Task 4-SECONDARY RESEARCH
Secondary Research
This involves data that has already been collected by other organisations or companies. It is also called desk research. Secondary Research is the most commonly used method of research adopted by businesses. In this instance, for Sony PS3 to carry out this form of research, it must use some forms of findings like press article, reports from other surveys or research carried out and through studies.
This form of research is very cheap compared to primary research. Data obtained in this form of research is second hand data, which means that data has already been used by other businesses or organisations to get the best out of it. On the other hand, this form of data is used backup primary research data. This form of data can be useful, because it involve large amount of existing data, which the business can use to do comparison between data obtained and also used to correct or rectify errors on other forms of research. Secondary data can be of great use to different forms of research. In terms of using the internet, it can be used to allocate data and on the other hand also used to save or store data. Secondary data can be obtained in large amounts from organisations, the media, government and data banks. This form of data can also be used in setting organisation cases in wider contexts.
Advantages of Secondary Research
- Secondary data can be easily located: secondary data is very important to organisations and businesses like the Sony PS3 company. This is because it can be used to compare primary data. Secondary data can be easily allocated because it is cheap to acquire. At most cases it is free to acquire secondary data through the media and other sources like the internet. For example if the Sony PS3 wants to achieve secondary data, it can get it through the internet or media free of charge, but in some cases it has to pay some amount of money to have access to the data. The data may be used to cover larger areas at a lower expense. It also allows larger scale studies on a small budget. The Sony PS3 acquiring this form research can cover them costs from different views.
- It does not exhaust people: this is because the data had already been collected. Secondary data can be of great importance to lazy individuals, because the data have already been collected. It can also be attained to when researchers are in a haste to get in touch with data. This is trying to show that secondary data is always available and can be used by organisations at any point in time needed. For example, if the Sony PS3 has to carry out research and is running out of time, it can just get in touch with secondary data to accomplish its task. By doing so, this will save time for the company and on the other hand, the cost of conducting the research.
- Unobtrusive: due to the data already been collected, it helps businesses like the Sony PS3 company who wants to make use of it through various numbers of points. In this sense, data already collected saves time for the company or organisation carrying out secondary research. On the other hand, it can be reliable because it has already been tested by other organisations and the results had been verified. In a broad sense, this shows that secondary data can be very effective, but the main problem with secondary data is wrong or quality information. For example, if Sony PS3 is carrying secondary research, it will save it time, cost of carrying out primary research.
- Quality and performance of data: secondary sources of data can gain more effective data than data obtained through primary research. At times, primary data can gain more accurate data where international agencies or governments researchers are of least intelligence. On the other hand, secondary data can gain far more accurate data than primary data, because governments, organisations or government agencies employ or hire the right individuals to carry out the research.
