Give us an idea of how information is collected. What is the difference between primary and secondary source information?
We always begin the Collection Process by developing a Collection Plan. We start by attempting to determine who has access to the information we seek. Our next step is to ethically collect that information by looking in the right places. We always start with secondary information and then move to primary information. Our job is not to reinvent the wheel, but rather to gather the information necessary to fully understand the competitive environment. Secondary information is what I would call historical information and, generally speaking raw or unevaluated information. It is information that exists in some form, oft times the real talent is in finding that information. We have on staff experts in finding the hard to find secondary sources. Primary information is that information obtained from human sources whether it is observed by the collector or a photograph taken by a reliable source or simply a document expressly written to answer a BI question.
