Are online custom research services real?

What are some  best practices / dos n donts when setting up a new central Research & MI function for a mid size (around 1000 employees) technology services company?

• Would be great to hear from your experiences, specially around things like : Team composition/structure/size Creating visibility/internal awareness Apart from Forrester/Gartner research reports; what other types of research subscriptions should one look at? Process for taking in research requests Metrics  for tracking effectiveness (How do I know if my research is effective or not? - Types of feedback mechanisms / How will the teams performance be measured?) Conferences to attend / Communities to be a part of - for keeping upto date and learning new skills

• Answer:

  I built a research team from scratch at a then 5K company.  My first step would be to talk to your key internal clients and funders (if it's not a centralized research department) and see what they want from research.  Then you can start figuring out what will be success metrics and build the appropriate mix of primary and syndicated research, services, input and output.