Do
you get annoyed whenever you ask for specific market data and you receive a
deck of hundred slides where every single datapoint is twisted in fifteen
different ways, accompanied by a two hour long debriefing en unfruitful
discussions about the figures?
Well,
stop asking for it.
Fact
is, whether you rely on external market research companies or an internal team,
they will naturally be inclined to provide you with as much details as
possible. How else could they justify their cost?
Forgive
me my cynical tone. It is far from my intention to laugh with market research
companies or teams. In a way this behavior is perfectly logical: how would you
react if you ask a market research question, a team works for a complete month
and with several thousands of dollars budget on producing an answer, but all
you get at the end is a single chart? I bet you would start to doubt the
soundness of this investment or –even worse- the professionalism of the market
intelligence team who worked on your question.
But
what is wrong with that single chart, if it allows you to make a well grounded
decision? Or, better: if it leads to valuable discussions based on an
unambiguous market view?
As
the philosopher Blaise Pascal once wrote in a letter to a friend (before you
ask: it has been used by Lincoln, Mark Twain and Bernard Shaw after him, albeit
in slightly different forms):
‘Forgive me to write you a long
letter, I did not have enough time to write a short one’
Conciseness,
even in market intelligence issues, can be a blessing, and is indeed very hard
work.
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