With the transition in techniques and structure to technological developments, there are a few key trends that would rule the B2B market research industry in the future-
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Less Face Time
We can see everywhere the impact of COVID-19. How it has changed the dimensions of living or working. Whichever way you come at it, life will not go completely back to normal soon. In research one of the most profound coronavirus-driven changes is probably going to be the long-term reduction in face-to-face interviewing. For example, remote working and digital shift of shopping online in our personal lives would almost certainly be stuck in the long run in the name of efficiency and, frankly, habit.
The two of the fundamental ways within which the B2B marketing research industry would alter the imposed shift aside from face-to-face interaction-
- More Mobile-Only Surveys:
Mobile devices were predicted to be a shade over 51% of the world’s web traffic in 2020. Predictably, market research surveys would follow the law, often being built and remotely completed purely on mobile. With higher rejection rates amongst panel respondents being offset by lower costs and an increased panelist pool size to pick from, it’s safe to say that this trend would stay longer.
- More App-Enabled Observational Research:
In the B2B market research world, we’ve already been a spectator of a gradual transfer towards ethnographic research. This offshoot of anthropology is a qualitative method where researchers observe a participant in their normal environment. Recent events have made in-person observation further a challenge. But the growth of observational research apps permitting researchers to acknowledge participants’ behavior in an exceedingly natural setting will go some way towards counteracting it.
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Rise Of The Machines
As McKinsey report says, 60% of jobs “have over 30% of activities that are technically automatable”. The executor of the task, which is routine or repetitive, is at a high risk of being replaced by a faster, more efficient machine. And that’s as voracious in market research as anywhere else. ‘Big qual’—analyzing larger volumes of unstructured or open-ended data–has been standard practice for years now. Likewise, machine learning-driven patterns admiration in data would progressively assist certain analyses, like segmentation. Chatbots are also being employed frequently in some quantitative interviews and surveys. Will this turn out to be a trouble or an occasion for exploration professionals? As with so numerous disruptive forces, the answer is a bit of both.
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Data Privacy Challenges
The GDPR invention was a bit of a shrug for numerous US marketers and researchers but CCPA gave a different experience. It’s one of our own. And, if it hasn’t already, it will come to affect a research project near you soon. In 2018, Signed into law back to quote IA, the California Consumer Privacy Act is a “complicated, confusing and comprehensive state privacy law that affects most marketing research and data analytics companies…”
What does it mean for B2B research companies? In the B2C world, it faces more challenges but gains more customer data day to day than B2B. But indeed the most exacting collectors of B2B consumer data will have to suppose hard about how safely they’re handling and storing it. From safeguarding personal data against security breaches, and updates to software and systems to legal consultation and training, everyone seems to be likely to feel some sort of expense in time and resources.
