick and easy use with detailed indexes to the contents. There are specialized or subject based reference sources for most topics that can not only give you an overview and the basic facts but can also guide you in a more exhaustive approach of the topic area.
Conference Papers and Proceedings
Examples: Selected Papers of the National Association of Industrial Technology Annual Conference; Proceedings of the American Society of Engineering Management
Conference article - A conference paper issued as part of a proceedings whether published in a conference proceedings or in a journal
Conference proceeding - Publication containing papers presented at a symposium or other meeting and constituting the official publication of those proceedings as a whole
Standards
Examples: Index and Directory of Industry Standards; Annual Book of ASTM Standards; and ISO 9000
Standards help to control the quality of products/services and reduce costs associated with poor quality. The Library collects a wide range of standardization resources - both primary and secondary data.
|
Determine