INSIGHT on INSIGHT: Tertiary Research

Tertiary research is the term I use for informal, unproven or indirect information that flows throughout organizations.  It can reflect perspective built over years of experience, institutional learning about tactics that have worked (and those that did not) or informal perspective from customer service representative, call/email logs, Facebook posts or Tweets.

It may include insight that is extrapolated from more reliable primary and secondary sources.  Tertiary research could also include volunteering to have your business opportunity treated as a case study for a local university class.  Marketing or market research students can build on your company’s existing knowledge to provide a fresh, new perspective.

The above insight may be completely accurate, but how that insight was acquired makes it less proven.  It should not be ignored, but it needs to be treated with a little more caution.

THE PROS OF TERTIARY RESEARCH

Experience tends to teach the best lessons.

Companies often have more knowledge as an organization than what any one person knows.  Objectively discussing individual points-of-view can help the organization arrive at new enlightenment.

Real world perspective can often complement or make better sense of formal primary or secondary research results.

Tertiary research can be a great starting point to compile questions or hypotheses to design exploratory or validating primary research around.

THE CONS OF TERTIARY RESEARCH

Relying on limited lessons based only on what has been done in the past ignores the opportunity presented by things that have not been done.

Things change, and what was true in practice a year or two or five ago may not apply to today’s reality.

We all naturally develop personal filters or bias that can skew how we remember or interpret our experiences.

It is easy to be overly confident in thinking we know or understand more than we really do.