This document discusses four key areas for identifying business opportunities: listening to potential and current clients, observing competitors, and looking at industry trends. It emphasizes the importance of actively listening to clients to understand their needs, experiences with similar products, and expectations. Competitor analysis can reveal weaknesses to exploit and what customers value. Staying aware of market and technology trends through research allows businesses to adapt and expand. Overall success requires flexibility and utilizing a six-step market research process of defining objectives, designing instruments, collecting and analyzing data, and communicating findings.

1. Name
Institution

2.  Other than insects, microorganisms and maybe some ocean
creatures, human beings are the most populous species on the
planet.
 Everyone across the globe is in a never-ending attempt to make good
of their life though some are only making it the best having already
achieve good and better.
 On the other end of the spectrum are people struggling to make it
livable to the very least and trying their best not to give up.
 It is said we are all victims of circumstance because circumstance is
the only thing that influences us to make the decisions, we do by
finding ourselves in specific situations.

3.  However, circumstances can be turned into opportunities but with
conditions.
 There are many ways to prepare for circumstances that will wilt
opportunities depending on the field of interest.
 Of course, innovation is key but one has to also continually seek and
utilize opportunities.
 However, identifying an opportunity especially in business relies
heavily on four areas.
 These areas have been associated with many business opportunities
across the world and many people continue to acquire more from
them

4.  The areas of interest are;
 listening to potential clients and past leads,
 listening to current clients,
 observation of competitors, and
 looking at trends in the industry.

5.  When targeting customers you need to listen to them.
 This will provide insight on their needs, wants, challenges, desires, and
frustrations they have faced regarding your industry.
 For observation and listening you need to ask a few questions such as;
a) What products have they used before that are similar to what you would offer?
b) What did they like or loath with the previous product?
c) Why are they coming to you?
d) What are their expectations on your product or service?
 These questions will help develop your product to suit their needs or just make
minor modifications to them.

6.  This involves actively listening to your clients while you talk to them which will
provide an opportunity to explore what they think about your products or services.
 You will identify the most frequently asked questions and have the chance to
answer them or at least seek answers for them.
 It also provides a platform to listen to their past experiences that may have
sparked frustrations, the feedback they got and how they got it after they had
made complaints.
 This information will help in identification of opportunities that will assist in
expansion and development of the current products and services.
 Most importantly though is the insight that it will provide on how competition
works and their various insights.

7.  This basically means engaging in competitive analysis.
 It is however, cautioned that this could result to competitive paralysis if caution is
not taken.
 This analysis involves seeing what other businesses in the industry are doing but
the most important and beneficial thing is usually what they are not doing.
 It identifies their weaknesses and thus provides points of exploitation
 You can also tell what they are doing right and therefore you can get to know why
customers are choosing them over your products or service line.
 Analyzing them helps identify points you could explore and use to expand your
market and product line to attract and keep customers.

8.  Market trends and industry trends are some of the most beneficial when it comes
to keeping up with the pace of advancement.
 These trends also provide a platform to expand your business through identify
new technologies that are being used in the industry.
 Research is ever continuing and this allows people to adopt new methods of doing
business which improve the output.
 This is done through subscription of industry publications, joining relevant
associations, setting google alerts and notifications for key terms in the industry.
 It is therefore expected that one gets absorbed into the industry and continually
educate self on the most recent techniques and trends applied in the industry.

9.  There is no straight road to success or one particular path that anyone can follow
and end up succeeding.
 Virtual research environments (VREs) have become increasingly important in
recent years in a variety of research disciplines and belong to the standard
repertoire of digital tools and infrastructures being used.
 However, up to now very few VREs have made the leap from the prototype phase
to everyday use. Furthermore, the increased use of VREs in research
environments has not resulted in any universally accepted attributes or guidelines
for the development and operation of these infrastructures.
 On the contrary: the different stakeholders — particularly from research funding
bodies, academia and information infrastructure providers — are searching for
criteria that could help with the development, operation and quality assurance of
VREs and with the optimization of processes.

10.  The process of success therefore based on well research data and findings narrows
down to two major a six step process.
 Define the objective and your problem- the most important step in the market research
process is defining the goals of the project. At the core of this is understanding the
root question that needs to be informed by market research. There is typically a key
business problem needs to be acted upon, but there is a lack of information to make
that decision comfortably; the job of a market researcher is to inform that decision
with solid data.
 Determine your Research design- Think of the “research design” as your detailed plan of
attack and also think through specifics about how you will identify and choose your
sample.
 Design and prepare your design instrument- In this step of the market research process,
it’s time to design your research tool. If a survey is the most appropriate tool, you’ll
begin by writing your questions and designing your questionnaire.

11.  Collect Data- the time when you are administering your survey, running your
focus groups, conducting your interviews, implementing your field test, etc. The
answers, choices, and observations are all being collected and recorded, usually in
spreadsheet form.
 Analyze data- Start to formulate the story you will tell. You will need to get data
in spreadsheet form for further analysis. Run summaries with the tools provided
in your software package, build tables and graphs, segment your results by groups
that make sense and look for the major trends in your data.
 Communicate results or present findings- compile the most meaningful take-
aways into a digestible report or presentation. When it comes time to presenting
your results, remember to present insights, answers and recommendations, not
just charts and tables.

12.  Timmons & Spinelli Chapters 3 and 4
 Schaper & Volery Chapter 5 and 6