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Archive for the ‘Online Surveys’ Category« Previous Entries Next Entries »To Keep Up, You Must Keep In TouchFriday, May 1st, 2009
In her latest Thursday Night Insight, Chrissie Douglas highlights the sheer pace and scale of economic change in the UK (the so called credit crunch), how this has completely changed our perceptions of things that we have always taken for granted (i.e. that our money is safe in the bank!), and the fact that market research is now perhaps more important than ever to keep in touch with what exactly is going on out there. Let me start by telling you about my banking experience in the last six months. After ten years of riding the property boom we sold our house and put the proceeds in the safe hands of our family bank – Royal Bank of Scotland, whilst waiting for our next dream move. The months passed and as the property market began to decline we felt great in the knowledge that our secure pot would actually buy more as time went on. We thought we were playing it by the book. We’d made some money and we’d put the proceeds away safely in the bank with no risk – just as we’d always been told to do (“after all, your money is always safe in the bank”). This all changed in October last year with news reports that British banking giant Royal Bank of Scotland was about to collapse. The share price had fallen from over £2.50 to 40p (a fall of 84%!) in a matter of days and was on the verge of going under. We had to move quickly. A review of the alternatives revealed that the only 100% safe option for savings was now the Post Office (owned by the Bank of Ireland), following the Irish government’s pledge to guarantee 100% of all savings in Irish Institutions. So the money was safe again, or so we thought. Just after Christmas, amidst continuous press reports of financial doom and gloom, we noticed that the Irish economy was worst hit and on the verge of bankruptcy. The promise of their 100% safety on savings was not worth the paper it was written on (they would not have the funds to back up this guarantee if bankruptcy occurred). With the hysteria surrounding the bankruptcy of the Iceland economy and the loss of savers’ deposits in Icesave still fresh in our minds, we moved the money back to RBS where incidentally it would have been safe all along (in the meantime RBS had become 75% owned by the British government). The point of telling this story is to highlight the rapid scale and pace of change, and that things that you had always taken for granted are not necessarily so in the current climate. The term ‘credit crunch’ has become part of our everyday vocabulary but, until it hits you on a personal level, I don’t think you appreciate the nature of the current financial situation in the UK. Things are changing very quickly and it is difficult to keep up. A quick review of recent headlines highlights this point. For example:
There are many more examples but the common theme is that economic decline seems to be on a bigger scale and is changing faster than ever before. Nobody knows what is going on. Nobody knows what will happen next. All we do know is that we have to carry on and plan for the future as we have always done. This brings me back to the topic of market research. In this current environment it would be understandable to remove market research from your list of top priorities. It may be hard to justify expenditure on something that may be out of date soon after completion (given the pace and scale of change, last year’s market research may already be out of date). However, companies still need to make informed decisions on future direction. I would argue that market research is actually now more important than ever. What we really need is continuous customer monitoring that is cheaper and has a quick turnaround. Luckily with the aid of new technology, market research techniques have come on leaps and bounds and now enable us to keep our nose to the ground. For example, e-surveys, online focus groups, internet panels and bulletin boards are all providing us with the ability to keep up and keep in touch. For more information on how B2B International can help you stay in touch, please call one of the B2B teams on +44 (0)161 440 6000 or +1 914 761 1909.
The Growth of Online Market ResearchTuesday, April 28th, 2009
A recent article featured in BtoB magazine – Online market research takes off The article estimates that 43% of all survey research carried out last year was conducted online. Whilst quantitative consumer research has been leading the online research charge, thanks to a much greater number of potential respondents, b-to-b research is believed to be heading in the same direction. But it’s not just quantitative research techniques – the most widely used of which is the online survey – that are increasing in popularity. Qualitative research techniques, such as online focus groups and online panels, are increasing in prevalence too. B2B International Director, Matthew Harrison, was interviewed for the article. He acknowledged that around 15% of B2B International’s overall research happens online, with particularly high usage among our Asian markets, especially Japan. Harrison recognizes that the feasibility of online research is sometimes limited by the availability of qualified contact lists, but if such lists are available, this is a useful data collection method. As well as faster turnaround times, there are often significant cost-savings associated with online market research. Yet in spite of its many benefits, online research is almost always a complement to traditional research techniques. All techniques used in the market research industry have their own distinct advantages and disadvantages. For example, online research techniques may not allow such detailed open-ended probing as telephone research, and response rates can be lower than with other methods. When defining the methodology of any market research project, B2B International carefully considers the research objectives, and assesses which technique – or combination of techniques – will yield the best results within a given budget. These include, more and more frequently, a range of online techniques, but not to the exclusion of tried and tested ‘traditional’ methods. Why not read our white paper, Using Online Focus Groups As A Business-To-Business Research Technique? The Cloud With The Silver LiningFriday, April 3rd, 2009
