ReportLinker – Review of a Tool for Gathering Accurate Business Intelligence

ReportLinker – Review of a Tool for Gathering Accurate Business Intelligence

Posted by on Jan 27, 2016 in Data |

Data has over recent years become the most valuable asset in the modern business world. From product development to marketing, the role of information has never been more prominent, and the success or failure of a business can often come down to the quality of data the company has access to, and the effectiveness with which it makes use of it.

Such is the value of data in today’s information economy, successful companies in all sectors spend huge chunks of their research and promotional budgets on the gathering and processing of commercial intelligence of all types, so what if there was a simpler and more cost effective way of bypassing all this effort? This is where ReportLinker comes in.

What is Report Linker?

ReportLinker is a search service that pulls data, statistics, and – yes – reports from the deep web, using over 10,000 trusted sources of information ranging from government agencies to international trade associations. They claim their database contains over 24 million commercially actionable nuggets of information, covering all business sectors, and drawn from marketing reports, sales forecasts, production figures and more. While much of this information is already in the public domain, ReportLinker’s technology draws it all together into a structured dataset which is easily accessed with a simple search – as straightforward as using Google for your everyday searching needs.

What Sets ReportLinker Apart from Similar Services?

Many other business intelligence services provide only private reports, charging for access to each one, which can quickly ramp up the expense of research, whereas ReportLinker provides access to a wealth of information from thousands of sources, all for a single monthly subscription. Their search system uses advanced semantic technology to zero in on commercially useful data in a way that general purpose search engines just can’t match, and uses targeted indexing capabilities to provide access to data that other engines simply ignore or don’t have access to.

Data analysis concept.

Does the ReportLinker Service Work?

In a word, yes. Simply type in the business sector you need data for, or a specific query you need answering, and the engine will quickly provide a list of free reports and data sources relevant to your search. During our tests we presented ReportLinker with a range of queries of varying complexity, covering many verticals, and in all cases the results were pleasingly on-target. The results page also allows you to drill down by industry, region, publication date and more, if you need to refine your results further, while regular users of the service will appreciate the ability to set up email alerts to be informed of when new data in a field becomes available.

As well as the free reports which are the bread and butter of ReportLinker, for the sake of completeness a search will also bring up listings of commercially-available reports related to your query along with their selling price. Clicking on each one of these supplemental will provide a detailed description of what the report contains, and offers the opportunity to purchase a licence giving access to the report there and then.

Although the simple search works well enough, for deep research the advanced search facility lets you focus on a particular type of publication, narrowed down to industry and/or country, and optionally sorted by date so that you can be sure you’ll be basing your analysis on current information.

Who Can Benefit from ReportLinker?

Whether you’re a decision maker or a researcher, ReportLinker will provide a massive range of information in a structured way, saving the time and effort of trawling through the public web to uncover data of often dubious reliability and value. It can also remove the need to spend large sums of money on commercial reports that may or may not provide the level of detail or relevance required when thoroughly researching an area.

ReportLinker’s refined and accurate results will greatly improve productivity when gathering information, expediting the route to acquiring the essential data that will move a business forward. If your company depends on the efficient use of accurate data, then ReportLinker can be a powerful addition to your intelligence gathering toolbox.