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Ability to lever master data can help clinch contracts in market research procurement

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by Veerappan Murugappan , Senior Research Analyst, Marketing Services
14 June 2017

1    Introduction

With increase in digitalization there is a growing need for better master data management capability to accommodate a huge chunk of raw data. This capability is going to be one of the most important differentiators among competitive market research agencies.

This paper analyzes the increasing demand for big data and the need to get a unified picture of the customer and market research purchases globally. It captures the need for master data management among leading buyers across industries and the supply market’s response to it.  

2    Recommendation

Considering master data management infrastructure as important supplier selection criteria for future digital market research data requirements.

Problem Statement / Introduction

Market research industry as a whole is moving to a new dimension and this shift is evident if we look at the growth rate of new categories / new business segments, which adds over $20 billion globally to research-related avenues. These include Big data and analytics, social media communities research, online and mobile application research, web traffic measurement, and auto surveys.

Buyers are driving this shift and investing a significant proportion of their market research budget with suppliers of data, information and analysis that are not a part of traditional research industry. In a world of increasing transparency, buyers want not only the right answers but partnerships of integrity in understanding the whole consumer buying process. Increase in social media usage means that data availability is not an issue any more, and now the point of difference for suppliers is the value they add to the data insights.

Inevitable data requirements has led companies to go after every data point available, starting from point of sale to social media. This has made data management complex and there are tremendous challenges in standardising inputs from a multitude of sources to help business decisions. Unfortunately, there are very few global agencies which could serve this need and marketers end up engaging with specialist or boutique agencies based on the requirements. Fragmented supply base for big data and analytics poses even bigger challenge of unifying data points as sources and nature of information is very relative. Hence, leading market research data buyers have started looking at vendors’ ability to support dedicated data architecture or master data management as one of the major selection criteria.

Era of Big Data

Need for big data and analytics has exponentially increased over a period of time. The three major reasons leading buyers to opt for analytics are:

  1. Data support for personalized digital campaigns
  2. The need for real time consumer insights
  3. Speed to market

The apparent shift in marketing and advertising across industries from traditional marketing channels to digital mediums is the most important reason behind enormous data needs. Rising demand for digital medium and campaign cost effectiveness are the main causes for increase in digitalization globally. Also, instead of groups and demographics, the focus is more on individual information which helps in setting up more personalized digital advertisements. 

Buyers today look for extra mile information such as buyer decision journey, design thinking, behavior and attitude studies. Top buyers have stepped even further to request consumer information on a proactive basis with the help of predictive analytics and streamlining campaigns to align with their consumers. 

Highly personalized digital campaigns need more data points to justify the potential of the target consumer. The campaigns are expected to align with the target consumer decision making journey, which demands data from various sources such as point of sale, historic preferences, customer experience journey, reviews and ratings, social media data, personal data, financial data, preferences and brand loyalty data among others. Unsurprisingly, the entirety of required information may not be available in same format or even at a same source. 

The need for customized real time insights and incremental personalized digital campaigns have put leading market research buyers increase their demand in analytics to bring up a unified and holistic view of consumer data. Buyers would like to have information about people right at the time of purchase to setting up highly customized digital advertisements and loyalty programs.

In most cases, big data and analytics spend has been consolidated with market research agencies. Integrating and utilizing the ever-increasing range of data, latest technologies and analytical techniques have undoubtedly put boutique or specialist analytical companies in a better position to serve the purpose. 

Need for master data management

For major buyers across industries who spend considerable part of their budget on digtalization, master data management has become an important concern. Pharma and consumer goods companies, unlike other industries, have multiple data points owing to their distribution model and highly regulated marketing channels. The need for linking up the data into a well-defined linear path demands huge investments and vendors with the potential to assist will have the deciding authority for future contracts. It is undeniable that most of the businesses need to get better at integrating and utilizing the ever increasing range of data available, and to exploit the latest technologies and analytical insights.

Existing Scenario – big data purchases

Most of the Fortune 500 companies prefer to consolidate the market research requirement with top vendors, owing to business volume-based discounts in a long term global contract. Currently, the need for multiple data fields is being served by top market research providers either directly or through partnership or on a sub-contract basis with other specialist agencies that deal with niche data segments.

Regardless of the type of engagement model followed by companies, the architecture of different data sets seems to be different. Next to cost, the second important reason for consolidation is considered to be data management.

Owing to strong consolidation in traditional market research supply market, most of the leading MR buyers across industries consolidate their requirements with leading MR agencies. However, the ever increasing demand for newer data sets has proven to be a hard step for leading agencies.

Buyers also realize that reduction in dependency on market research agencies would put them in a better position. They therefore start exploring the alternate supply segments to cater to niche data requirements. These changes in business requirements have either impacted the incumbent relationships with more specific demands or by leading a way for unbundling data contracts and having more out of preferred supplier relationships.

While companies may aspire to have a huge data repository, they should be able to manage it in an integrated manner to support business decisions at any given point.

To safeguard and strengthen the market share, top market research agencies are partnering with data management software companies to ensure data integrity throughout the research process.

Case Studies

A leading market research vendor tracks many markets and trends, measuring, analyzing and storing data related to all segments -- from scanner data to business information -- and manages a massive data repository which has grown exponentially through the years. The vendor turned to master data management (MDM), NielsenLinx for managing the repository. MDM has commercialized a set of related services to help other companies’ link and manage master data about brand hierarchies, media outlets, retail locations and more.

One of the world’s leading market research companies has signed a partnership deal with Informatica, the leading independent provider of data integration software and services. The company implemented Informatica B2B Data Transformation and Informatica Data Quality to help consolidate, enrich and ensure the accuracy of the complex data underpinning its marketing services. By integrating complex data handling and data quality functions, the research company has both enhanced and increased the range of value-added services it offers to its customers and strengthened its competitive edge.

Conclusion

The shift towards digitalization in market research and wide availability of consumer data from different set of sources has resulted in a new paradigm where value added to the data acts as a differentiator among suppliers, rather than access to data itself. The capability of managing the unified data architecture is considered to be the key success factor of the research outcome and it ensures speed to market. Thus, moving forward, the ability to manage master data will become the major contract clincher for market research agencies.

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