SD-5 Market ResearchThe purpose of this document is to provide DoD and other Federal personnel involved in the acquisition process with practical guidance on using market research to ensure the acquisition of products and services that will best serve the government??s needs. Specifically, this document is designed for personnel involved with establishing requirements for products or services, such as engineers, technical specialists, project officers, and customers; personnel involved with purchasing products or services, such as contracting officers, contract specialists, and cost analysts; and personnel who support the acquisition process, such as logisticians, testing and quality assurance specialists, and legal counsel.

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• Economic data. A strategic market research study should include a review of basic econom- ic data about the market.The data may include industry sales and trends, number and sizes of the participating firms, and any other industry information that is relevant. Sources to consider are data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Economic Analysis, and Bureau of Labor Statistics; industry and trade associations reports and publications; purchasing publications; and news and business publications.

• General market information. Other sources of information about the market include trade shows and conferences, training programs focused on the market, industry and trade asso- ciations and publications, organizations that establish standards for the market, and the news media. Personal contacts are another valuable source of information. Site visits to suppliers of products and discussions with other users can help you get a better feel for the realities of the industry than you can get by relying solely on media such as advertis- ing brochures.You can also publish a request for information (RFI) in FedBizOpps to

seek general information from firms in the market, although an RFI may be more appro- priate once you've learned more about the market and have begun your tactical market research.

Collect Relevant Market Information

After you have identified potential sources of information to support your strategic market re- search, you must then decide what information is important enough to collect from those sources.This is a matter of judgment.Your decision will depend on the market you're research- ing, the nature of the product or service, and your role in your organization.

A key aspect of collecting strategic market research data is to first develop an organized structure for storing or capturing the information so that you can find it quickly.You could use web bookmarks or favorites, folders and files on a computer or network, hard-copy file folders or binders, or some combination.Web bookmarks and folders are convenient when the research is conducted via the web, although web bookmarks can become inactive over time as the un- derlying websites are deleted or revised.You could transfer, cut-and-paste, or enter data onto forms, documents, or databases that you store on your computer or network; the disadvantage with this approach is the labor and time to extract and replicate information from the sources. Hard-copy files are useful for organizing material from brochures, magazines, printouts, or other physical media.

You will probably use one or more approaches for storing the market research data unless you want to invest in the effort to convert the various types of information into a common storage environment. For example, if the market you are researching is jet engines, you might want to create a structure like the following:

• Jet Engines