Riding the Change Wave: Architecting Research for the Future

  

 Email Article  

Tweet  

  

Lenny Murphy of GreenBook kicked off today’s 6^th Annual MRIA NetGain Conference, with his view of the future of market research. Here’s a recap:

From the book Leading Edge Market Research, published by Simon Chadwick and Ian Lewis, the new role of market research will have four parts: Consult, Synthesize, Tell a Story, Take a Stand. Currently, says Lenny, companies don't see this happening in the industry, citing insights leaders at leaders at PepsiCo, P&G, Coca-Cola, and Millward Brown.

Along with new technologies and the demand for cheaper, faster, better results, the drivers that will push this change include:  

• New competitors: New competitors encompass a broad swath of companies, from marketing agencies, business intelligence, DIY and social media, to name a few. These are new players from outside market research that do what market research does in terms of data collection. Data collection is a commodity; lots of new entrants see that and offer low-cost alternatives to clients.
• Client demands: Clients want ROI, integration of insights across multiple data points, implications and outcomes. At the end of the day, they want suppliers to tell them how to buy more of what they are selling.
• Consumers: Consumers want to feel engaged and socialized. They want to feel valued and get rewards. The success of Zynga and Rovio (valued at 1 billion) tell us something about how hungry consumers are to engage.
• Human capital: The above drivers point to a demand for an evolved skill set. For example, there is a struggle to fill new roles for data analytics. 

Lenny outlines three different stages of industry transition:

• Traditional business model for MR: Focus on data points, methodological rigor, objective reporting, low touch, production models, slow to adapt to technology, process vs. people, local market focus
• Transition model: Data Rivers, methodologically curious, narratives and implications, high touch, deep partnerships, embracing technologies, people vs. process, regional focus
• Future model: Data oceans, methodologically agnostic (it’s about finding the right data points to prove the value to our clients), narrative, implications and outcomes, high touch, integration with client organizations, leading technology, people driven, global focus starting at the big picture and drilling down to the local point of view.

A Sneak Peek at Forthcoming GRIT Findings

To back up his vision of the future, Lenny presented a sampling of findings from the latest GRIT study, which has not yet been released in full. The data show that MR firms are already well aware of the change that’s coming. Twenty five percent of the 268 suppliers in the study are positioning themselves as business consultants, and 35% are positioning themselves as strategic consultants. What remains to be seen is whether suppliers can deliver on this positioning. Further findings of interest:

• The biggest growth areas for the industry: Online communities, social media, eye tracking, mobile surveys and text analytics are the top emerging techniques that research suppliers say they use today. In 2012, two thirds say they’ll be using online communities and social media market research; over half will use mobile surveys.However, mobile is a ‘how,’ not a ‘why.’  It’s something that market research suppliers have to become comfortable with as a method for collecting data, but it’s not a sole differentiator that will get a deal with a client. Again, clients are looking for partners who can give strategic business guidance with the data, regardless of where it comes from.

• Recruiting trends: Living in the river of data will require becoming a data synthesizer rather than a project manager. This shift translates into substantial training and new job descriptions. For example: responsibilities will include mining a wide range of information sources, supplementing this data with research studies as needed, and then applying business skills and consulting knowledge to make it actionable.The researcher of the future is a futurist, journalist, strategic, analyst, consultant and anthropologist – all at the same time. In the GRIT study, social media experts, marketing strategists and data integration experts were at the top of the list that respondents in both the supplier and client side plan to hire in 2012.

• Defining the market research firm of the future: Lenny’s forecast: telephone and web-based surveys decline dramatically; surveys become shorter; social media MR and MROCs flourish. Overwhelmed by data, but lacking insight, corporations turn to data-insights consultants that analyze multiple data streams. MR firms will struggle to keep up with this new data-driven insights industry, as the lines between traditional MR and new entrants such as management consulting, CRM, strategic foresight and predictive analytics begin to merge.