Consulting company, meaning, has released its survey which was supported by FocusVision’s Decipher survey and reporting platform, and which provides insights into the software, technology and methodology trends within the global market research industry.

Key findings from the survey included:

• Mobile participation in surveys is growing rapidly yet many companies are taking a passive and unsustainable approach towards mobile participation
• Mobile and CAPI research are growing in importance while CATI continues to slide, and paper has finally been overtaken by CAPI
• Most market research companies now work using software controlled by their research suppliers
• Access panels are favoured over in-house panels for sample sources
• Proportion of quantitative research revenues to qualitative have remained stable over the years: quantitative represents around 70 percent and qualitative between 20-24 percent
• There is a high demand among larger companies for new research software
• Companies are using more dashboards and interactive analysis and moving away from ‘low tech’ methods.

The results for the 2014 business year were woven in with reporting from the past 11 years, giving a historic view of important data points.

Tim Macer, managing director of meaning and lead researcher on the survey said: “Technology is the life-blood of market research, and if this survey is its annual health check, it shows an industry that is getting fitter in some areas – such as how it reports results – while ailing in others, such as in how it responds to mobile.”

This year’s survey comprised a sample of 215 market research companies globally, and used feedback from those who are responsible for, or influential in, technology decisions within each company. The sample was managed to ensure representation of three global regions: North America, Europe and Asia Pacific according to the relative amount of research in each region as measured by ESOMAR. Participants were contacted by email to complete the survey, which consisted of a 15-minute online interview.