Benjamin Rietti Benjamin Rietti, CEO of E-Tabs has been at the forefront of market research technology for more than 17 years. Joining the company in 1993 when it was ISPC, Benjamin recognised that technology specifically for market research would play an instrumental role in advancing the industry. Read the full biography here.

The Bionic Researcher

How the effective integration of manpower and technology are key to survival in today’s market research industry.

18th February, 2011

As far as I’m concerned innovation has never been off the agenda in Market Research; it is the lifeblood of our industry. As a result it sometimes feels like research suppliers are struggling to keep up as they respond to pressure not only from within the industry but from the greater world. Today’s clients want every advance in speed, accuracy and automation they can see in other areas of their lives applied to the process of collecting, analysing and disseminating their data and insights.

Not so long ago, research firms and clients were content with simple data. Now clients want more!

Client demands and expectations have never been more challenging and competition to deliver faster more insightful results is fiercer than ever before. Today’s clients have higher expectations such as multi-country, multi lingual, multi agency standardisation in both the execution, analysis and reporting of research.

Researchers are juggling a wide range of data information sources, all of which require consolidation, interpretation and reporting in lightning fast timescales. The industry requires solutions that facilitate high quality analysis & reporting and can accommodate change as projects evolve over time. Utilising technology for manual, laborious tasks and processes allows added value for client’s research to ensure precious time isn’t wasted on simple errors or inefficient processes.

Market research companies across the globe are realising that the effective integration of manpower and technology is the key to future growth.

This is true not only in established and mature markets but also in those which are still emerging. The Asia Pacific region in particular (where the MR market has exploded) has an advantage in this respect since they have been able to leapfrog a great many of our more labour intense processes merely by getting into the game when there were better and more readily available technological solutions. However I think we can all agree that our industry is just too damn heavy on the hand analysis!

Let’s look at an example

One of our current UK clients, Charterhouse Research, a leading financial research and consulting firm, recently launched a large, complex syndicated study which involves a significant amount of reporting.

Charterhouse follow a unique low overhead business model which enables all projects to be managed from start to finish by directors with high levels of market knowledge.

To ensure senior staff are able to focus on generating insight as opposed to building charts, Charterhouse Research made the strategic decision to use a combination of reporting software and consultancy services to aid them in setting up the project. In their own words “Our expertise helped us foresee that our clients would need to rerun past data to new segmentations as they reviewed their business and we could see that the software would make this much more feasible. We valued the fact that the software solution could accommodate changes as the project evolved over time and that it had the facility to automate anything you could do manually e.g. ranking, low base warnings, adding sig testing etc.”

Integrating technology and manpower effectively brings benefits to both suppliers and end users

Charterhouse was able to cater for variations in each client report. They had the ability to run set chart packs with different segment runs at a reduced cost in a reduced timeframe and these savings were passed on to clients, providing them with better value for money.

Traditionally, large scale studies such as this would have required major investments of time and money in the recruitment and training of teams of research professionals.

By making use of the automated reporting software, its consultancy service and the skills and knowledge of their research staff, Charterhouse found they could accommodate for client segmentation changes. Having the facility to modify a chart or table in a project that’s already been run allows for much faster turnaround when changes are necessary.

Better integration of technology and manpower allowed the consulting firm to properly utilise the expertise of their senior staff in providing added-value to their clients. Implementing innovative technologies such as report automation and dashboard solutions allows researchers to use their time more effectively and to focus manpower on the interpretation, insights and formulation of conclusions.

Clients and stakeholders receive a much higher quality of insight within their deliverable and suppliers can begin to nurture a sustainable competitive advantage.

Skilled staff are able to concentrate on what they were trained and hired for, using their expertise and knowledge in servicing clients. Companies benefit from not only utilising their staff effectively but also potentially increasing their staff retention rates; staff are fulfilled by removing time consuming, monotonous and mind numbing tasks which only challenge their time and not their intellect.

What about the final frontier – table checking? Following five years of research and development E-Tabs is on the cusp of releasing the market research industry’s first automated table checking solution Verify! Automating many elements of the research process from early data collection and processing stages through to the final delivery of reports offers huge potential. Research providers can deliver faster results and research staff will be able to spend more time on analysing and adding value for their clients.

Integration of manpower and technology are the key to future growth of the market research industry.

Benjamin Rietti

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