Global Requirement Engineering Through Secondary Market Research: Lessons From Real Consulting Projects

Requirement Engineering (RE) for determining a product's value proposition involves a close relationship with potential customers in order to better understand their requirements. The startup community investigates market demands through a series of experiments in which assumptions are continually validated as the product evolves. Validation is typically accomplished through colocated meetings with consumers, an activity that will be hampered by the pandemic's constraints. Due to pandemic effects and resource constraints, targeting worldwide markets and taking advantage of global demand is not viable without technological support and innovation in the way RE is conducted. Secondary market research using Google technologies, for instance, Google Market Finder and Google Ad Preview tool, could be effective for worldwide market expansion for the startup community. Small- and medium-sized firms have adopted this as one of the best practices for global market expansion—lessons learnt through internal strategy management and marketing management disciplines. The ideal way to investigate global RE, RE conducted with worldwide markets, is to use Google technology's analytical support, followed by primary research. Secondary research allows resource-constrained startups to explore wide global markets with minimum effort, narrowing them down to valuable information, making primary research with focused market segments possible. The interdisciplinary research will make a significant contribution to the pandemic while also serving as a model for the new normal.