• About this newsletter
• What's Up in MI?
• Get to Know GIA Members
• Meet the GIA at Upcoming Events
• GIA White Paper Update

What's Up in MI?

Recent developments in the field of Market Intelligence

Information gathering processes neither efficient nor effective in most US and UK businesses

A recent survey among more than 1,000 middle managers in the US and the UK suggests that information gathering processes at most businesses are neither efficient nor effective. The survey was conducted by Accenture.

It seems that even if a good piece of information is obtained, it is poorly disseminated within the company. The findings also indicate that organizations are simply failing to keep up with the volume of information produced by technological innovation. In fact, 59% of the managers said that because of poor distribution, they miss information that might be valuable to their jobs "almost every day”. Although they know the information exists somewhere in the company, they cannot find it.
In order to get information about competitors, customers, project responsibility or other departments, respondents said on average they have to go to three different information sources.

Once they find the information they are looking for, only 16% of the managers in the survey use a collaborative workplace — such as a company's intranet portal — to store it; most keep it on their computers or in individual e-mail accounts, where it can easily be lost or even stolen.

(Abstracted from eMarketer, 10 January 2007)

Three out of four companies positive towards Web 2.0 applications

According to a study by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), almost 80 per cent of corporations believe that web 2.0 technologies have the potential to benefit their businesses. The study, sponsored by software developer Fast, was a part of a global survey of 406 senior executives from a range of industries. The aim was to find out how web 2.0 technology is being applied by large corporations throughout the world.
 
The findings indicated that most respondents believe the biggest benefit can be seen in transforming the way that customers interact with the companies of the respondents.
 
In second place is the establishment of blogs or wikis to initiate conversations and share knowledge inside or outside the company.
 
The report also revealed that customers are increasingly helping to develop and support products.
 
Hadley Reynolds, vice president and director of Fast's Centre for Search Innovation, explained that Fast sponsored the research to find out how web 2.0 technology was perceived in the corporate world. He states to be surprised at how much web 2.0 has already seeped through to corporations, as three out of four see it as an opportunity and not as a threat.

(Abstracted from IWR, 27 Apr 2007)

Survey: Industry cautious about offshoring despite growing demand for market researchers

Within the 2007 edition of MarketResearchCareers' Annual Survey of Market Research Professionals, more than half (53%) of surveyed market research professionals expect to hire in 2007—up significantly from 40% in 2005. Furthermore, those expecting to expand their ranks plan to hire more staff—up from an average of nearly three people in 2005 to nearly five in 2007.

The market research jobs experiencing the greatest demand include: entry level researchers, project managers and market research managers. At the same time however, the need for seasoned researchers, including statisticians and vice presidents, has nearly tripled since 2005.

With nearly seven out of eight participants (85%) identifying themselves as managers or senior managers, only 14% view “offshoring” research positions as an option to help manage costs in 2007. While nearly half (46%) of all participants believe offshoring helps control the expense of market research, the same percentage believes offshoring erodes the overall quality of the market research.

The research was conducted between March 21 and March 31, 2007 with 237 market research professionals (both suppliers and buyers) completing an online survey. The survey completion rate was 71.7% and the aggregate data have a tolerance of /- 6.4%.

(Source: MarketResearchCareers press release, 18 April 2007)