Importance Of Exploratory Research Process

Exploratory research helps businesses to discover new ideas and find potential market opportunities. It is used to explore a situation or search for a problem. This research process is unstructured. Product managers need not go through all the stages of the market research process from the defining stage to the analysis stage the findings from exploratory research are usually based on secondary data (Data that is already available in different departments of the Company), open ended questions, similar case studies, a pilot study or even result from previous research. The results from exploratory research are not generally suitable for product manger to draw a conclusion and decide to enter a new market. The result is all too often generalized

Philosopher John Dewey’s (Kotler, 2000) said a problem well defined is half solved”. Company’s management must work at formulating the problem neither too broadly nor too narrowly. Typical marketing purposes/objectives are increasing revenues and profits, discovering what consumers want, and finding out why a product is not selling well etc.

An explicit definition of the research problem is probably the most important research task.

It is important to note that certain research problems may not be fully defined or formulated because the researcher lacks the requisite information to guide him in problem formulation. To remedy such a problem the researcher can embark on an exploratory research. The goal of the exploratory research is to gather preliminary data to shed light on the real nature of the problem and to suggest possible solutions or new ideas.

Step 2: Developing the Research