Research question: What is the industry called?
Examples: digital advertising, household and consumer goods, transportation and logistics
Recommended research approach: Search the literature to find the industry's name, and/or locate its NAICS code.
Research question: What information would you gather to learn more about your company’s competitors?
Examples: List of competitors, competitors’ financials, market share, product differences, brand identity, industry growth, etc.
Recommended research approach: Use Mergent Online to create competitor list. Use Business Source Premier to locate company profiles (includes information on competitors).
Research question: What threats do new companies face in entering your industry?
Examples: Economies of scale, strong brand identities, capital requirements, government policy, high switching costs, etc.
Recommended research approach: Use Business Insights Global to locate industry essays and market share reports.
Research question: What product or service may substitute your company's current product or service?
Examples: Uber as a substitute to traditional taxi services.
Recommended research approach: Identify keywords to search news articles and trade publications for news about emerging companies and trends.
Research question: How do you determine the power of a supplier?
Examples: Supplier concentration, lack of supplier competition, switching costs, uniqueness of process and/or material, etc.
Recommended research approach: Use the company's investor relations page to identify its suppliers. (See pages on publicly traded and private companies for more help).
Research question: How do you determine the power of buyers?
Examples: Buyer concentration, buyer switching costs, brand loyalty, availability of substitutes, etc.
Recommended research approach: Identify keywords to search news articles and trade publications.
The content of this page is adapted from:
Blas, Nataly. "Industry Research Using Porter's 5 Forces ." CORA (Community of Online Research Assignments), 2018. https://www.projectcora.org/assignment/industry-research-using-porters-5-forces.
