NEWS6 October 2011
US— Research suppliers are not keeping up with buyers over some of the most promising research techniques, according to the latest wave of the Greenbook Research Industry Trends survey.
More clients than agencies report plans to use social media analytics ( 52% versus 39%), online communities ( 52% versus 46%) and data mining ( 41% versus 31%).
The report notes that with suppliers “lagging behind” in their adoption of the sorts of techniques clients plan to use, “this indicates that possibly buyers will be centring their relationships around vendors who can offer these methods, and it is likely that in many cases that means they will be working with non-traditional suppliers”.
However, suppliers are leading buyers on plans to use mobile surveys ( 41% versus 37%), mobile qual ( 28% versus 22%), mobile ethnography ( 24% versus 20%), webcam-based interviews ( 26% versus 22%), virtual environments ( 12% versus 8%) and “serious games” ( 6% versus 1%).
Research providers have also shown themselves to be ahead of their customers in expecting or experiencing growth in research spend ( 58% to 38%) with almost 50% of client respondents saying they expect spending to remain at current levels, compared to just one third of agencies.
The full report can be downloaded here. Results are based on a survey of 1,008 researchers, 43% working on the supplyside of the industry, 23% as academics and 16% as clients. Just over two thirds of respondents came from the US.