Put your data to work

Discoveries are at the heart of what we do as market researchers. We collect the data to find those “A-ha!” moments – the nuggets of truth and insight that will enable better business decisions and drive better outcomes. Unfortunately, in our traditional research process, these nuggets are only revealed after multiple time-consuming steps along the way – and that’s before you even get to the analysis! What if all those separate steps – which can take days to complete – could be done in minutes?

The team at Infotools is always looking for ways to help market researchers deliver better insights faster. Many of us come from a research background ourselves, so we know exactly where the pitfalls lie on the continuum from data collection to analysis to reporting. In particular, data analysis in its traditional form leaves much room for improvement. After all, we know that no one data point truly stands on its own. The market researcher’s natural inclination to dig deeper and uncover hidden insights is often slowed down by outdated processes that make interrogating the data a convoluted and lengthy endeavor.

Let’s take for example, a primary consumer product study. Your data shows that a product is selling quite well. The upswing is significant enough that you want to delve deeper. Why is the product selling strongly? Where is it selling best? Is gender a factor in increased sales? Is the product resonating more with Millennials or Gen X? All these questions are a natural progression from the initial data finding. But to delve deeper often means backing out, starting over, saving another file, manipulating that file, and on and on.

Bringing in secondary research on Millennial behavior could also shed light, but that means cross-referencing – often from different data sources. The process is painstakingly manual and cumbersome, often exacerbated by using tools that aren’t optimized for market research data, or that you need a Ph.D. to use.

The complexity of this process often means that you stop querying the data simply because you have run out of time, or you don’t have the appropriate tools. Questions remain unasked, answers unknown – a bitter pill to swallow for the curious mind!

But don’t despair – it doesn’t have to be this way! We can harness the technology and innovations available to us today, plus our deep understanding of the outcomes we need in market research and create a better platform and process. The steps from data processing to visualization no longer have to happen in sequential order but can instead occur simultaneously. And they don’t need to be complicated and convoluted; instead, they can be beautifully simple and intuitive.

The steps from data processing to visualization no longer have to happen in sequential order but can instead occur simultaneously. And they don’t need to be complicated and convoluted; instead, they can be beautifully simple and intuitive.

For example, with Harmoni, there's no need to wait days for your data to be processed and cleaned up; instead, you can start using the data as soon as it's available – even from multiple sources. You can interrogate the data again and again and keep peeling back layer after layer to find the answers you seek. This can all be done with a simple click or a drag-and-drop, without ever affecting the base data, leaving less room for error or data corruption. Exploring, discovering, and testing the data and getting instant answers is what we all need in a deadline-driven, fast-paced business landscape.

Technology has changed the pace of life at a fundamental level, both in our personal lives and our business dealings. Communication and collaboration have been enhanced, and things are inevitably moving forward at warp speed. As market researchers, let's not be left behind but instead adopt technologies and methods that will allow us to easily keep pace and deliver more robust insights faster than ever before.