In his latest Thursday Night Insight, Oliver Truman looks in detail at a creeping trend in our personal and business lives that is starting to have a profound impact on the way we interact with technology. Every now and then an innovation comes along that makes you sit up and take notice. Just such an event happened to me (and, I’m sure, thousands of other geekily-minded folks like myself) last week, with the unveiling of OnLive – A new video gaming service in the US, which promises to change the shape of the computer games industry forever. I should perhaps declare at this point that, contrary to appearances, I am not tremendously into computer gaming – I freely admit that the last (and indeed first) games console I owned was a venerable Nintendo Entertainment System in the early 1990s. The reason OnLive caught my eye lies not in the graphics nor the gameplay on offer, rather my interest was captured because it offers one of the most transparent and obvious applications yet of the phenomenon of “cloud computing”. With OnLive, computer games are no longer installed or run on the end user’s machine – this is all left to a powerful web server housed in a central location. Instead, the gamer effectively watches a live, high-definition video stream of what is running on this server using their Internet connection. This means even a low-end computer (or television set, with a small adaptor) can run the most demanding of games. No installation or downloading time is wasted, and customers can dip in and out of a whole array of different titles on a subscription-based model. This essential concept – that application software or user data is no longer stored locally, but remotely somewhere in the “cloud” that is the Internet – is what lies behind cloud computing. And its effect stretches far beyond the world of computer games Moreover, many CRM systems are now web-based, allowing sales teams instant access to client and prospect data, wherever they may be at the time. In a business context, data becomes pervasive and instantly available, in any place and at any time. And away from the sober world of business, cloud computing also allows for services such as Spotify to develop. Spotify is an online music streaming service that allows free, instantaneous access to virtually any song or album from the last 30 years. The storage burden is no longer upon the user’s machine, but is instead taken on by a huge server farm out there in the ether. So how is all this affecting the world of market research?Perhaps the most obvious projection of “the cloud” on the research industry has been in the development of online research techniques. Online surveys, which are increasingly becoming the methodology-de-jour in both consumer and business-to-business markets, are now fairly well established, and it would seem strange to highlight this as a new development. What is different is the melding of the online world with the offline. This is most clearly seen in the latest generation of mixed-methodology data collection software, which allows the simultaneous collection of data online, via the telephone or even face-to-face. This offline element has traditionally been managed by internal systems, run on market research agencies’ own servers that exist quite separately from the world outside. Confirmit Horizons, of which B2B International is the launch customer, is perhaps the most significant of this new breed of data collection software. All the data collection, sample management and data storage is handled by secure, dedicated hardware housed in purpose-built data centres. All this allows for the seamless and instantaneous integration of data collected from anywhere – whether it is online, face-to-face or via the telephone. Results and analysis can then be fed back to our clients live as the data is rolling in. In the realm of qualitative research, just as social networking websites are arguably electronic projections of our personal lives into the online domain, so online focus groups and online communities now complement and enhance the face-to-face tools we once relied on. In short, the cloud is important because it will affect all of our daily lives in so many ways in the future – Not just to play PacMan against your mates (or whatever it is the kids are playing nowadays). Understanding Value Is KeyFriday, March 6th, 2009
In this week’s Thursday Night Insight, Nick Hague assesses how valuable social networking really is today. In the last week I have been bitten by a vampire, had a sheep thrown at me and been poked by numerous people I don’t even know! No, I am not talking about the strange life of a researcher; I am talking about the wonderful life of social networking on Facebook. Under the duress of other friends linking up with old school acquaintances and not wanting to miss out on this new phenomenon I joined Facebook two years ago. Since the very early frenetic activity of trying to get as many friends as possible, my account has laid dormant for a good 18 months after my circle of friends reached saturation point (note the term friends I use loosely as I have over 100 friends but the majority are more distant connections that I have never really known). Facebook and social networking have grown dramatically over the past few years from Friends Reunited through to Myspace, Bebo and now Twitter. However, my question for this week’s Thursday Night Insight is how valuable is social networking and with the number of people who visit Facebook leveling off over the past few months in the USA, are we facing Facebook fatigue? When something is growing, everyone feels like they are part of something valuable but what about when the growth stops? Are people losing sight of the importance of what value social networking delivers as opposed to focusing more on the dramatic growth it has experienced and valuing it at astronomical amounts (On October 24, 2007 Microsoft announced that it had purchased a 1.6% share of Facebook for $240 million, giving Facebook a total implied value of around $15 billion). I believe that, similar to what happened in the 1990s with the dot com bubble bursting, the market valuation of some social networking sites has been blinded by myopia of the thought that growth is directly related to value when actually the whole concept is "built on sand" and without any real substance the market value is actually a lot less. If Facebook doesn’t figure out what the real value is that it creates and figures out a way to capture it, they may be at great risk of collapse over the next few years. Maybe they can take a leaf out of Linkedin’s book? I have