Hello everyone. Last time, I wrote about the importance of “Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive (MECE)” regarding how to proceed with “as-is”. This time, I would like to write about “fact collection” based on the concept of MECE.
In order to proceed “as-is”, it is first necessary to collect facts to know the current state. These facts should not be collected randomly, but should rather be collected based on MECE framework. What I find useful is the “3C (Customer / Competitor / Company)” that I introduced last time. According to this 3C framework, external research (customer research/competitor research) and internal research (in-house research) are required.
For external research, “secondary research” should be done first, and if possible, “primary research”
Here, some new keywords have appeared, so let me briefly explain them.
Since it is faster and the cost is lower, it would be good to start from secondary research. In the past, we need to go to public libraries, or private database services, etc. to look for various things (of course there are still now), but recently there is a lot of information on the Internet, so the Internet is the first place to start. As you all know, the basics of internet search is “Google”.
Do you know the “specific site search (”keyword “site: URL)”?
If you google it, you will find many sites. I think many people are reading these in order from the top. That’s the basics, but here’s one tip. Are you familiar with the “specific site search” function? When you googling, if you happen to find a site that seems to have a lot of related information, you can use it if you want to go deeper into that site.
To use the function, enter the keyword in the Google search window as usual, followed by “site:”, and then enter the URL of the site you want to go deeper. If you do that, it will search only within that site with the relevant keyword, so you may find pages that you would not find with normal “google” search. It’s easy, so please try it.
“B to C” and “B to B”
Well, if the necessary information can be gathered in the secondary survey, it is OK. But if not, primary survey should be considered as long as time and cost allowed. I think that the method of primary research often changes depending on whether your company’s business model is “B to C” or “B to B”.
In case of B to C: Mainly collaborate with research companies that have research panel (a group of pre-registered consumers who cooperate with research requests) should be considered. There are methods such as “street interviews” with your own feet (although it is sometimes important to do by yourself), but in many cases, I don’t think the cost-effectiveness is very good.
In the case of B to B: In this case, I think that the customers have been identified (in many cases), so you need to cooperate with your company’s sales or marketing departments and request them to ask customers to cooperate the survey.
Interviews are the basis for internal research
So far, I have written about 3C external research (customer research / competitive research), but the rest is internal research (in-house research).
Internal research is based on interviews with people who have the necessary information. I would like to write about the interview survey in detail later. Especially in the case of business reform and improvement, it is important not only to interview, but also to “observe” with your own eyes. I would like to write about this area in detail later as well.
That’s all for this time, and I would like to continue from the next time onwards. Thank you for reading until the end.