By Nancy Pekala Director of Online Content Editor, Marketing Researchers
Today’s market researchers are finding themselves in the middle of a do-it-yourself world. A variety of low-cost research tools and services are now available and are becoming increasingly attractive to clients, product managers and service delivery professionals alike. A shift away from full project outsourcing to self-service seems to be now underway. To understand how this paradigm shift will be affecting market research professionals in the present and future, Marketing Researchers spoke exclusively with two thought leaders in the industry:
Vivek Bhaskaran, Founding Member and CEO of Survey Analytics, one of the industry’s leading providers of web-based research technologies. As Chief Executive Officer, he plays a key role in defining the company strategy and using technology and innovation continuously to maintain its leadership in the industry.
Dr. Sanja Licina, Senior Director of Talent Intelligence and Consulting with CareerBuilder.com. She is leading Personified’s cutting edge talent management consulting efforts and is responsible for building progressive thought leadership models that provide insight into the current workplace, talent market, recruitment, diversity and employment branding.
Below is a full transcript of the discussion, which also is available in podcast form at www.marketingpower.com/podcasts. To hear more insights from Vivek Bhaskaran and Dr. Sanja Licina, register for the AMA’s free Virtual Event, “Unveiling Marketing Research’s Future Online”.
Link to Podcast Page
http://www.marketingpower.com/ResourceLibrary/Pages/Podcasts/diy_world.aspx
Link to Full Transcript
http://www.marketingpower.com/ResourceLibrary/Documents/newsletters/mr/2010/5/diy_research_transcript.pdf
Link to Marketing Researchers newsletter article
http://www.marketingpower.com/ResourceLibrary/Documents/newsletters/mr/2010/5/diy_research_article.pdf
Link to Full Marketing Researchers newsletter
http://archives.subscribermail.com/msg/1973a91808d9496a9edc8142e59d9a18.htm
Bad research can be done in-house or by “professional” research agencies. But an educated market research client can navigate these risks. Research buyers can take a lesson from the IT world: even in companies that outsource a lot of their data centers/app dev/help desk/etc, they still have well-trained folks on staff to manage the outsource partners and internal clients. I believe the same thing applies for market research. Of course, being in the market research training business, I am a little biased
The problem with using a hodgepodge of self-service research tools to conduct in-house market research is simply the huge time investment required to gain real value in the long run.
If obtaining insight and intelligence is the real goal, then outsourcing to a consultant or using a customizable dashboard tool is a far better option than wasting countless hours internally. While self-service tools are a helpful aid for small-scale projects, the complexity of setting up a comprehensive market research process using them leaves much to be desired.
The use of self-service research tools builds awareness of market research in general, and is of great help especially to SMEs and start-ups for which the research budget is an issue, and they still need some information to move forward.
I often hear from professional market researchers that a user of DIY-tool is not their client. Not true, for instance, the majority of fortune 500 are using one survey tool or another for their smaller and simpler projects, while entrusting complex projects which require deeper insight to a competent research consultancy.
DIY Research is here to stay, and it will never kill or substitute the traditional market research. We will see the growth of market research industry in general with more aware and educated research commissioners, and with a wider research toolkit at their disposal.
Thanks for sharing a good creation…market research that auser of DIY tool is not client .Not true,for instance,the majority of fortune 500 are useing one survey tool
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