We look back on Research World’s 10 most read articles that were published this year. By doing so, we identify the global research and insight community’s main interests from the last 12 months. These interests centre around:
- Hearing industry leader’s opinions
- Better understanding the business of research and research businesses
- Understanding which research skills are needed for future success
1. David Kenny’s Future Plans for Nielsen
Nielsen’s CEO David Kenny shares his views on technological change, data protection and Nielsen’s future. This includes client’s increasing technological needs, the responsibility that comes with owning data and the importance of products and technological partnerships.
#industryleaders #thebusinessofresearch
2. ESOMAR’s Global Research Report Values the Global Research & Data Industry at $80n
ESOMAR’s Global Research Report measures the market research industry’s turnover at national, regional and global levels. 2019’s report identifies the industry as slightly growing between 2017-2018. However, traditional research method’s decline and analytics and observational research’s growth is the real story.
#thebusinessofresearch
3. Eric Salama on the Major Changes Within Kantar
Our interest in industry CEOs continues. Eric Salama, CEO, discusses how Kantar simplified its house of brands. He highlights the need to be fast and agile. Again, the importance of products is made clear as Kantar’s Marketplace offering meant they outperformed the rest of the WPP group’s growth rate in Q1 2019.
#industryleaders #thebusinessofresearch
4. PepsiCo’s Stephan Gans on Retooling the Insights Team for More Impact
PepsiCo’s Chief Insights & Analytical Officer Stephan Gans highlights the methods and mindsets which allow insight teams to be impactful. These include: being proactive in detecting trends, positioning research as a business partner who maximises opportunity and automating research processes to allow time to develop softer skills.
#industryleaders #skills
5. Why the US Census Should Be Based on Solid Science
Many industries depend on the census for demographic insights. When the U.S. Commerce Secretary announced the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 U.S. Census in March 2018, many leading social scientists and scientific organizations expressed concern. These concerns related to a potential undercount, particularly for persons of colour and the inaccuracies it could generate when extrapolating data for topics such as market sizing.
#skills
6. Unilever’s Stan Sthanunathan on the Data Revolution
Unilever’s EVP of Consumer Insights discusses how existing data means many business questions are already answered. However, utilising this new data isn’t possible without new skills (like telling a holistic story) and new technology (AI). Overall, to maximise the value of new data formats businesses need to end data silos and stop episodic relationships with agencies. These should be replaced with shared data ecosystems and ongoing agency relationships. Key to this is trusting new partners and embracing change.
#industryleaders #skills
7. Communicating Insights in The Experience Era
Insight communication is half the battle. However, it’s becoming harder to win people’s attention. Kelly McKnight, Join the Dots, suggests we make research debriefs more experiential by using objects, stage sets, real people, lighting and music. By doing so, stakeholder’s attention will be captured, and insights will become more memorable.
#skills
8. How Insights Teams at Global Firms Are Mastering Change
The rapidly changing analytics and data ecosystem poses many challenges for large, global businesses. These challenges include: how to extract actionable recommendations from vast data sets, c-suite communication, keeping up-to-date with technological change and being multi-disciplinary experts. P&G, Philips Beauty and Merck & Co share how they approach these challenges. Approaches included: embracing our core function – acquiring and mining data, building a learning culture, developing skills in analytics and technology alongside a ‘solutions/answering’ mindset vs. a ‘research methodology’ mindset.
#industryleaders #skills
9. Why Is Qualitative Research Often Undervalued Part 1
Qualitative research has received good news in 2019: more qual researchers report being involved in strategic work, methodologies have become digitised and it has a strong standing in leading MBA schools. However, despite this, qualitative research continues to feel undervalued. Edward Appleton looks at why. He cites a lagging perception of qualitative research as being ‘focus groups’, a lack of qualitative spokespeople in the research industry and unfounded perceptions qualitative research is uncreative as the reasons. In his excellent part 2, Edward then discusses how to overturn these perceptions.
#skills
10. The New Insights Team Composition and Skills for the Future
Simon Chadwick identifies four types of insights teams. These are: traditional order takers, thought leaders, strategic partners and sources of competitive advantage. Each of these performs different types of work, has unique agency relationships, utilises insourcing differently and has their own toolkit. Three trends to elevate each of these insight teams are: talent and skills, keeping fundamental research skills while learning new, softer, ones and accelerating the role of existing data and new analytics.
#skills
