THE FUTURE OF MARKET RESEARCH, CONSUMER INSIGHTS

The future of market research and consumer insights clearly lies in data analysis and data visualization. However, as you go about preparing a business to embrace these disciplines, and ingest the massive amounts of data required to fuel business growth in coming years, be advised.

In addition to introducing systems that allow you to put dependable information at employees’ fingertips, don’t forget that it’s also vital to guard against human error as you go about the process of enhancing your data management capabilities as well. Worker bias is always a potential factor when weighing various data sets, and the key data points, timeframes, and metrics that we rely on can offer differ greatly from one department to the next. Meaning that even when you’re equipped with the most powerful market research or data collection and visualization tools today – and dozens of leading vendors now offer them – these factors can still lead to strategic misunderstandings and missed opportunities to grow your business.

So when picking a tool to help you master the future of market research by gathering information and visually distilling it into market insights that are simple and understandable for anyone in your organization to use? Consider leveraging solutions that also capitalize on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.

Backed by cognitive algorithms, these smart solutions aren’t just capable of automatically reconciling information from different sources, even when it’s encoded in different forms and formats. They can also provide 360-degree visibility into what’s happening in a business, and greater situational awareness. Using them, you can pull the right information from the right sources in real-time to predict market patterns and shoppers’ purchasing habits; identify new opportunities for growth and expansion; streamline internal processes and procedures; locate areas where you can cut costs and improve efficiency; translate learnings into easily-read and -understood graphics that can convey key insights at a glance; and make smarter strategic decisions.