Is your research broad enough?

On a recent flight back from Dulles, the twenty something sitting next to me asked me what time it was at least three times. This didn’t surprise me at all. In fact, it frequently happens on flights. I’ve learned that his generation generally does not wear a watch. They count on their cell phone to tell time. An airplane is one of the few places where they can’t use their cell phone to check the time. I wonder if watch manufacturers even considered cell phones to be a threat to their industry. Actually, I wonder if a lot of industries and businesses have considered the competition and threat from outside their core area.

• Hollywood Video was probably worried about other brick & mortar video stores such as Blockbuster, but did they see Netflix or On-demand TV as a competitor?
  
• Did parking meters (yes, they are a revenue stream, so I consider them to be a business) see the impact of debit cards, where people no longer generate the change needed to feed a meter?
  
• Did FedEx realize the impact email would have on their business?
  
• And we all know that most newspapers were blind in terms of the crippling effect the Internet has had on so many aspects of their business.
  

Most research, trying to maximize the information garnered for the minimal amount of the respondents’ time, concentrates on the core category and known competition. Such studies would probably never give an early warning of competition from outside the core sector. But this path of efficiency could be dangerous, if not life threatening. I strongly recommend that at least once a year, and ideally twice a year, your research, whether it be qual or quant, explores outside the box. Study evolving ways that consumers do things. Like the cell phone has hurt the watch business, what is lurking out there that could hurt your business.