NEWS3 June 2015

Technology the biggest challenge facing research, says Grit report

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News North America

US — The latest Greenbook Research Industry Trends (Grit) report, covering the first half of 2015, suggests that technology, consultation and data handling are the biggest challenges to the industry.

The report, based on 1, 859 interviews with research industry professionals ( 80% suppliers; 20% research buyers/ clients), looks at technology adoption, financial outlook and the most innovative companies in the sector, as well as offering an insight on the evolving ‘day in the life’ of research professionals.

According to the report, 44% of respondents saw technology as the biggest challenge facing market research – suggesting that the rapid evolution of technology created both positive and negatives for the industry. Other challenges included ‘handling data’ ( 30%) and sampling ( 22%).

Looking at adoption of emerging methods, there was some key differences between suppliers and research buyers/ clients. While suppliers are adopting mobile technology: surveys ( 53%) and mobile qualitative ( 31%); research buyers are concentrating on social media analytics ( 49%) and big data analytics ( 39%).

The ability to work with data was revealed as the most popular emerging skill for market researchers.

A full copy of the report can be downloaded here.