As you prepare to launch a market research project, one of the most important elements of your strategic plan relates to data collection. This catch-all term refers to the what, who, when, how and why of generating relevant information that, when analyzed, validated, organized and articulated, ultimately provides you with what matters most, and why you are doing market research in the first place: rock solid insights to make profitable business decisions.
What’s more, this valuable information will be an asset that you exclusively own. It is not part of a market research report that you can pull out a credit card, buy, and start using. However, before you achieve this beneficial outcome, you need to determine whether you just need data collection services, or whether it is necessary to exploit full service market research.
To help you make this decision, here are 7 scenarios where it is clearly in your best interest to access full service market research vs. data collection services only:
- You do not have the in-house personnel available – or at all -- to immediately leverage the data and ultimately translate it into reliable, accurate and actionable business intelligence.
- You do not have the in-house systems to validate the data and ensure that it is corrected for bias and statistical error.
- Even if you have the in-house personnel and systems required, you determine that it is more cost effective and less risky to access full service market research experts.
- You do not have specialized knowledge and experience exploiting market research data captured in a certain industry or method (i.e. someone on your team may have some experience working with data captured through online surveys, but does not know how to do the same with data gleaned through in-depth interviews, focus groups, etc.).
- You wisely want to safeguard the possibility that members of team may consciously or subconsciously become emotionally attached to a certain set of insights (e.g. customers are generally satisfied, etc.), so that the findings and recommendations are skewed towards that end.
- The research you are conducting is highly confidential and sensitive, and as such it is unwise to keep any of the process in-house. For example, you may be considering a merger (or may know that you are being coveted by a potential acquirer or strategic partner), or your market research effort may link to a strategy that will see you reduce your footprint and staffing levels in the future – which is information that you do not want to have circulating through your environment or marketplace.
- The results of your market research may potentially be used in legal proceedings, and you want to fortify your position by having a credible, objective third-party capable of providing expert witness testimony as part of an affidavit, in court, or in front of a legislative body.
Learn More
At Communications For Research, we provide both data collection services and full service market research. Our data collection services are typically the framework for when we partner with consultants and large enterprises with existing in-house capacity and expertise. Our full service market research, from design to data analysis, is clearly more suitable when we are serving the needs of business clients that need to ensure there are no gaps in their market research process. Regardless of which category your business fits in, we adapt our process to you!
To learn more,contact our team and schedule a chat with our co-CEO Colson Steber. If you have an existing research plan at any stage of development, we would be happy to review it and provide useful, practical insights and guidance. If you just want more information on CFR and our services, we can provide you market research advice, a quote and more insight from Colson’s many years of experience.
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