Frost & Sullivan's Growth Team Membership™ (GTM) recently completed its 2012 survey of market research executives globally. The respondents were asked to identify their most pressing challenges for 2012. GTM will focus its best practices research to address the prominent issues identified in the survey.
Market Research in 2012 - A Snapshot
- The key challenge for market research executives is ensuring clients integrate research insights with their decision-making.
- The root cause of the key challenge is insufficient support from senior management.
- In comparison to 2011, budgets and staffing levels will remain unchanged in 2012.
- The majority (65%) of market research budgets are allocated to vendors.
- Market researchers predominantly outsource primary research, such as surveys and focus groups.
- Respondents use social media primarily to monitor competitors' product or service development.
2012 Market Research Survey Executive Summary
The 2012 survey results highlight a long-standing market research challenge: providing accessible and actionable insights. Market researchers need to identify and meet their internal clients' needs, integrate disparate information streams, and demonstrate the ROI on their efforts. Respondents also highlight the need to maintain a research portal to avoid redundancy and provide easy access to research. Nearly half (47 percent) of the respondents name Marketing as their top internal client (in terms of the percentage of their research portfolio they account for). Thus, it is unsurprising that market size and structure assessments make up the largest portion of respondents' research portfolios.
