Among the more notable changes to survey research hastened by the recent pandemic are:
The Need for Speed
Do-It-Yourself (DIY): The prevalence of free and low-cost alternatives for creating and distributing online surveys has allowed marketers to create and field their own surveys for various purposes. These projects have met with varying degrees of success, often tempered by the scope and complexity of the study. Many marketers recognize their inability to simply “go-it-alone” and are instead expecting their suppliers/agencies to take on a more consultative and less transactional role.
Agile Research: Taking an approach first promoted by the software industry over 20 years ago, insights departments are, in some cases, moving away from entrenched research processes in favor of real-time, agile methods, especially with regards to innovation and new product development. Given the increased pace of change in many industries along with continued budget constraints, corporate management needs to make decisions in real-time with little waste. Generally, agile surveys are smaller in size with questions that are straightforward and easy for respondents to understand.
A Reevaluation of Roles and Responsibilities
A LinkedIn post I had written roughly a week ago (Great Change Accelerator) outlined a number of changes taking place on both the client and provider sides. The primary source for the post was a couple of roundtable discussions hosted by the US Insights Association, the UK’s Market Research Society (MRS) and the Australian Research Society. Thirty noted leaders from both the client and provider sides participated in the discussions. The key takeaways:
- In order to maintain the presence at the corporate decision-making table that it earned during the pandemic, insights departments will need to contribute to short, mid and long-term corporate planning.
- The aforementioned developments in DIY and agile research can be used for short-term, tactical research. However, an increased and ongoing monitoring of a company’s customers will likely be needed as well. In many cases, clients will be looking for more strategic input from their research providers. Note that this relationship has often been more transactional in the past via static reports and presentations of research findings.
- Integrated teams of client-provider employees in various configurations may well become the norm before long.
With the ever-increasing flow of other types of data to the various functional areas in a company (e.g. financial, production, employee, etc.), the insights department will need to be able to integrate their survey data with other data stores.
The future viability of the insights function and, specifically, the role of survey research, will be tested by clients’ and providers’ abilities to adapt to this brave new world. While the challenges will be many, those that are in tune with these changes as well as the ones that will follow, can help ensure the insights function continues to play a central role in the corporate decisions being made.
Also, the client side and the provider side will each need to identify when they are beyond their capabilities in terms of the technologies, procedures and personnel that a particular project requires. There are efficiencies and approaches on both sides that have been refined over the years. If we are indeed entering a new era of closer collaboration and partnership, holding our cards unnecessarily close to our vests will be of little help to either party.