Industrial Research

Recent Articles

Below are the 3 most recent articles on this topic. These articles were published within the last three years and are only available to registered subscribers.

Local knowledge, global implications

Shanghai-based researcher Laura Mitchelson draws from her own experiences interviewing Chinese businesspeople to show readers the ins and outs of conducting business-to-business research in a vast and fast-paced country.

A global consensus

A large IT firm conducted qualitative research with small and medium businesses around the world to understand how the needs of those businesses differed from those of the larger companies with which the firm was more closely identified.

Data Use: Using the analytical hierarchy process

When there are five or fewer variables to test, the analytical hierarchy process works well. Variables are paired against each other and respondents pick the feature they like best. It can help determine how to bundle product features or how to structure payments options, for example.

Related Articles

There are 27 articles in our archive related to this topic. Below are 5 selected at random and available to all users of the site.

Hearing what they say

Honeywell Corp. uses a multi-step process that includes the Kano method survey to determine which products to develop or change and how development resources should be allocated, meeting its most important goal of providing relevant customer input in decisions making.

The seven golden rules of styling/design research

Supply on demand

Supply chains is a hot topic in e-business. This article discusses a study sponsored by more than 20 companies that combined 100 interviews of supply chain ambassadors and a Web survey of these and a few hundred more.

Segmenting complex business-to-business markets

Business-to-business markets can be quite complex. This article discusses segmenting in business-to-business using an example from the chemical manufacturing industry that can be applied to other industries.

Giving business a lift

Waltco Truck Equipment used surveys and in-depth telephone interviews to guide product tweaking, position, pricing and promotions.

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