Careers in Market Research - Part 1

BY - ABHIK GUPTA


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The atmosphere resembles a fire service station; a terse phone call, an urgent request for more details and an immediate call to action from a little desk leading to a swirl of active bodies. A quick meeting is convened, instructions handed out and each member embarks on the set of tasks handed out. In today’s age of connectivity, multiple choices and complex consumer decision making, marketing research companies like most others, are moving at breath neck speed in keeping with the needs of the times.The adrenalin rush is part of the excitement  of the marketing world.

As technology and science throws open more options in choices, connectivity and communication, the need to understand the complexity of human reaction to the stimuli become even more urgent. These new evolving needs have led to the genesis of startups and merging of different domains with the marketing research world. At the core however, the foundational needs of consumer understanding remain as unchanged and remains as important as ever. I will attempt to highlight these core needs and what an aspirant should expect in each of these areas of enquiry through this series.  This article, which is the first of the series, will dwell upon the options in a primary market research; the second one will focus on the emerging area of analytics and emerging market research opportunities; the third of the series focusing on technology and operations which are fast becoming the battleground and entry point of major players into this industry. I will hope to conclude this series with what it takes to be a market researcher.

Having been an intimate part of the marketing industry and changed roles across the spectrum of professions, I hope that I will be able to convey the joys and frustrations, aspirations and limitations, responsibilities and expectations of being a market researcher. This is my journey through this profession as I see it, and I hope you will find pleasure in the self-discovery.

Market Research careers

At the very core of the market research industry lies the need for primary information which can help in studied and scientific decision making. Some of these information needs are specific to the marketing problem and require focused or customized problem solving.  This is the marketers’ friend and foe as we know; definitely an essential component of the marketing business today. This is a great role conceptually - a consultant who provides direction and solutions when the world seems to be closing in, identify opportunities when there seem to be little available, find alternative approaches to present our product or service uniquely to the consumer or help in communicating or reaching the customer more effectively. The pleasure is in the intellectual challenge which never dies out, and the grudging respect that one commends amidst the marketing fraternity. The market research profession and researcher needs to be viewed as an extension of brand management and marketing manager - the closer you are, the more your success.

Under the broad genre of customized research exists a slew of solutions some of which have become industries in themselves.  Notable among these are forecasting, advertising pretesting and tracking, segmentation methodologies. The industry is the solution, and the relevance cuts across verticals.

Similarly, there is specialization towards the industry, each of which will have unique needs and emphasis of their own. For example, the growth of the telecom and service industry led to the emergence of several quality evaluation opportunities like auditing service centers, call quality, delivery audits. The ‘customer’ in the service industry is extremely important, loss or gain because of service delivery is part of the CEO’s mandate. It is here that market research starts extending its influence to the domain of operations.  You would have heard of KPIs connected to processes and jobs, the natural answer that the market researcher provides is the measurement of these KPIs. In today’s world and competition, every single activity is broken down and measured – the time taken to serve you at the Mcdonalds’ outlet or at your nearest bank, how quickly the call center of your telecom operator was able to deal with your complaint and subsequently how satisfied you were with the quality of the solution. Some of these questions led to multi-million dollar corporations being built on the back of benchmarks and methodologies. Customer satisfaction measurement, employee satisfaction, quality audits are examples of such big needs, and companies are always benchmarking themselves to competition, across industries and countries.

By the same logic, one sees social research requiring stronger capabilities in research design and execution, along with an intricate understanding of social economics and anthropology which has led to a level of specialization in this direction too. The market researcher prides himself or herself as a ‘social scientist’. It is therefore logical that the social aspect of the science will deserve a degree of attention and opportunity.

( To be continued . . )

For Careers in Market Research Part-2, click here