Reflection Sheet 2: Prof. Ravi Miglani

INS: 511 Perspective on Market Research
Sector
Reflection Sheet 2
Submitted To:
Prof. Ravi Miglani
Submitted By: Karan Trivedi – AU1814018

Innovations in data collection, data analysis, data visualization
As information around the world became more accessible, increased competition has led
companies to demand more of Market Researchers. Following trends in web behavior or track
sales data is no longer needed but companies now needed access to consumer behavior
throughout the entire purchase process. This meant the need to adapt to the rapidly changing
needs of the marketplace, and to the demands of companies looking for a competitive edge.
This demand is driving Marketing Researchers to develop new platforms for interactive, two-
way communication between their firms and consumers. Mobile devices such as Smartphones
are the best example of an emerging platform that enables businesses to connect with their
customers throughout the entire buying process. Innovative research firms, such as On
Research with their On Mobile app, are now providing businesses with the means to reach
consumers from the point of initial investigation through to the decision and, ultimately, the
purchase.
As personal mobile devices become more capable and widespread, the Marketing Research
Industry looks to further capitalize on this trend. Mobile devices present the perfect channel
for Research Firms to retrieve immediate impressions from buyers and to provide their clients
with a holistic view of the consumers within their target markets, and beyond. Now, more than
ever, innovation is the key to success for Marketing Researchers. Big data is great for
identifying general market segments but is less capable of identifying key factors of niche
markets, which now defines the competitive edge companies are looking for in this mobile-
digital age.
With the aid of information systems, various factors such as customer mood, beliefs,
improvements in consumer behavior and lifestyle can be easily identified rather than relying
solely on surveys. The economy is slowly gathering traction in the field of market research to
adapt the environment to the new business model where the customer becomes the target of
data collection.
Despite customers becoming more techno-savvy and aware of the advertising issues they face;
it is becoming more difficult to hold on to the strain to keep their full attention. Market research
firms with versatility to implement game-changing approaches along with transparency to
combine both primary and secondary marketing techniques are only likely to survive and
dominate the roost in the years to come.
Digital Transformation
Digital transformation allows all business operations to be integrated and simplified in order to
increase productivity in business performance. It can help companies streamline operations to
save time, by replacing conventional processes with automation, thus increasing user error
rates. Digital transformation helps by introducing technology to enhance customer satisfaction
and customer retention ratios. The program aims to inform managers on different aspects of
market trends and how to produce an impactful result. Certainly, technologically developed
and transformed companies are able to adapt and navigate through an economy's changing
technical environment and are able to address the industry's sudden shifts, considering market
needs and developments.
New Tech-Entrants
Besides the emergence of the improved data collection technique, there was a major rise
towards analytics, data-mining and warehousing agencies during the last couple of years. Data
warehousing is a technique to store and maintain the data that can be used for generating
information and insights while data mining helps to draw a consumer insight from the large
pool of longitudinal data series or a time series data. Many emergent sectors like Telecom or
Insurance which has grown phenomenally in the past, need these kinds of data sets to draw
strong insights of their consumer behaviour towards the services of the same. Though
traditional players are enjoying a strong one to one relationship with their clients especially in
the FMCG and Consumer Durable sector but these new set of genres with varied skill sets are
giving lots of competition to the full services MR agencies.
Market research seeks to align the enterprise with the expectation of its consumers and
delivering value with its systematic analysis of the information captured. Although there were
lots of changes in the past the way research is being carried but off course, the IT enabled
market research is a new trend which propounds ways to maximize an enterprise’s returns in
the newly emerging liberalized market in India. Now is the time for the MR agencies to reap
the ever growing and burgeoning customers with rapidly changing lifestyles through research
work, so that Indian Marketers could be more productive, result oriented and globally the best
workforce to cater the demands of their consumers.
Traditional Vs New
Every marketer possibly can count numerous numbers of advertising agencies but
unfortunately this is not true for MR industry, as the industry is very fragmented in nature
with many small firms on the spectrum and a few firms dominating the scene. Sadly, there is
no studies available judging the ranks of the MR firms and left with more of a guess than on
scientific calculations. The leading domestic firms are IMRB International, TNS India, Nielsen
& Milward Brown etc. As per the Industry approximations, IMRB continues to be the market
leader followed by Nielsen, TNS India & Others. Though there is a Society created by the
market research professional, MRSI (Market Research Society of India) which has tried their
best to get an agglomerative view on market research but has achieved modest success.
Meanwhile, in the last couple of years the Industry has also seen the emergence of new sets
of players namely Analytics, Data Mining or Warehousing firms like Absolut data Systems,
Annik Systems, and Datamation. Many of these firms earlier were Knowledge Process
Organisations (KPO’s) who served foreign clients and now turning up to cater the local
demand. There is another set of genres which has emerged during the past few years like HP
Decision Analytics Firm or IBM Business Decision Centre or McKinsey Strategic Research
Division providing their research-based services to their parent companies adding values to
their strategic teams. In fact, what has been observed also in the past that many IT giants like
Oracle, Microsoft has started expanding their own research resources within their marketing
team for providing critical inputs on consumer behaviour to their strategic group. It is also
observed that the consulting firms like PwC or Ernst & Young or KPMG has started advising
their clients in giving them the end to end solution from sharing the market insights to
conceptualization of idea’s to product designing and in turns creating lot of problems for the
full service market research agencies to hold their clients.
Conclusion
While market researchers face evident hurdles, any adoption, big or small, promises to
positively shape the industry. Our results suggest that market researchers are excited and ready
for new technologies but have trouble overcoming systemic organizational challenges. Market
researchers are currently trapped in a workflow that does not allow for the proper investment in
budget, time, and education of innovation. Widespread adoption is only a matter of time with
professionals sharing enthusiasm for new techniques that will likely propel companies into deeper
and more meaningful insights.

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INS: 511 Perspective on Market Research

Prof. Ravi Miglani

Submitted By: Karan Trivedi – AU1814018

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