Research Studies

Market research is a knowledge-based industry, its key asset is people – software comes and goes, techniques evolve, but if the future of market research is to be secured, it will be on the strength of its people to add value, and importantly, to add value that non-researchers cannot. To ensure that value-added future, market research needs to develop its people, and a key part of that process in training, to build the competence of the people who make up the research industry. However, the Market Research Skills and Training Study 2018 Report report suggests that too little training is happening. The authors believe that if market research and the insights profession is to prosper in the upcoming world of big data, automation, and artificial intelligence, this must change, and the report outlines some of the key steps needed to achieve that.

This report is based on a study conducted globally in April to June 2018, with 1108 market researchers and insight professionals, and builds on our Market Research Knowledge Benchmarking Study 2017. Visit for a copy of this report and other project details.

The project was run by NewMR’s Sue York and Ray Poynter and supported by a wide range of people, to whom we offer our thanks, and who are listed in the full report.

Key Findings
The main story is that too many market researchers are not getting the training that they (and the industry) need to be receiving.

• 39% receive less than 6 hours training a year.
• Only 18% receive 6 or more days a year.

Our recommendation is that (in most cases) the minimum level of training should be three days per year. This is in many ways a modest figure, but it is more than two-thirds of people working in market research are receiving at the moment.

The rest of the key findings build on this main story, as indeed does the rest of the report. There are details and good points and bad points, but the main story is that too many market researchers are not receiving enough training, something we which believe is endangering the future of market research as a knowledge-based, value-adding industry and profession.

One quick way to find out if your staff or colleagues are receiving enough training is to ask them. Our study indicates that when people say they are not receiving enough training, or that they are unsure whether they are receiving enough training, they are right in about 75% to 85% of cases.

You can download the full report by clicking here.

 

Travel agents, suppliers and local economies have benefitted from an extremely prolonged period of growth over the last 8-10 years. But in the matter of a few months, two substantial surveys agree that leisure travel growth may be slowing.

READ ARTICLE

The seventh annual Hotels.com Chinese International Travel Monitor has revealed that Chinese millennials born after 1990 are pushing the boundaries of international travel, increasing their travel expenditure in the past year by a staggering 80 per cent to fund social media-influenced trips full of edgy experiences, high tech accommodation, exotic delicacies and taboo ticket-items.

Star-struck by global pop-culture, film and television (62 per cent) are now the main sources of inspiration for Chinese millennial travellers, playing a key role in attracting them away from Asian destinations, and to more far flung parts of the world for their thrills and frills.

Travel brag moments and selfies were a huge part of the Chinese millennial travel experience in 2017, with 63 per cent using the reverse camera angle to boost likes and build their social brand. While millennials were at the helm of social media influence and trends, the report found that no generation was free from its undeniable draw, with a third of the older generation reporting their travel decisions and behavior were influenced by their digitally-connected children.

READ ARTICLE