Businesses use many search technologies when doing research. Academic search engines, such as JSTOR and Academic Search Premier, help businesses find secondary information related to projects. These search engines aggregate search results from tens of thousands of academic journals, including journals in business management. Conventional search engines can be useful in retrieving stock market news, information and data. These search engines also offer financial analysis pages that compute financial ratios for companies based on published information.
Media tools include old and new media technologies. One of the main traditional media technologies is the library newspaper machine, that allows you to search back issues of newspapers and magazines. New media outlets technologies in business research include social media websites and online publications. Businesses use social media trend data to analyze market conditions and online publications to find news and information.
Telephones and telephone-related technologies have long been used in market research. Market research firms usually do surveys over the telephone, employing telephone agents to call random households and ask questions about products and services. E-mail is another medium over which polling is conducted. Organizations conduct e-mail polls by sending virtual questionnaires to respondents all over the world. E-mail polling is increasing in popularity as home telephones wane in usage numbers.
Data tools include audio recorders and data entry tools. Audio recorders are used to record focus group sessions and telephone interviews. Data entry forms are programs that allow phone operators and focus group leaders to input scaled answers (for example, "rate on a scale of 1-5" questions) as respondents answer survey questions. These programs have statistical algorithms that compute average responses from thousands of completed surveys.