A period of desk research, or secondary research, is a common precursor to all our primary research projects but it can also be the sole research technique employed. Desk based research is essentially the act of finding and collating particular existing documentation or data relating to a theme/subject of investigation, such as published reports, our own/client’s sources of information and such things as newspaper items and organisational data, which are freely available on the internet.
Clients might opt for desk research because it is less time-consuming, requires far fewer resources than primary research and is therefore usually always cheaper. It does not provide new information, but it draws together that which already exists, for analysis and to enable some independent conclusions to be formulated or simply to provide an overview of what is going on.
