'When is global research not global? When it's regional research pasted together.' Hilarious this may not be, but research managers are unlikely to permit even so much as their lips to twitch over it. In today's global markets, global research is the next big thing, and it is taken very seriously. Producing something that's more than the sum of its constituent parts is not the subject of much mirth.

When regional research masquerades as global research, it shows. The writing style wavers, data doesn't add up, and the conclusions drawn in one region may counteract those reached in others. Anomalies could be eliminated by using global researchers. But the world is a big place. Producing a detailed report outlining events in the global chemical sector would defy even the most diligent of analysts. For a report to be truly global, analysts with expert knowledge of the world's regions must combine their knowledge seamlessly. The question is how.