Secondary Research

Secondary Research

Secondary research is very similar to primary research and a probably be described as the most used in this era. Except, with secondary, all the information that is used is second hand, hence the name. For example, if I was to go on Google and search for something that I’m currently interested in, and then happen to fall upon a website that gives me all the information that I need, that information would be second hand, and so I have carried out, secondary research. An advantage of secondary research is the work is already basically done for you; all you have to do is search for what you need.

Secondary research is used a lot in the world of today; it’s almost all types of research that must be done as it’s anything that someone else has done and you are simply looking over it. Even though its second hand and it may not be able to fully express your own personal feelings, it can still help reflect your own opinion from theirs. 

Secondary research can be carried out in many different ways, most of the methods used can be considered as other research types, but are also classified as secondary research. Using the internet is probably the biggest and most likely the fastest way of acquiring information on anything that second hand. The internet is especially the best way when it comes to secondary considering the fact that everything written or wrote by someone else is classed as secondary information. Another way of conducting this research could be through books, such as magazines, or biographies.

The main problem of conducting secondary research is always its reliability and having to trace it back t its source, for both you and the producers of the information you used. For example, if I was to right an assay, and decided to use secondary research for my info, I would always have to reference the information back to where or who I got it from. When trying to clarify its reliability, you would have to trace the information back to where the producer got it from, in order to make what you have been reading is actually fact and false. Secondary research is also very useful when it comes to obtaining people opinions and why they think that way, as secondary research is all about other people’s views and other people’s information. For this reason and many other advantages is why people prefer to use secondary research rather than carrying out their own, and finding their own data to use.

Many companies often use secondary data for a better view from other people’s perspectives. For example, a games company might want to use secondary data gathered by other companies for other games that hare generally in common with each other. Just like a Beta except you are taking other peoples results and using them for you own benefit. Another example of secondary research would be looking at the success of a game, like if a certain type of genre in the games industry does better than others, they could use this to create a game that the majority of the population would enjoy.

In Conclusion, Secondary research involves these examples:

Information on the internet

Now days mostly all the information we acquire is from the internet, hence it would make sense for someone to turn to the internet for research. Doing research this way means taking information from others and using it for you own data collection.

Existing market research results

Marketing plays a big part of this as all marketing research is technically secondary. Meaning that all marketing research is accumulated through other sources and other companies. Recognizing it as secondary data means to understand how some has gotten that information, how they have used it, and how they have reflected their own ambitions using that data/information.

Existing data from your own stock lists and customer database

Computers are constantly recording human activity, meaning this is another way of acquiring data. Collecting this data would also count secondary data because it was gathered by other means besides your own, you simply took that data and decided to use it. Even if this data is from your own technology and about you own company, it still counts as secondary as you didn't do the tests and research on your own. However, when using secondary research be careful how you interpret it, as it may have been collected for a different purpose or from a market segment that isn't relevant to your business. Also make sure that any secondary information isn't out-of-date, as the market can change quickly and this will affect your results.