All Hail Fredonia

To movie buffs, Freedonia is the name of the fictional country that is the setting for the 1933 Marx Brothers classic Duck Soup. But for executives in nearly every prominent trade, including the heavy-duty truck parts industry, the Freedonia Group is recognized as one of the top international business research companies.

Since 1985, Freedonia has published respected research studies that many companies use as a barometer of what to expect in the years to come, a means to determine market and sales potential, and a guide for how to prepare accordingly if the forecast is positive or negative. More than 90% of the industrial companies in the Fortune 500 use Freedonia research to help with their strategic planning.

This past April, the Freedonia Group released Medium- and Heavy-Duty Truck Market to 2013, an industry study with more than 300 pages of analysis on such topics as parts supply and demand, technology and materials trends, pricing trends, environmental regulations, and other issues that will have a profound impact on the heavy-duty truck parts industry.

The cost of the study is $4,600. There are plenty of companies who will not even blink at that price, given the value of the information contained therein. But for smaller businesses that aren't used to paying top dollar for industry research, that charge might be out of reach.

Fortunately, Freedonia did release some of the conclusions of their research, and the numbers present a positive forecast for the heavy-duty truck parts industry in the next five years.