Charlebois, Somogyi, Music, 2018, p. 37

Researchers at Dalhousie University released the preliminary results of a study of eating habits amongst Canadians. Titled:Plant-based dieting and meat attachment: Protein wars and the changing Canadian consumer (Charlebois, Somogyi, Music, 2018).

Interestingly:

Sixty-three per cent of respondents following a vegan diet—free from all animal-based products—were under the age of 38. Younger consumers are also less likely to believe that eating meat is a fundamental right. (from press release)

Statistics Canada does not currently compile statistics about vegans.

Screen capture of StatCan’s website for “vegan” on this page: “Does Statistics Canada collect this information?”

One of the cornerstones of the business programs at Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business is entrepreneurship. Students have to perform advances industry and market research to write a business plan. I often have to assist them in determining the “main business” they are engaged in, specifically which industry code(s) to pick as the basis of their project.

Firstly, I like to point out that projects spanning multiple industries, markets, trends or technologies will probably have to pick a few codes, at least 2 or 3 of them. That is the only way to capture the complexity of disrupting an industry – by looking at a few angles.

Secondly, entrepreneurs researching a business plan will have to adapt existing reports and data to their unique idea. Dealing with imprecise information is not easy and simply looking for “perfect” information will usually not yield a comprehensive and authoritative project report. So, cast a slightly wider net and pick the best tidbits, rather than being too discriminating.

Thirdly, I have created a comprehensive 9-step research protocol for business plans, supported with 19 YouTube tutorial walk-through. I recommend that any entrepreneur go through this protocol to research their business idea.

Early in this process, entrepreneurs are asked to pick an industry code from the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) to guide their exploration of many tools. These code have 2 to 6 digits, the more digits you have, the more precise the industry (say from “41” for “Wholesale Trade” to “419110” to “Business-to-business electronic markets”). Usually, having a 5 digit code is best.

A common problem entrepreneurs bring to me has to do with picking the right code for emerging technological fields. Here are the most common NAICS codes in the tech industry and how to navigate between them, drawing from a non-exhaustive list based on my experience:

Here are some starting points for succeeding the final project at JMSB’s (Concordia University) MARK 305 Consumer Behavior course.

List of industries for the Fall 2018 semester:

• Alcoholic Drinks
• Apparel and Footwear
• Beauty and Personal Care
• Consumer Health
• Fresh Food
• Hot Drinks
• Luxury Goods
• Packaged Food
• Pet Care
• Soft Drinks
• Consumer Foodservice
• Travel

1. Consumer behavior trend analysis: Where do we find information about emerging trends in CB?

• Free web sources recommended by Olivier, your librarian. These sources showcase unique data, e.g. “new data” not found elsewhere, that have been posted on the Internet by trustworthy sources:
  • Canada post: research into e-commerce
  • Nielsen Canada’s “Insights” blog
    • Nielsen produces this yearly report for the Québec government titled:  Ventes au détail de produits alimentaires dans les grands magasins au Québec en 2017
  • CRTC’s annual Communications Monitoring Reports, talks about consumption of media in Canada and its impact in media outlets, e.g. ADVERTISING
  • CEFRIO’s Enquêtes & Données  (partially free & teaser content)
  • PwC’s Canadian Retail & Consumer Industry outlook & reports
• Make sure you check out the website of the trade association for your industry!
• In addition to the above, I recommend the following subscribed databases listed on Concordia University Library’s Business Research Portal
  • Passport from Euromomnitor: MEGATRENDS and Consumer Lifestyles in Canada
  • IPSOS News Center: polls and surveys from IPSOS
• It is easy to fund trivia and fake news on Google: did you find the best source? The most trustworthy? The most authoritative?

2. Industry/company analysis: size, key players, strategies

• For this part, your librarian (me!) recommends the following databases listed on the Library’s Business Research Portal
  • Passport from Euromomnitor: this time, use the “industry reports” section to learn more about your industries
  • IBISWORLD reports: this system is in the “industry analysis” section of the Business Research Portal
  • ProQuest Business Databases: find articles by searching for the name of the trade associations, major players, industry name or consumer trend concept. Focus on articles from trade journals and academic/peer-reviewed/scholarly journals
• Do you really think Google can help you with this one?

3. Consumer analysis: demographics, size of the target market and their consumption process (pre-during-post)

• Remember: you’ve already learned so much! Don’t forget to use what you’ve found already!
• Statistics Canada
  • StatCan’s 2016 Census: use the Data Tables section to generate counts of the population based on the demographic make-up of your target market
  • Data from StatCan: explore additional datasets
• Try creating a color density map with the Library’s SimplyAnalytics

REMEMBER: Cite your sources! Use the citing business databases in APA format

District 3 library research seminar handout

Learning objectiveS

• Locate industry and market reports from the Internet and the Library
• Understand how to use datasets from Statistics Canada (Census & Cansim) and other national agencies
• Develop a healthy information diet

Proposed Course Outline

It is imperative to use both licensed (library) and free web sources to have a complete picture.

