Business research is important for the survival of businesses nowadays. Research is the means through which new ideas are pursued or discovered. Through research, businesses can make new products, improve existing products, improve their systems, determine the way people think and act, and fix any problems. Such an activity will maintain the edge of a company over other companies that will just stagnate because they have no research under their belt.

Now, when people think of research in the business field, they think that: Number one – it’s boring. After all, many people in the business field generally don’t have a way with numbers. It is difficult for them to use the math involved in research. But research doesn’t have to involve numbers (though it often does); making a few good observations already counts as research, provided that you present your observations systematically and you can derive conclusions from them. Number two – it’s impractical. After all, why do corporate people think of academics, especially professors of business, as writers of impractical, unreadable tomes? Unfortunately, that attitude then creeps into the corporations themselves.

Sometimes, business research doesn’t begin at all not because of unwillingness, but because there is lack of direction. Even if we know that research is important, what should we research about? What are the key priorities? Unwillingness is hard to treat, but if it’s just lack of a clear path, then that is easy for you – the researcher – to provide. First, list down some ideas that deserve to be researched further. Then from those ideas, pick the ones which deserve the greatest priority for the moment. It can help if you reframe the ideas as questions: “What about this idea should I know?” “What information about this idea should I get?”

Research, fortunately, is easy to do nowadays; there is the Internet, after all. There are also technical books regarding the business field you are in. You should not only know what to get, but where to get it, so that you can conduct effective research in business. If you have a research idea that concerns company internals (such as the level of motivation of employees), then you can conduct surveys or you can ask around. Don’t wait for others to give important company-related data to you, because you won’t be inclined to believe it if you subconsciously have the “us against them” mentality. Do the research yourself.

With business research, you will know more about your company, your products and services, your business field, your employees, and your customers than you would otherwise know.