Why is the defined research objectives of the research process probably the most important stage

If you are embarking on a B2B research project, you’re likely to have a good idea of what it is you want to explore, or learn.

Table of Contents Show

But first, what are research objectives?
Why are research objectives so important?
1. Providing focus and direction
2. Informing survey and discussion guide design
3. Helping to engage and align stakeholders
4. Ensuring impartiality
Objectives give direction to the paper
Objectives help to avoid any diversion from the topic
Research objectives minimize wastage of resources
Objectives ease the understanding of the research by the target audience

Perhaps you want to better understand your target audience, or identify industry trends. You may have a more specific question in mind, like ‘What are the biggest challenges faced by businesses seeking to become more digital?’

So, you know what the goal of your research is, but have you laid down the foundations that will help you to achieve this goal?

In this blog, we maintain that setting clear research objectives is a central part of the process, and highlight four reasons why they are critical to success.

But first, what are research objectives?

Research objectives are set at the very start of a project to guide the research. Their main role is to ensure you gain insights that are relevant and useful.

First you should determine your primary research objective. This summarises the main aim of the research – what you want to find out. It should be a neutral statement, led by an infinitive verb such as ‘to explore’, ‘to understand’, or ‘to identify’.

Your primary objective could be ‘To determine the challenges manufacturers face in building a digital presence’, or ‘To explore the buyers’ journey when choosing a new service provider’.

You should then define several specific research objectives. These indicate the topics or issues the research plans to investigate to achieve the primary objective.

In the case of exploring the buyers’ journey, specific objectives may be ‘To explore the needs, behaviours and decisions made at each stage of the journey’, ‘To identify key tmoments of truth’ and ‘To understand what factors are important from a provider’.

Your objectives should be set with your business goal in mind; the reason that underlines why you are doing the research in the first place.

You may be looking to explore the needs of your ideal target market because you want to win new business and increase your revenue.

When setting your objectives, ask yourself, ‘What do I need to learn to help guide me to achieve my business goal?’

Why are research objectives so important?

You’d be forgiven for thinking setting research objectives is a quick and easy task. It sounds simple, right? But it’s important to invest appropriate time to think them through properly.

Here we outline the four main reasons why clearly defined objectives are vital to B2B research success.

1. Providing focus and direction

Carrying out research without setting objectives is like going on a journey with no knowledge of the destination or how to get there. You need to know where you are headed, and a map to get you there.

Having clear objectives will set you on a path to achieving your main aim and help you get the most useful insight possible.

Most research projects that go wrong lead back to objectives not being clearly defined or understood. Unclear or cursory objectives can lead to irrelevant data, or insights that lack depth.

2. Informing survey and discussion guide design

Without objectives, how will you know what to ask your audience?Objectives provide you with clear direction for writing your survey or discussion guide. Think about the topics you need to cover and specific questions you need to ask that will allow you to meet your objectives.

3. Helping to engage and align stakeholders

Getting sign off to conduct research can be a hard task. Costs and a lack of understanding of the need for research can be potential barriers for your CFO or other senior team members.

You will need to convince them that it’s worthwhile. Having well-defined objectives that clearly illuminate what you are going to learn from the research, and how it will be useful to the business, will help you get them onboard.

4. Ensuring impartiality

You may have pre-conceived ideas of what the research will show, based on previous experience or personal beliefs. Or you could have a vested interest for the results to turn out a certain way; for instance, if you are testing appeal of two new product ideas and one is more financially viable.

These biases may unwittingly (or not!), lead you to interpret the data in a way that fits with your expectations or best interests.

Unlike hypotheses which propose an explanation as a starting point for further investigation, research objectives are neutral statements.

Therefore they help keep you on course for analysing data objectively, so that your findings are not affected by confirmation bias or other prejudices.

Having a clear goal and a clear path to reach that goal is vital to helping you deliver research that is useful and impactful.

Your objectives need to be clearly defined at the outset of the project and kept top of mind at every stage; from survey design, through to analysis and outputs.

Question 16 options:

Research is focused and costs are kept down

Clear objectives cause delays in information being collected

Distance and travel to foreign markets are relatively short and inexpensive so research does not significantly save time or cost

All of the above are important reasons to define research objectives

Answer & Explanation

Solved by verified expert

a) Research is focused and costs are kept down.

Step-by-step explanation

Wastage of the research resources is reduced with clearly defined research objectives and this also enhances the efficiency of the study.
Research can simply be explained as systematic search for knowledge. In order to successfully conduct a research, a research topic has to be decided. As any other topic, the research topic should have a clearly defined objective to help the researcher focus and keep on track with what he/she is strictly supposed to research on.
This is because, once the researcher starts gathering data for the research, he/she comes across abundant data related to the research topic.
The researcher often gets blinded by the wide amount of data available on variety of sources and frequently diverts from the core subject. The abundance of data brings in confusion as to which data to be utilized for present research and which data should be discarded. The attention of the researcher may also be diverted to adventure rather than using the resources in colleting data that is irrelevant to the study.
A clearly defined objective help the researcher to stick and concentrate on the current research issue and avoid any diversion from the research topic. As such, by preventing the researcher to deviate from the research topic, it minimize wastage of time, money and energy.

Q1: Why is the “define research objectives” of the research process probably the most importantstage?

Research can simply be explained as a systematic search for knowledge. In order to successfully conduct research, a research topic/subject has to be decided. The research process involves gathering data on the research subject and analyzing it to reach a comprehensive conclusion. But the important question here is; who will decide what should be searched and how it will be decided? The answer is that the researcher has to define the objectives and decide what needs to be searched. The researcher has full control of the research subject. But how it will be decided what needs to be searched? It’s tricky but involves simple logic. In our daily lives, if we know our destination, we can choose a path to reach there.

Similarly in research, if we know what we are looking for then we can decide how we can accomplish it. Thus, we can say that the intended results define the framing of the objectives. Here the objectives come into the scene and gain importance.

Objectives give direction to the paper

The objectives of a study provide a clear direction. As soon as the researcher defines the objectives, the scope is defined. On the basis of the objectives, further processes are carried out including primary and secondary data collection, data analysis, drawing interpretation and conclusion of the research. All these research processes are dependent on the objectives and are carried out in accordance with it.

Objectives help to avoid any diversion from the topic

Once the researcher starts gathering data for the research, especially the secondary data, he/she comes across abundant data related to the research subject. The researcher often gets blinded by the wide amount of data available on a variety of sources and frequently diverts from the core subject. The abundance of data brings in confusion as to which data to be utilized for present research and which data should be discarded. The objectives help the researcher to stick to the current research and avoid any diversion from the research topic.

Research objectives minimize wastage of resources

By preventing the researcher to deviate from the research topic, objectives minimize the wastage of the researcher’s time, money and energy. Objectives help the researcher to concentrate on the current research. Wastage of the research resources is reduced with clearly-defined objectives and hence, the efficiency of the study is enhanced.

Objectives ease the understanding of the research by the target audience

All research goes in vain if the target audience i.e. the beneficiaries of the research fails to understand it. The objectives help the target audience to clearly understand the purpose of particular research and it, therefore, eases understanding. Thus, objectives also make research meaningful for the target audience.

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