Author: Louise Masson

If you’re looking for market research related information then we’ve got a range of information sources for you. One of which is called Mintel, within our subscription we have access to trends, statistics, information on brands and companies and demographic data on a range of UK Sectors.

Mintel has recently went through some platforms changes so if you’ve used this source before you’ll see a different search screen when you access the website.

You’ll now see a search box when you can enter the word of the product, brand or sector e.g. Biscuits. Mintel tries to help you out and suggests topics for you. It also suggests names of reports which your keyword might fall into.

Within your results list, you’ll see the search banner where you can change the drop down. So you might want to only search “reports” instead of all content types. Instead of displaying your results by relevance you might want to re-sort to display the most recent results first.

On the search toolbar you can also browse in different ways :

1. Category ; Select from pre-defined categories e.g. food, drink, retail. So this is good if you’re starting off broad or not sure which topic you’re looking. You can narrow down using the category suggestions.
2. Trend Drivers : These are 7 different categories ranging from technology, wellbeing and experiences. These are key themes which might be important in the next 10 years. These tags feature are reports and you can search them thematically.
3. Demographics; This section is being added to but the main ones are there e.g. gender and age.

Once you’ve located and accessed a report, you’ll find the same familiar layout. So use the drop down or content map to navigate to sections of the report.

Look out for the symbols which allow you to export sections of the report and then download them in different ways e.g. zip files.

Look out for “star” symbols so you can favourite reports to your own profile (if you’ve set one up which we recommend you do)

In the next few weeks as new help materials are released from Mintel we will update our own help pages to reflect the changes to the interface. If you’re logged into the platform click on the question mark symbol and there is a basic help PDF already available from Mintel.

HS Talks – The Business & Management Collection includes 1,200 online multi-media videos, online lectures, case studies and case study interviews by leading experts in academia, industry and commerce. Topics cover a whole range of business education including Finance, Accounting & Economics; Global Business Management; Management Leadership & Organizations; Marketing & Sales; Strategy; Technology & Operations.

The collection is categorised into 6 broad subject areas and further organised into 90 series, each overseen by an editor who is a key expert in the field. Speakers are chosen based on their expertise and each talk is produced together with the speaker especially for the collection. The collection is reviewed and updated monthly. Once you have selected a subject area or applied your keyword you might like to filter using some of the options such as length of video or date published.

Academics can also easily embed into the VLE for students to access. You can either do the whole video or sections. HS Talks provide a in-depth guide to take you through this step by step. 

There are different types of videos on HS Talks. These include :

1. Traditional format lectures with high quality graphics: the lectures are primarily designed to deliver ‘information’. The lectures have multiple associated features including printable slide handouts and speed-up/slow down options.
2. Extended form case studies: accounts of real world experience describing what was done, how, when and with what consequences.
3. Bite-size case studies: these short descriptions of real world commercial activities come with suggested topics for consideration and discussion.
4. Case Study Interviews: interviews with experts from commerce and industry, from start-up entrepreneurs to large corporation executives, confront the challenges they encounter. Each interview is accompanied by suggested topics for discussion and individual and group projects.

Some of the talks come with additional PowerPoints which can be download, along with transcripts of the interview. Viewers can also enable close captions.

There is a quick start guide available from HS