I recently dug out the following article I wrote about a year ago, comparing the differences of conducting research between business and recruiting. I have no doubt in my mind that, information is power and how you use it can and will decide the success of your business. I’ve said it before “Information is not free at all“, especially the valuable insights that has helped in decision making. Why? Because it’s a systematic process that (a) it takes smart people to create content and share it (b) it takes people time to access the right information (c) it takes intelligence to analyze, to “make sense” of it.

With the hype of social media and internet evolution making information access easier than ever before, I don’t see much has changed in terms of performing business research and obtaining business information.

Do you have different experience? If you are a business owner, how do you go about finding the information you need to make your next decision a smart one, one with no regrets? I’d like to hear your thoughts.

The original article is posted on The Source Newsletter here

….. Being an Information Professional for over 17 years, I have been taught and trained to always looking for authoritative, creditable sources when it comes to business and competitive intelligence.

I started my career with McKinsey & Company where valuable information is critical to client’s success; I spoke to associations sharing industry insights, I searched high & low on commercial databases (Lexis, Factiva, EBSCO to name a few) for valid facts, and I networked with internal consultants to seek their expertise. After that I went to work for a major bank here in Canada, again supporting research for Investment Banking and Enterprise-wide initiatives.

Reputable resources are never fully accessible on the net for free, ….. Since I am a trained Information Professional who works best with visualization, I have drafted a simple diagram here to exhibit in business and recruiting worlds, the ultimate information we are looking for are as follows:

In business, investigation is a ‘must’ process during CI information gathering, “Good Researchers are investigators” someone once told me. After we researchers exercised our curiosity practice and did it in a MutuallyExclusiveCollectiveExhaustive way, it’s really up to the management/business owner to decide whether, and how, to use the information, because behind every good business decision is an information professional.

So, Research is Research, No Matter What. I’ve said it and I am glad I did. This is just my two cents of being a newbie Recruiting Researcher and an experienced Business Researcher.

Share your opinion here and I thank you for doing so.