While so much of your time in business is spent working – trying to position your business in such a way that it’s prepared to deal with the future and equipped for the present – you also need to take a more abstract approach.
While you might think that the bulk of the research that you would conduct in business comes before you actually get started, ensuring that you land on your feet, it might be more consistently beneficial to think of it as something that’s ongoing. After all, there’s always more to learn and many ways to apply this knowledge.
The Lay of the Land
The high hopes that you have for your business might be thought of as a reflection as the landscape that you’re entering. Perhaps you’re hoping to provide a budget option that is sorely lacking in the current state of the industry, or you might be looking to innovate on it in some other way. Whatever the case, you don’t exist in a vacuum, you are a part of the industry that you’re entering, and you’ll be thought of in that way.
That also means that you want to know what kind of threats might be availed against you in terms of cybersecurity. This is a moving target, and that means that you have to keep yourself regularly updated – perhaps starting with the latest threat detection report that can help to inform your next move.
The Applicant Process
Hiring the perfect person for the role is a multi-faceted consideration. It’s understandable that you might want the best of the best right away, but this won’t always be realistic depending on where it is that your business currently stands. Alternatively, you could look to cultivate talent from within – but even then, you’re going to want to hire the best person from those who do apply for a given role.
You want to know who this person is and whether or not they’ll be the right fit for your business. This is ultimately what interviewing them is all about, but you can also conduct this research by collecting references and getting a better sense of their wider professional life prior to this point, as well as what they want out of a job with you.
Market Research
This is such an essential consideration that it’s arguably one of the first things that you do when you’re starting your business. You want to know if your product or service is something that people are going to want, and if the answer is yes, then who is this target audience? How are you going to reach them? Each answer unveils new questions and it’s important that you’re able to answer these adequately enough so that a firm image of your brand begins to form. You need to know exactly who you’re for and how you’re going to make yourself appealing to them. This doesn’t stop being relevant, though, and as your business grows and changes you need to keep your eyes on this central target.
