Market research is a hundred year old industry. There is an existing structure, dominated by large research agencies. The establishment suggests a sense of apparent safety and reliability. It has to its credit:
- Large scale: The sheer size of large market research agencies provides assurance and promises economies of scale that could be passed to the clients.
- Infrastructure: It’s easier to deal with a one-stop shop that has the resources to handle all kinds of research needs.
- Experience: Large agencies that have been around for a while have the experience across categories, types of research, and brands.
- Manpower: Large research teams provide in-built redundancy and an assurance that any research work will be completed, regardless of the complexity.
- Processes: Market research, in general, follows the tried and tested processes. They are done independently by the agencies, minimizing client involvement in research work.
Sounding too good to be true? Because it is! How often have you received a research presentation without any meaningful insights, or an insights deck that hasn’t led to a single business action? This is often a result of the industry’s tendency for “rote research.”
What do we call rote research?
The structure of the market research industry, dominated by large players, is often a hindrance to actionable insights. There are some glaring issues, especially for qualitative research:
Factory model of research
In most research agencies there is a clear division of labor by designation and seniority. The most experienced and senior research professionals are responsible for business development, research design and client interactions. The junior or less experienced professionals are the arms and legs – doing the field work, filling in data. Those in the middle are responsible for collating and analysing the data, preparing the insights deck that might finally be presented by their seniors. This division of labor by designation and seniority often leads to a loss of valuable information and insights.
Non-business orientation of research
Researchers, often lacking business training and acumen, may struggle to appreciate the client’s business and its objectives. This can lead to poorly defined research briefs and suboptimal conversations with customers.
Correct definition of the brief is critical for meaningful research projects. This definition requires understanding of business objectives and ability of the research leaders to to work closely with the client teams to discuss, iterate and refine the brief. It is a consultative role and can be played effectively by people who have an understanding of the client’s business.
Poor non-strategic field work
The most important part of research, the conversations with customers and other stakeholders, is often left to the most inexperienced people on the team. This has an adverse impact on the quality of conversations and the insights possible from them.
Research conversations are complex. The best conversations are open, free flowing as well as gently guided to cover all the needed information areas. The researcher also needs to be able to recognize and pursue new areas of information that may not have been planned in the design and discussion guides. All these require a high level of skills and experience of research and business. By leaving most of the customer conversations to the juniors on the teams, the field work remains considerably suboptimal!
Corrupt practices
‘Professional respondents’ are an open secret in the world of qualitative research in India. They are people who pose as customers for a variety of research projects. These individuals, often coached to provide specific answers, can skew research results and provide misleading insights. The recruiters repeatedly bring the same respondents for focus groups and interviews for various brands and categories. Worst of all their usage of brands and categories may be a lie. They are coached by recruiters to speak in a certain way.
Over the years, senior researchers have an antennae for these professional respondents and can reject the recruitment. But how often do research teams have seniors on the field or even the willingness to reject recruitments and redo the field work?
Lack of internal alignment
The separation of research processes from business decision making is an issue. The traditional research approach often involves a linear process, where research teams get briefs from marketing teams, complete the research work independently and present findings to marketing teams at the end.
This misses the opportunity for collaboration and alignment with stakeholders from other teams throughout the research process. Research can play a valuable role in building alignment among all key stakeholders. For it to happen it has to be iterative and collaborative, involving all key stakeholders in key research processes.
How must market research change?
It is clear that market research needs to get more strategic and iterative. For this to happen, research teams need:
Business acumen: Research teams need people with business training and acumen working closely with clients to refine briefs accurately, engage key business stakeholders throughout the research process and prioritize insights that are actionable and in line with business objectives.
Seasoned researchers on the field: A research is as good as the person actually doing it on the field. The experience of the person conducting the research impacts the quality of insights. For deep, breakthrough insights that shape business and brand strategy, senior seasoned researchers on the field are crucial. Seasoned researchers’ knowledge and expertise helps them hold rich meaningful conversations instead of just asking a list of questions, see patterns in data accurately, and avoid common pitfalls in the field.
Solution-oriented, iterative approach: There is much that is learnt everyday on the field. The research design and approach should allow for incorporating learnings and refining approaches continuously. Doing this will provide insights that can be actioned on immediately.
Research is strategic. Researchers need to be too!