MrWeb's MR-a-thon

Currently, beside my professional role as Managing Director at Ipsos Egypt, I am Professor of Marketing and Marketing Research at the American University in Cairo. The beauty of these roles is the merge between academia and practice. On one side as a professor I bring the reality of the profession to the classroom, utilizing my recent and most updated practice. On the other hand, I transfer to my company the scientific approach to the practical application.

In 1999 I opened my own marketing and research company in collaboration with several friends who share the same passion. Later in 2006, the is company was acquired by Ipsos global and since then we are part of Ipsos network covering Egypt, Sudan and Libya.

My passion for marketing does not stop at this, because I extend my expertise through consulting for many institutions and NGO's in addition to heading the CSR committee at the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, after chairing the marketing committee for six years.

What are the advantages / challenges of conducting market research studies in Egypt?

This year January 25th a landmark revolution of the people in Egypt against the ruling regime changed the face of Egypt on all fronts, including Market Research. Before the revolution the challenges were:

1) Creating awareness and appreciation of clients, especially Egyptian owned companies, about the value of information and the insightful added-value it provides to strategic decision making.

2) Introducing scientific and modular research approaches and solutions in an emerging market.

3) Developing value for specialization within the marketing research industry, i.e. differentiation and uniqueness between media research, advertising research, tracking etc.

4) Limited consumer understanding and the value of participation and value of sharing honest opinion and feedback.

5) Very restricted and regulated business activity, where a permit was needed for every study to go to field. Social, religious and opinion research have been completely prohibited. Government and media research activities were limited to government or government affiliated research centers.

After the recent events, the scene changed 180 degrees:

1) More liberization is very evident and the nation became hungry for information.

2) Opinion polling is a window of opportunity; especially that Ipsos is one of the leading experts in this domain.

3) Dependency on information for decision making, especially on the political front became an absolute must.

4) Egyptian local and satellite Media proliferation.

Do you have any experience working in market research abroad? If so, how would that compare with market research in Egypt?

Conducting Research in multiple countries is a very interesting and dynamic experience. For example, and despite geographic proximity, Egypt and Sudan are very different in every aspect. Most importantly, the nature of the consumers and business institutions, as well as products / categories penetration. While the Egyptian market is very dynamic and fast paced, in Sudan the rhythm is very slower and time is not of crucial essence.

Is the local market research scene growing? What are the current trends?

Over the last 20 years the research market has been growing steadily. However, in the last 5 years in specific the market grew exponentially as witnessed by many market entrants as well as new research users. In light of the unrest in MENA region the expected growth may not be as historically. However, we are very optimistic as everyone in Egypt shares the spirit of growth and building of the country to make up for the unrest conditions. At Ipsos Egypt as well as many of our clients believe: 'the best is yet to co'e'.