Sorry State of Market Studies

“What goes wrong with Market Studies”: Frequently, am asked to vet and assess market studies, business plans and research documents on the topic of supply chain, albeit specific to the Indian backdrop. This, after the document owner has in all earnest, already paid a hefty amount to the researcher for the study and evaluation. 

These impulses to seek second opinions are the norm and retrospective in nature. One understands this reaching out, since no matter how big the hospital, the personal physician is still a trusted referral!

Where I get utterly flummoxed, is the lack of quality & authenticity in the documents provided. Whereas, one ought to be barely dotting an odd alphabet (or none, preferably), the entire diagnosis and conclusions suggested are often suspect, especially those on the topic of cold chain. At times, I fail to grasp what is presented as business study. Recently, there was once again a spate of annual releases on the cold-chain sector, focus India. I was asked to assess and confirm upon a couple. I repeat, I failed to understand ...

The subject of cold chain is not all that difficult; the logic backing it is rational, even simple, and sufficient information is available on the web. Access to this information is the easy part of any research. But, isn't some of that data dated yet!! Various researchers tending to secondary searches will pick on anything that seems interesting, or presented in simplistic fashion. Problems arise when domain inexpertise interprets the information, only to colour it with prejudged and complicated conclusions. 

Desktop reviews and guess work, viz. original experienced assessment

Truly speaking, the lack of a cohesive industry base (cold-chain has not even earned the tag ‘industry’) allows one only mere indicators to assess the where, how and what the cold-chain in India is upto! We do attempt to extend clarity on this domain by correlating seemingly disjointed information; from inflation data to road networks, from growth in agricultural yield to equipment lead times, from low hanging trousers to thonged bikinis.

Somewhere, even the inane reflects upon the sane, and one just has to stitch the collage together correctly and in logical fashion. This requires multi-disciplinary experience across domain specific functions. 

To infer realistic understanding from information available, is truly the key to all studies. The butterfly effect is evident, one just has to realise it. 

While this ‘realisation’ is not as tedious as the one Buddha sought, one at times wonders why some imagine that ‘it’ and all associated ramifications
are automatically inter-weaved into their silk ties! I refer to the inexperience and total lack of hands-on practice, tabling diagnostic solutions on a subject that they have merely looked up.

Lack of an operational exposure and results in reports that are merely representations of previous assessments. The  language tends to change but only to confound the conclusions, making them imagined and uninspired.

This is misleading, even insidious, and as bad as a duck in a doctor’s cabin, the quacking loud enough to hear.

What gets ones goat, is reading some of the interpretations put forth. This is where one witnesses simplistic comprehension of data, mutating into something totally refutable. The inexperience of the desk top reviewers - rooted in zero field experience, with nary a sweat being raised ever in the subject domain - is repeatedly evident in the conclusions projected which are at times disingenuous and misinforming.

Loosely understood information can be disingenuous and misleading

 Sometimes one imagines this sector suffers from too many unskilled cooks, the broth left to overflow, extinguishing the very fire that is the core.

 It irks, the poppycock that is blatantly put forth and surprisingly re-quoted as gospel; gives ample reason to stop bothering … but someone will once again step forth to use the same unsubstantiated fluff as excuse to argue an ineffectual case.

On a bad hair day!!!

There are no Big Ideas being output, just Copycat Research. Wrote this first in 2012... not much has changed. Today was another bad hair day!