Before any future business strategies can be settled, the current status or "status quo" of the organization within its market must be known. As such, the market share states a valuable Key Performance Indicator (KPI). To calculate any market shares, the data on internal sales figures must be compared to the existing market volumes. The latter are derived from data sources yet unknown to the client and to be investigated by the student. To base any calculations on reliable and qualitative proofed data, the student establishes a suitable framework on which the data quality of the obtained data is evaluated against predefined criteria.

The student makes use of secondary data available for the determination of the market volumes and the resulting market shares of the client. The client's products to be investigated comprise of silver oxide and lithium button (or coin) cell batteries. To allow for a more detailed research, the globally existing market volumes are represented through the regional markets of Europe (with Switzerland handled separately), USA, China, Japan and India. Before any calculations are made, the data obtained from the data sources is evaluated on its quality. The data quality is based and measured on the six dimensions of data quality: Data validity, data completeness, data integrity, data consistency, data timeliness and data accuracy. Internal data sources on sales figures are not evaluated but used to calculate the market shares.

Except for China, for each regional market, at least one data source is evaluated based on its data quality and used for the respective market volume calculation. All data sources identified for China are not freely available to the public and hence not usable for any further calculations. All data sources presented in the paper are official statistics, prescribed and published by governmental institutions. There are three kinds of statistics evaluated in the paper: Statistics on waste of portable batteries, trade statistics and production statistics. All data sources are subject to different data quality issues, highlighted in the corresponding data quality dimension section of the source in question. The major data quality issues are the different units of measurement of the values reported in the statistics (e.g. total weight or value) and the corresponding broad classifications, allowing for various kinds of batteries to be included in the total value. Consequently, to calculate the market volumes, statistical assumptions are made by the student. The data quality dimensions provide a well-structured and systematic approach or framework to evaluate the data quality of any data source and for every other country of future interest. Any statistical assumptions for the calculation of the market volumes can be revised by the client based on their expertise knowledge.