Desk Research

Much of our work involves primary research where we collect information directly from target audience respondents but secondary or desk research is quite common too. Sometimes we build it into the research project and other times we do desk research to provide information which assists us in designing the study or to augment findings from our qualitative or quantitative research.

Desk research involves collating, studying and assessing existing data and information that is relevant to the task at hand. Digital access has made desk research easier than it used to be and opened a goldmine of accessible data. There are many sources of published and other information that can be accessed freely or at relatively low cost from both government and other sources.

One of the most popular and helpful sources is the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and we regularly access information it provides. Clients also occasionally make customer and other internal data available to us and sometimes that is the project request made of us – to make sense of internal data.