been a member of Linkedin for over a year and although I haven’t used it that much I can definitely see longevity in the notion of business networking as opposed to social networking. One recent development of Linkedin is the creation of a research network that enables over 28 million b2b professionals (15 million within the US and 13 million across the world) to be targeted worldwide. Once the luxury of consumer marketers, now b2b research can be utilized effectively online across difficult to reach industries, geographies and job functions. Another advantage of Linkedin we have found at B2B International is that people have a vested interested in keeping their details up to date. This allows us as researchers to actively source named contacts that were previously inaccessible before from within large corporations because we couldn’t get past the receptionist who polices the front desk with a no name policy. It is clear that "panels" of one kind or another are the future of research and online networking will help deliver that benefit to research companies. However, will Twitter, Facebook and other such sites continue to evolve? If not, they could well go the way of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzie Scheme over the next few years. For more information on how B2B International can help you with e-surveys and your e-research click here or phone one of our UK, US or Chinese offices and speak to our team. B2B Deliver Client Value Through Software InvestmentTuesday, March 3rd, 2009
Specialist business-to-business Market Research agency B2B International has become the first organization to select the new Confirmit Horizons platform, which will support all of its Web and telephone interviewing activities. Launched on January 31st this year, Confirmit Horizons is the first fully on-demand, multi-mode platform for Market Research, Customer Feedback, and Employee Feedback. B2B International was looking for a new research software solution as part of its continued effort to use the best research methods to deliver strategic advice to clients for future business development. It selected Confirmit Horizons for the time savings it brings, the security measures it provides, and the service enhancements that the agency will be able to offer to its clients. These benefits are a result of Confirmit Horizons’ ability to support all of B2B International’s telephone and Web research through a single solution; its On-Demand delivery model, which removes the need to install software on the agency’s own servers; and the sophisticated reporting capabilities of the Confirmit Reportal module. The platform will replace two separate tools that B2B International has been using for telephone interviewing and Web surveys. Nick Hague, International Research Director of B2B International, explains: Many of the projects we run combine Web and telephone interviewing activities, but our existing CATI system wasn’t as fast as it could have been, meaning several days are spent preparing surveys for telephone interviewing. We then have to repeat the survey creation exercise for the Web portion of the project. Confirmit Horizons removes the need for us to duplicate work for our telephone and Web project. This will not only save us time and effort in the creation and delivery of surveys, but will also speed up our service to clients. The reporting capabilities of Confirmit Horizons were a key factor in B2B International’s choice of platform. With the Confirmit Reportal module, the agency can carry out sophisticated analysis and reporting of its combined Web and telephone survey results, presenting detailed insight to its clients in a variety of methods, including dashboard reports. The availability of Confirmit Horizons as a Software-as-a-Service solution was also critical to the deal. With no requirement to install software on B2B International’s own servers, this answered many of the agency’s concerns regarding security. This model also provides the agency with a cost-effective investment, since there is no hardware cost involved, and guarantees system availability through Confirmit’s uptime guarantees. The Software-as-a-Service model also provides a future-proof solution by offering instant scalability to B2B International via the Internet. Once up and running with the platform at its UK operation, the agency plans to roll out the system to its staff and field workers in China and the US. Pat Molloy, Chief Strategy Officer at Confirmit, concludes: We are delighted that B2B International has instantly recognized the benefits of this new, revolutionary platform. Even before its launch, Confirmit Horizons has been generating a great deal of interest among Market Research organizations and enterprises alike. With an organisation of the stature of B2B International on board we anticipate many firms to follow and experience the cost-savings, time-savings, and performance improvements that Confirmit Horizons delivers. About ConfirmitConfirmit is the world’s leading SaaS software vendor for Customer Feedback, Employee Feedback, and Market Research applications. The company has more than 200 employees and offices in Oslo (headquarters), Guildford, London, Moscow, New York, San Francisco, and Yaroslavl. Confirmit’s software is also distributed through partner resellers in Barcelona, Madrid, Milan, Santiago, Sydney, and Tokyo. Confirmit targets Global 5000 companies and Market Research agencies worldwide with a wide range of software products for feedback / data collection, panel management, data processing, analysis, and reporting. Customers include British Airways, Countrywide Financial, Credit Suisse, Dow Chemical, Experian, GlaxoSmithKline, Halifax Bank of Scotland, Intrawest, Ipsos, Nielsen, The NPD Group, Safeco Insurance, Statoil Hydro, Symantec, and Virgin Media. About B2B InternationalB2B International is a leading market research consultancy specialising in business-to-business research. With more than 30 years’ direct experience and expertise covering the whole spectrum of industry sectors, B2B International are in a unique position to be able to help you and your business. Housing their team of specialist business-to-business consultants conversant in dozens of languages, their Manchester (UK) headquarters is at the heart of their operations in Europe. The New York (US) office looks after the North and South American markets whilst their Asia-Pacific research projects are managed out of their Beijing, China office.
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