In this text you will find how to conduct a market research and a competitive analysis. When talking about Marketing Research we refer to various practices that aim to gather data and systematize it in order to draw conclusions and present it in meaningful ways; this is then used to support decision making within Marketing. We can broadly divide marketing research into exploratory research and conclusive research. Exploratory research seeks to develop initial hunches or insights and to provide direction for any further research needed, whereas conclusive research aims to verify insights and to aid decision makers in selecting a specific course of action. Frequently used approaches for conducting exploratory research include interviewing knowledgeable individuals (the key-informant technique), focus group interviews, analysis of secondary data, the case study method, and the observation method. From the researcher's standpoint, these approaches are quite flexible. The effectiveness of exploratory research depends to a large degree on the researcher's resourcefulness and skills. Two forms of conclusive research are descriptive research and experimental research. The purpose of descriptive research is to generate data describing a phenomenon or set of phenomena, and to identify associations between different variables. However, descriptive research cannot unambiguously establish causal linkages. Experimental research, by generating data under controlled conditions, is capable of establishing cause and effect between variables with more certainty.