How We Work

Each study project we perform is led by a named, experienced consultant supported by specialist consultants where necessary and a team of researchers.

Our study teams are based at our offices in Nairn, in northern Scotland, though most of our consultants and researchers work remotely.

In general, in our studies, our researchers collect and collate a wide range of information from public, commercial and governmental sources, as well as Microcom's own internal databases, to extract meaningful, actionable information.

To act as the basis of its studies, Microcom maintains extensive databases on the companies involved in the space industry, as well as on various aspects of the industry such as satellite launches, satellite technical characteristics,  spacecraft bus and launcher capabilities, flight and ground station hardware, and teleports.

Reports

Our consultancy services usually result in one or more individually researched and written custom reports which can vary from being a few pages to several hundred pages long. Depending on the topic and the depth required each report can take from a few weeks to several months to prepare.

Our reports are usually presented as pdf documents delivered electronically.

To give our clients maximum visibility of the progress of our work we publish draft versions of each report in a secure area of our website so that our clients can see how the work is progressing week by week (or day by day in a short study). This allows clients to use information as it becomes available and to use it to change the focus of our work as their business needs evolve.

Meetings

Our reports are usually intended to be stand alone documents and many of our clients are happy to just receive our final report. In fact, we have never met many of our clients in person, but have communicated entirely by phone, email and videoconferencing.

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation we no longer offer face to face meetings with our clients, but we have extensive experience of successfully completing consultancy contracts remotely.

We are available, however, to support preliminary discussions, progress reviews and final meetings via videoconferencing as required with clients located anywhere in the world. Past meetings have ranged from informal discussions with a few key managers, to detailed presentations and tutorials for large groups of staff.