Research Guides: ME 263: Introduction To Mechanical Engineering Design, Innovation And Entrepreneurship: Business Research

Market & Industry

Conducting Market Research

Market research involves finding and analyzing competitor information, demographics, and industry information. It is a combination of examining the existing products available to consumer and needs, expressed or unexpressed of the consumers themselves.

The databases and links available here will lead you to relevant, quality information. Further assistance is available by visiting the Reference Desk of the Parrish Management Management & Economics Library.

Identification and description of the customers

Describe the potential customers
- Find statistics and demographic information
Identify a target selling price
- Find similar products
Identify a target sales quantity
- Determine how much it will cost to run your company and what the potential market will be
Customer and engineering requirements and target values

Review recent research and federal regulations

Descriptions and analysis of competitive products and relevant patents

Seek companies producing similar products
Conduct effective patent research

Databases

BCC Market Research
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Market research reports: primarily STEM (science, technology, engineering, medicine) categories like advanced materials, chemicals, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals.
Insider Intelligence This link opens in a new window
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Market research reports and news articles: primarily advertising, marketing, financial services, and technology with particularly strong coverage of overlap topics like ecommerce, digital marketing, digital payments, mobile banking, etc.
Frost and Sullivan
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Market research reports: a wide range of categories like aerospace and defense, automotive and transportation, consumer products, healthcare, energy and power systems, and measurement and instrumentation.
IBISWorld Industry Reports
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Data-driven reports on industries. Each report is approximately 30-40 pages in length, providing an authoritative overview of trends, competitive forces, statistics, top companies, and more.
MarketResearch.com Academic
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Market research reports: a wide range of categories like food and beverage, technology and media, heavy industry, life science, consumer goods, and service industries.
Mintel
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Market research reports and consumer data: primarily B2C (business-to-consumer) categories like food and drinks, travel, beauty and personal care, pets, household goods, and retail and apparel.
Plunkett Research
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Aggregates industry reports, company profiles, and job-seeker resources.
SimplyAnalytics
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Web-based mapping, analytics and data visualization of demographic variables, psychographic variables, and business locations. Map any area down to the US census block level. Add map data data variables and create custom reports. Includes MRI-SimmonsLOCAL and EASI customer data.

ME 263: Introduction To Mechanical Engineering Design, Innovation And Entrepreneurship

Surveys & Focus Groups

Market & Industry

Databases

Business Information Triangle