NEWS6 January 2010
US— Happy New Year – or will it be? According to a new Forrester report, research buyers will continue to demand proof of ROI on their research projects, while vendor consolidation and insourcing is expected to make life difficult for the supplyside of the industry – even as recessionary pressures start to ease.
Among a host of predictions for what 2010 has in store for market research, analyst Reineke Reitsma warns that tactics adopted by client companies to cope with the downturn will not be quickly abandoned.
“Research for research’s sake is over,” she says. “Market researchers will have to come up with models, scorecards or dashboards that communicate constantly, consistently and effectively what the market research department is doing and how that affects the organisation.”
As in 2009, Reitsma says, clientside research departments will continue to look to save costs through constant reviews and evaluations of research contracts. A key consideration will be whether the research can be conducted in-house.
“The in-house focus will be on straightforward projects, with more complex needs being outsourced to specialised vendors,” says Reitsma. “For vendors, this translates into the need to become more than data providers. Their added value is in creating insights and benchmarking.”
You can read more of Reitsma’s predictions on her Forrester blog, but why not share your views on the trends that will shape research in 2010 in the comments section below?