In any research or business planning process, the temptation is to leap straight into data collection—surveying customers, conducting focus groups, or diving into field studies. But before you invest time and money in primary research, there’s a more strategic, cost-effective step that often gets overlooked: conducting secondary and internal research.
What is Secondary and Internal Research?
Secondary research—sometimes called “desk research”—relies on information that already exists. This includes published reports, industry studies, academic papers, government statistics, and more. It saves you the time and expense of collecting data from scratch.
Internal research draws from data your organization already owns: sales records, web analytics, CRM exports, complaint logs, and any research done in the past. It lets you mine insights from your own experience before looking outward.
Often, the best planning starts at your desk, combining both of these approaches.
Why Start Here?
- Wider Perspective: These methods help shape the “big picture.” They give essential context and orientation, so you’re not just chasing the initial problem as it appears but are situating your challenge within broader trends and benchmarks.
- Identifying Blind Spots: By looking at what others have done and what’s worked in your own history, you avoid reinventing the wheel and exposing yourself to familiar pitfalls.
- Cost and Speed: Desk research is far more cost-effective than launching a new study. Internal data is already “paid for.”
Real Example: The “Graduate Certificate” Dilemma
Imagine a university team that wants to launch a new graduate program in crime scene management. Their faculty believe it’s a no-brainer: great connections, lively student interest, and popular culture references all seem to support it.
But secondary and internal research quickly flips this intuition. After digging into marketplace data, employment trends, and the real needs of legal and law enforcement professionals, researchers found:
- Market mismatch: Law graduates had no incentive for this qualification, and the proposed “graduate certificate” wouldn’t appeal to those who actually needed advanced credentials (law enforcement or scientific professions).
- Insufficient market size: Even among qualified, interested professionals, the pool was too small.
This deeper research led to a recommendation not to launch the program, sparing the university wasted investment and poor enrollment results.
How Should You Use Secondary and Internal Research?
- Validate or challenge initial assumptions: Don’t just gather the first set of available data—see if the evidence really supports your working theory.
- Expand your field of vision: What’s happening in your sector or adjacent markets? What lessons are hidden in your own analytics or records?
- Refine your research questions: By clarifying gaps and opportunities early, you’ll design smarter, more focused primary research down the line.
The Bottom Line
Jumping into customer interviews or surveys before studying what you (and others) already know can cost you dearly. By prioritizing secondary and internal research, you ground your strategy in reality, avoid duplication, and maximize every rupee or hour spent. As this lecture stresses: let the data on your desk guide your market research plans—your results will be smarter, faster, and more relevant to your organization’s true opportunities and challenges.