Fast and simple - two key requirements for the insight business of the future

The research industry, which has been accustomed to success for decades, is facing enormous challenges ... and the Covid 19 pandemic has accelerated problem areas even further.

Answer operational questions as quickly as possible

The research business is rarely strategically oriented - most of the time the questions are tactical, i.e. operational in nature. The company, the products and the projects have to be kept «up to date» by benchmarking them with consumer opinions and feedback. And this must be done ever faster, because management needs decision-making bases as soon as possible in order to lose as little time as possible. And these requirements tolerate less and less time-consuming, expensive and methodologically sophisticated research. Research has to deliver - as fast as possible, as informative as possible and as cost-effectively as possible.

The client sets the pace

In contrast to the past, it is therefore almost exclusively the client who sets the pace in the face of increasing management demands. The time-eater 'quality', the argument of many institutions in earlier periods, is taking a back seat to the demand for maximum speed and simplicity.

As close to 'real time' as possible is the magic word that is increasingly being demanded of researchers. In addition, budgets are not increasing, but are under pressure. But how can this be achieved?

In addition to speed, the following factors are evident for institutes: Researchers must be able to produce more easily and customers must be able to understand more easily and receive useful recommendations for action.

Methodological knowledge will be found in fewer and fewer clients. Familiarization costs too much time and the demands on the clients of insight projects are so high and also quantity-wise burdensome that they cannot - and often do not want to - deal with a complicated analysis.

How can we now become faster?

Processes, today still slow, error-prone and complicated, must be streamlined and reduced to a minimum through standardization.

The survey concepts that are always built 'from scratch' are to be replaced by tested and proven best practice templates.

The set-up and preparation of the results must be oriented to the needs of the client. This means being convenient and comprehensible, and the reports must deliver useful results.

But - doesn't the quality suffer?

Simpler and faster research is not necessarily worse. Validated - i.e. best practice - methods are used. Errors in project execution are minimized by standardization and reduction of many process steps. In contrast to qualitative research, the quantification of operational problems consists of a predefined set of possible answers that have to be validated. In addition, the standardization of question content enables benchmarking with projects of the same questions, on the basis of which clients can classify their own results.

And the methodical layman?

On-market research specialists in particular must be enabled to set up their own project within minutes and without outside support.

The set-up must take place directly and intuitively on a platform and be geared to the simplest possible operation. In this way, extensive briefings, requests for quotations, and tedious discussions with potential contracting institutes before, during, and after the project can be made superfluous.

That's how Research is done in the 20s of the 21st century.

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