Analyzing and forecasting global business markets: Reflections and recommendations

Abstract

My goal in this article is to distill some key ideas I have learned over 50 years of analyzing and forecasting global markets that should be useful to academics as well as practitioners. The discussion moves from the general to the specific and back, offers illustrations, and concludes with a few lessons and guidelines. Part 1 shows why a two-fold view of categorization is far too narrow in a complex world. Part 2 demonstrates that both academics and practitioners face three underlying challenges, namely topic choice, budgeting and procedure; then Part 3 reveals how to tackle these and related issues. In Part 4 the discussion traces the expanding scope of global market research and the key challenge of building consistent market analysis and forecasts in an age of information overload. Part 5 shows illustrative case studies drawn from books and monographs. Finally, Part 6 offers lessons and guidelines. A bibliography and a short biography are provided.