• (free web) SME Benchmarking: Average income statements and financials for Canadian small & medium businesses, by industry (NAICS). Direct link to the video for this step
• (library) IBIS World: Industry reports for Canada, USA, China and Global, filed by NAICS Code. Direct link to the video for this step
• Business Directories: Find competitors, clients, suppliers, market leaders

• Find trade associations with Google watch the video for this step
• Find government information with Google’s advanced search

• Statistic Canada: Census, National household survey & CANSIM
• SimplyMap Canada : color density map based on data from Statistic Canada watch the video for this step

• Think about your business idea when searching, use a variety of keywords:
  • (1) industry (use NAICS, watch out for jargon)
  • (2) trade associations
  • (3) market leaders and major competitors
  • (4) other subject term like a business trend
• News and articles from ProQuest Business Databases and EBSCO’s Business Source Complete.
• Setup an RSS feeds from ProQuest, EBSCO and Google to automatically receive notifications

Here is a paragraph I sent to a student trying to locate business information:

And please remember my motto about research: Search well and use what you find. Seeking out a little tidbit of information may be (and usually is) a waste of time. Take an hour or two, compile interesting sources from smart searching, and use what you find.

I often get questions about finding very specific (and often unrealistic) bits of information from students. Searching for business information is where students confront theories they learn in classes to the real world, sometimes theories just don’t fit with the data that’s out there!

Here are sources for finding information about Montréal’s economy and industrial make-up. I refer to subscriptions at Concordia University where I work.

– Passport GMID from Euromonitor
This is a system we have under subscription at the Library. It now provides top line reports of major cities around the world, including Montreal. Please access the system via this link:
http://clues.concordia.ca/record=e1001087~S0
(click on the database name and provide your netname if asked)
After accepting the terms of use of the system, just type Montreal in the search box on the top-right corner of the page. You will get many reports, but you are looking for the “Montreal City Review” in particular.
Video on using Passport: http://youtu.be/Wpotf4vcJmE?list=PLaqfn26UOsX-OJGT_W_UTOWzvAA5Kb3tG

– Montréal en statistiques
This city of Montréal website provides various reports about the city:
http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_pageid=6897,67633583&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL
In addition to the various reports, themes and other data available therein, I noticed this very recent economic portrait of the city:
Profils économiques : un portrait à jour de la dynamique économique montréalaise
http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_pageid=6897,68131631&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL&id=10396&ret=/pls/portal/url/page/mtl_stats_fr/rep_nouvelles/coll_nouvelles
Looks very interesting.

– Montréal International
This is the international development agency for the city. There are a lot of high-level glossy reports and data on this site, but in particular their publications:
http://www.montrealinternational.com/publications/
(This agency is one of the few I recommend you build a long-term, low volume but high impact relationship with)

– MEIE, Québec Government
The Ministère de l’économie has a portal devoted to each administrative region of the province, this is the Montréal page:
http://www.economie.gouv.qc.ca/pages-regionales/montreal/
Make sure you click around in the “Portrait régional” box, which is located on the bottom left-hand section of the page. You get a one or two page report for each theme.
(This agency is one of the few I recommend you build a long-term, low volume but high impact relationship with)

– Conference Board of Canada
I am sorry to report that we do ** not ** have access to the Conference Board of Canada’s e-library, but I did want to mention that they provide detailed forecasting reports at the city level.

See:
“Étude de jeu 2012 : L’industrie du jeu électronique poursuit sa croissance en 2013 | TECHNOCompétences”
http://www.technocompetences.qc.ca/actualite/etude_jeu_2012

Stumbled on this flowchart from Jenny Mueller-Alexander at Arizona State University Libraries about researching a single company or an industry.

I like how the company process splits into private company and public company – which has a huge impact on the amount of information available. Remember that anything a company tells you is either to their benefit, either required my law (like disclosing financial statements when their equity is traded on public markets of capital like stock exchanges).

I’ve been meaning to adapt my similar research protocol for business students to distinguish between researching a business idea (entrepreneurship) that targets consumers versus other companies. This also has great bearing on how one researches the information for a business plan… more on that later…

The Canadian Marketing Association announced on their website that last summer, the International Journal of Mobile Marketing ran a special issue on mobile marketing in Canada (Summer2012, Vol. 7 Issue 1). Although you can purchase single articles from the publisher, this journal is available from the Library.