Market Research and Information services

The overall market for business-to-business publications and information services continues to grow due to an increasing number of new vertical domains. However, within each vertical, publishers find an intense pressure to find new revenue growth and stay ahead of competition. Directories and databases traditionally used to be seen as simply brand extensions to the magazines, but are now increasingly recognized as the platform for future revenue growth. The key is the ability to attract advertising from non-traditional advertisers that need a cost-effective means to reach micro-communities and subscription based revenues.

Data mining is used in re-establishment of hidden information of the data of the algorithms. It helps to extract the useful information starting from the data, which can be useful to make practical interpretations for the decision making.

It can be technically defined as automated extraction of hidden information of great databases for the predictive analysis. In other words, it is the retrieval of useful information from large masses of data, which is also presented in an analyzed form for specific decision-making. Although data mining is a relatively new term, the technology is not. It is thus also known as Knowledge discovery in databases since it grip searching for implied information in large databases.

It is primarily used today by companies with a strong customer focus - retail, financial, communication and marketing organizations. It is having lot of importance because of its huge applicability. It is being used increasingly in business applications for understanding and then predicting valuable data, like consumer buying actions and buying tendency, profiles of customers, industry analysis, etc. It is used in several applications like market research, consumer behavior, direct marketing, bioinformatics, genetics, text analysis, e-commerce, customer relationship management and financial services.

Market research is conducted by analysing primary or secondary data resources. In conducting primary market research, a company collects data directly from foreign marketplace through interviews, surveys, feedback and other such direct contact with potential buyers. Primary market research has the advantage of being tailored to the needs of the company and provides answers to specific questions, but it is invariably time consuming and very expensive.

Secondary market research is based on analysis of statistical data such as trade statistics. To be effective, the data should be reliable and cover significant historical period. Though it is considerably less expensive than primary research, one should be aware of its limitations. For example, the most recent statistics for some countries may be more than two years old. Moreover, the data may be too broad to be of much value to a company. Statistics may also be distorted by incomplete data-gathering techniques. Finally, statistics for services are often unavailable. Yet, even with these limitations, secondary research is a valuable and relatively easy first step for a company to take. It may be the only step needed if the company decides to export indirectly through an intermediary, since the later may have advanced research capabilities