There is a common myth in academia and business: “Real research requires raw data.”
Many PhD scholars believe that if they aren’t interviewing 500 people or running complex lab experiments, they aren’t working. Similarly, businesses think they need to spend lakhs on field surveys to understand a market.
But some of the most cited papers in the world—and some of the smartest business strategies—are built entirely on data that already exists.
At McKinley Research, we specialize in Secondary Research. Whether you are a scholar looking to publish a Review Paper or a CEO looking for market intelligence, here is why “Desk Research” might be your secret weapon.
1. The Rise of the “Systematic Literature Review” (SLR)
In the past, a literature review was just a summary. Today, it is a scientific method. Using frameworks like PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses), you can treat existing literature as your dataset.
- The Process: You don’t just “read” papers. You systematically search databases (Scopus, Web of Science), filter them using strict criteria, and analyze the trends.
- The Result: A high-quality Review Paper that journals love because it synthesizes years of knowledge into one document.
2. Meta-Analysis: The “Study of Studies”
What if one study says “Coffee is bad for you” and another says “Coffee is good”? A Meta-Analysis combines the statistical data from dozens of studies to find the true effect. It is the gold standard of evidence in medical and social sciences.
- How We Help: Our statisticians extract data from multiple papers and run complex aggregate analyses, giving you a result that is far more powerful than any single survey could provide.
3. Business Intelligence on a Budget
For startups, a primary market survey might be too expensive.
- Desk Research: We analyze competitor annual reports, government white papers, and industry datasets to build a Market Entry Strategy. You get 80% of the insight for 20% of the cost.
4. Speed to Publication
Primary data collection takes months. You have to wait for ethics approval, distribute forms, and chase respondents. Secondary research is immediate. The data is already there; you just need to access it. If you are on a tight deadline to publish a paper for your PhD submission, an SLR or Bibliometric Analysis is often the fastest route to a Q1 or Q2 journal acceptance.
5. Tools We Use
We don’t just Google things. We use advanced tools to visualize the data:
- VOSviewer: To map co-citation networks and identify research hotspots.
- R / Stata: For statistical meta-analysis.
- Scopus / WoS: For comprehensive literature extraction.
Conclusion
You don’t always need to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes, the smartest researchers are the ones who organize the knowledge that is already out there.
