With data-driven decision making now a fundamental requirement for successful business strategies, client demands are becoming ever more complex and the volume of data we gather grows ever larger.
This has driven a surge in new market entrants, offering a host of Market Research technology, services and solutions to manage and analyse our ever-increasing data mountains. From text and predictive analytics tools, insight and modelling services to niche MR data applications, these new entrants promise a more agile and revolutionary approach to modern MR.
But their newness may also be their weakness. And while some are indeed revolutionising the way researchers can conduct their business, the same applies to many of our long-standing industry players. In fact, big data delivers a real opportunity for traditional MR organisations to evolve into a core business intelligence function, and those that have the latest tools and techniques at their disposal are poised to become the next generation of strategic business advisers to their clients.
Why business intelligence?
The predictive capabilities and precise analytical expertise that experienced MR practitioners offer, deliver exactly the level of insight that today’s businesses demand in order to translate meaningless data into useful, actionable insight. In fact, we believe now is the perfect time for MR to establish itself as a strategic provider of business intelligence: providing businesses with the data-led insight they need to make faster, more accurate business decisions.
That’s because experienced MR businesses have already spent time, resource and effort to become highly adept at wrangling complex data; whether it’s quantitative or qualitative or both, sourced through traditional channels or social media, or structured or unstructured. But how can established MR businesses make this shift towards strategic business intelligence?
MR as a BI tool in practice
In practice, there’s no ‘shift’ to make. Many MR organisations are already providing strategic business intelligence in the areas they serve – advertising effectiveness, branding, scientific advancement, investment decisions, to name just a few.
The shift is actually in the external perception of the role of MR, and the internal drive to change this perception to position MR organisations as comprehensive providers of strategic business services. This conceptual shift will ensure existing players are in the strongest position to challenge newer entrants, attract the best talent, and become even more effective at answering changing client demands.
To achieve this, we have five core recommendations:
- Push our experience in connecting data
Market research is no different from any other data-driven business activity, but we already lead the way in terms of understanding that data only becomes valuable if we connect it to other data points for context. Our entire business model is built upon contextual insight – we need to market this fact to demonstrate just how ahead of the data curve we are! Many other ‘strategic’ data-driven business processes still focus on collecting data rather than connecting it – finance and HR being regular culprits. Our experience shows that it’s only by making sense of multiple data sources that we add business value – after all, data on its own, no matter how big or complex, is still just ‘unintelligent’ information - Be customer-centric, not data-centric
The future of MR lies not in providing data from surveys at regular intervals, but in acting as agents of change, delivering business insight in a format that the boardroom can act upon. Instead of working in silos, the challenge is to adopt the language of customer-centric businesses, working in partnership with all departments.
MR’s job is now about leveraging all forms of data to provide decision-makers with a depth of knowledge that others simply cannot deliver thereby massively increasing the value provided to clients by taking a more strategic, customer-led approach to gathering and sharing insight. - Provide adaptable, short- and long-term insight
Market data is no longer the sole preserve of internal MR departments, and the days of sending a stack of tables to a client and leaving them to digest the results are also long gone. As data is democratised through organisations, clients are demanding varying levels of insight – in-the-moment feedback for an instant snapshot; data gathered from a wide variety of direct and indirect channels for a more holistic view; drill-down dashboards for role-based reporting.
Many newer market entrants have quickly developed the capabilities to deliver feedback in ways that enable businesses to make faster, smarter decisions, with an emphasis on faster. Existing MR players need to adopt more comprehensive, agile, forward-thinking analytical and reporting capabilities to secure long term, value-based partnerships with the organisations they work with, or risk losing them to more nimble players. - Understand ownership – not just audience
As with an increasing number of today’s business functions, the lines of ownership of market research programmes are blurring. Research now spans a wider range of disciplines and audiences, meaning MR practitioners need to be mindful of who their customer is, and who owns the data, the programme and – critically – the outcomes delivered.
Adding to this complexity is the merging of traditional silos of data within organisations – whether that’s from customers, employees, partners or suppliers; and whether it’s originally sourced as financial, demographic or operational data.
As a result, researchers need to carefully understand the drivers, the audiences AND the owners of insight. Knowing not only whatneeds to be achieved, but also what success will be measured against and who is ultimately responsible across the client organisation is critical to delivering successful, targeted business intelligence programmes. - Focus on business outcomes
Making better decisions is not enough of a driver for investment in Market Research on its own. There needs to be a clear ROI, whether that’s in terms of improved products or services, or time and cost savings, or any other business KPI.
But many businesses struggle to understand how to really demonstrate ROI from research data. This is a particular challenge for newer market entrants, who don’t have proof of experience on their side. As a result, focusing on the delivery of business outcomes – that is, demonstrating provable ROI – is a significant opportunity for established MR players.
As experienced practitioners, we’re in an ideal position to define and shape the methodologies that prove the ROI of data in multiple contexts. The real benefit lies in providing companies with an increased capability to analyse the impact of actions and to ensure that they are having a positive impact on business results.
What’s really in a name?
Of course, many well-established MR organisations are already practising one or more of these five steps; we are talking about a transformation of MR into business intelligence, not a major industry revolution.
What we are really discussing here is an evolution and a re-positioning of the strengths of our well-established industry to meet the exacting and ever-changing needs of the clients we serve – and to continue to compete with the ongoing influx of new, agile challengers in our market.
MR always has aimed to deliver the insight that businesses need, but to stay at the forefront of the latest business revolution the next step has to be the ability to deliver contextual, holistic and adaptable understanding. Providing clients with insight that can be digested, manipulated and acted upon more quickly is the best way to put MR in the driving seat of strategic change at a business-wide level – making it an indispensable tool for modern competitive advantage.
