With the foundation of QuenchTec, I returned to the Market Research industry after spending a couple of years in the fascinating world of Advanced Analytics, Machine Learning and Business Intelligence.
Attending the Research&Results show in Munich last week was a great way to re-connect with old friends and observe how the industry is starting (finally!) to embrace new technologies and other forms of data collection.
Fast, frequent and cost-effective
The Market Research industry is experiencing its fastest and biggest change in history. Technology driven developments are leading to a democratisation of the market research process that puts the corporate marketers in control.
Today’s marketers demand agile (automated, fast, frequent, cost effective) research processes to keep up with ever-changing business needs. They also require an integrated view of the consumers including other forms of data analytics next to surveys – social media, text analytics, and other internal and external data sources.
However, it seems that the Market Research industry is still somewhat at unease with the inevitable reality that automation will change the industry, fast. Automation still seems often to be associated with the ‘cheap, quick and dirty’ way of doing research on a DIY basis. It’s looked at it as an inferior way of doing research.
Well, I could not disagree more. Surely human research expertise will always have its place. Automation and quality research based on proven methodologies do not have to be mutually exclusive. Here the Market Research industry can learn a lot from its cousins in the Advanced Analytics and Business Intelligence space. We wouldn’t say that IBM Watson is not a clever system, not based on scientifically proven and tested principles, would we?
Automation efforts come in all shapes and forms
Why would we take a different view for Market Research? Of course, automation efforts come in all shapes and forms and at different level of sophistication. From simplistic and limited costumer feedback solutions to rather over-complicated difficult to use, old school research applications.
What seems to be missing is the logic that by using thoughtful process re-design and encoding proven research methodologies into easy to use applications, automation can become the changing force in market research.
The next generation of tools
That’s exactly the reason why QuenchTec exists: To create the next generation of tools that will empower our users. So marketers can apply agile and automated insight processes for faster and better decision-making.
QuenchTec achieves results by encoding the deep tech and research domain expertise of its people into powerful and easy to use applications. These tools enable marketers to conduct research at the speed of the business, focus on generating insights that shape business decisions and not waste time and efforts on processes.
Automation will change the Market Research landscape
Yes, automation will change the Market Research landscape and alter the way that fieldwork agencies, research companies and corporate marketers interact. But it will change for the better.
The vast majority of typical research budget is still spent on executing and managing data collection, leaving very little to generate the insights that shape business decisions. Current research practices suffer from replication of processes, projects and data and limited reusability of prior market research projects. The end result is limited ROI on research spending and too slow an insight generation process, as required by the business.
These issues need addressing by shortening research processes through automation, but without compromising on proven research methodologies. And that is precisely what QuenchTec sets out to do.