LibGuides: Engineering -- ENGR240 -- Technical Writing: Feasibility Studies

What is a Feasibility Study?

A feasibility study is the initial design stage to any project or plan. It is an analysis into the viability of an idea. They help determine if the company possess the required resources or technologies and does the proposal offer a reasonable return vs. risk from the investment?

They usually contain:

an executive summary
description of product or service
technology considerations
product or service marketplace
identification of specific market
marketing strategy
organization strategy
schedule
financial projections

Feasibility studies are different from business plans. Feasibility studies investigate whether an action is a viable business venture. A business plan provides a planning functions and outlines the actions needed to take the proposal from an idea to a reality.

For more information, check out:

What is A Feasibility Study (Iowa State University)

When to Do and How to Use a Feasibility Study

Conducting a Feasibility Study

Types of Feasibility Studies

Technical

hardware and software; existing or new; staffing skills

Financial

initial and future stakeholder investors; ROI benchmarks

Market

industry type; marketing characteristics; market growth; competition environment; sales projections

Organization

structure; legal; management team's competency

Useful Sources of Market and Company Information

Annual Reports at Academic Business Libraries
Contains links to historical annual reports held by other university libraries.
Produced by the Purdue University Libraries.
Business Market Research Collection
Contains company, industry, economic and geopolitical market research from three sources, including Hoover's Company Profiles, OxResearch from Oxford Analytica, and Snapshots.
Business Source Complete
Business articles, company & market analyses, SWOT reports, industry profiles & country reports
CBCA Complete
Multidisciplinary scholarly and popular articles from Canadian journals and magazines.
Columbia Historical Corporate Reports
Digitized annual reports for about 50 New York City-based companies from the 1850s to the early 1960s. Corporations in the collection include department stores, utility companies, banks, and railroads.
EDGAR
All of reports that companies must submit to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) can be found here.

IBISWorld Canada’s most comprehensive collection of Industry Market Research and Industry Risk Ratings. Includes: Canada Industry Reports (NAICS) Industry iExpert Summaries Business Environment Profiles United States Industry Reports (NAICS) Industry iExpert Summaries Specialized Industry Reports Specialized Industry iExpert Summaries Business Environment Profiles

NAICS (North American Industry Classification System)
The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) is the standard used by Federal statistical agencies in classifying business establishments for the purpose of collecting, analyzing, and publishing statistical data related to the U.S. business economy.
Passport
This online market research tool monitors industry trends and gives you strategic analysis and a market size and market share database for all your products across all your key countries. Passport is Euromonitor International's global market analysis software platform, which analyses the industry in countries around the world.
SEDAR
Canadian company reports collected by securities regulators in Canada.
SIC (Standard Industry Classification)
Statista
A statistics portal that integrates data on over 60,000 topics from over 18,000 sources. It contains statistics, reports on industries, markets, surveys, toplists, and infographics.