Finally, even to the extent we could go and
get the information, it might actually just simply be too expensive.
It could be too expensive from an actual cost standpoint, or just might be too
expensive in terms of the time and effort that's required to collect it.
This might even be most evident when there are many now,
third parties out there who will collect data on market trends and the like, but
they obviously charge for their services.
How much are you willing to spend to acquire data?
How valuable is that data in the end of the day?
What's in essence the ROI,
the return on investment, on any data collection that you engage in?
So these are all major data challenges that you'll
face when trying to conduct a strategy research project.
So what can you do?
What are some options here?
Let's first talk about where some of the sources of data can be found.
An obvious source that a lot of organizations have are simply their
annual reports.
Annual reports can be chock full of wonderful information about the intent of
the organization,
what they're planning to do, as well as financial information as well.
In particular, for any publicly traded company, they're often required filings.
In the US, there are 10K forms for example.
Where they have to reveal quite a bit about their financials and
their strategy moving forward.
From a competitor analysis standpoint, this can be very valuable information for
understanding what competitors are thinking and doing.
There are other forms of disclosure as well.
Patents and copyrights come to mind.
Other forms of intellectual property where, to be able to get a patent,
you actually have to publicly release what you're doing.
This could actually be very valuable information about your competitors because
it might reveal to you where they're thinking about making investments,
where they might be moving technologically moving forward.