In very general terms, market research is about improving the performance of companies (and other organisations, from political parties to charities) by gathering, interpreting and presenting information. This may come from their customers, suppliers, partners or employees, or from published reports, newspapers, journals etc…, or from other sources such as industry experts, observation or the Internet. Mainstream MR professionals – but not necessarily others – usually exclude from the definition any information which directly leads to sales contacts or which identifies individual people or companies – this is called ‘lead generation’ or ‘business intelligence gathering’ and distinguished from the more general conclusions reached in ‘true’ market research.