10 Most Important Questions to Ask & Answer

In our last article, we provided you with tips on how to identify your passion, purpose and capability so you can discover potential business opportunities. We also provided you with tips to evaluate your business opportunities to see if they can become sustainable and scalable brands.

Once you have settled on business opportunities that have the potential to become sustainable and scalable brands, the next step is to understand the industry; where the white spaces are, who the key players are and how they are positioned. 

It is very important to identify the industry your business opportunity is going to be playing in.

You need to understand and evaluate this industry by asking and answering the following questions

1. What is the size of the industry?
2. What is going on in the industry?
3. Is it a saturated industry?
4. What are the entry barriers and exit barriers?
5. What are the growth enablers and obstacles in the industry?
6. Who are the key players in their industry?
7. What do they focus on?
8. What are their strengths as well as areas of growth?
9. What is their geographic and market reach?
10. Who is their target market?

By conducting a very detailed secondary research, you will be able to answer these questions. 

Secondary Research is an analysis of data that is pre existing, usually public or purchased private data. It is from Government Reports & Studies, Trade & Industry Reports, Academics Papers and Published Papers.

Secondary data are advantageous because it allows us to review extensive data that covers a large spectrum of issues and topics. It is more economical as most of this data is in the public domain. And the data is quicker to obtain which makes the turn around time faster.

Take a stab at answering these questions using secondary data you have available. If you have any questions, contact Versa Research for all your research & consulting needs!