Insights & innovation: The market research technology landscape

These are the firms that drive the market research process from start to finish, employing various ResTech resources along the way to best serve their end clients. Generally, these agencies have in-house technology resources or contracts with outside vendors, with expertise in a specific area, to handle gathering and analyzing data from the desired target audiences - whether it be consumers, competitors, business professionals or other actors in the marketplace.

Companies in this sector are feeling acute pressure from their clients to achieve the promise of “faster, better, cheaper” - and many know that employing the right technology is the path to success in these arenas. While they basically need the tools to do the heavy lifting and eliminate time-consuming manual tasks via innovation, they are also aware that clients are eye-balling technology “bells and whistles.” The most recent GRIT Insights Practices report indicates that there is a significant percentage of buyers or clients who are interested in exploring “future-forward approaches” like AI, chatbots, crowd-sourcing, eye tracking, neuroscience, and others.

In fact, agencies are facing a bit of a challenge as ResTech becomes more ubiquitous and accessible, with some concerns that clients will bring functions in-house using new technologies. According to ESOMAR’s GMR Report (2022), the number of projects clients are handling in-house is steadily on the rise, creating a need for agencies to pivot their models and focus on where they can play to their own strengths in the new ecosystem. Agility and flexibility are key, while displaying the ability to bring together all the right tools, techniques, methodologies and ResTech functions to help clients achieve their goals.

As the industry moves swiftly toward the elimination of silos in the market research process, the data integration, analysis, visualization, reporting and sharing steps just make sense as a complete package. While there are companies that specialize in just the data analytics or just the visualization pieces, here we will focus on those who have, either by design or accident, ended up with a business model that encompasses all of these steps in the process of uncovering and delivering insights.

To provide a general overview of the functions in this category, we see many of these companies offering tools that ingest data - whether from surveys or other business data streams - and integrate it into a usable data set. Technology is then wielded to analyze the data, providing techniques and processes that make it easier for researchers to explore data, find the top insights, and create reports more quickly.

Visualization is a key part of these companies’ offerings, providing graphic and visual elements so that the insights and data are easy to understand and share with others. These steps, when performed manually at any point in the process, can be very time consuming and delay access to insights. Implementing efficient, effective technology across these steps is vital in delivering value. In fact, when it comes to the reporting stage, and sharing insights, ESOMAR’s GMR report says “this is an essential part of the cycle where intelligence is finally shared with clients” to create strategies. Our ultimate job as researchers!

While the paths to get there varied widely, the companies in this sector all saw the same need: to deliver insights that kept up with the increasing pace of business across all sectors. A sticking point at any step of the process would delay the entire operation, thus the analysis, visualization and sharing functions landed, eventually, under one umbrella.

As we have always maintained at Infotools, it is crucial to balance the use of technology with human expertise and judgment. This remains true with the use of AI, which should be seen as a complement to human researchers, empowering them with powerful tools and insights. As AI techniques become more prominent in the ResTech landscape, we must find our “techquilibrium” among the pillars of technological capabilities, human expertise, and ethical considerations.

The ResTech ecosystem evolution is ongoing, driven by both new technology advancements and ongoing marketplace demand for the trifecta of speed, accuracy and cost-effectiveness. As long as brands, agencies, data collectors, and software vendors focus on delivering the fundamentals of market research, we can see a very exciting future ahead of us. We can’t wait to see what’s next.