Ideas Prioritized, Faster than Ever
Posted by Jeffrey Henning on Wed, Oct 22, 2008
Yesterday, I described the traditional market-research process for large, corporate initiatives. Now imagine that, instead of conducting focus groups on as needed basis, the organization invested in establishing a research community instead. Once that community was in place, qualitative research could be conducted on an ongoing basis.
Whenever a business owner has a question, he or she can post it to a forum in the online community and can watch results as they come in. Additional insights can be used to help formulate questions for web surveys.
To achieve true quantitative results (remember quantitative research provides generalizability, where qualitative research provides context), the researcher cannot send the web survey to just community members. It needs to be sent to a representative sample of the key constituency, using either external panel or an enterprise feedback management system.
This new feedback life cycle can generate meaningful results in days, rather than months, weaving feedback into the everyday fabric of decision making. The Novartis case study illustrates how, once an online community is established, it can be used to “involve the customer in every decision”.
By compressing the feedback life cycle:
- You obtain deep insight into market drivers and stakeholder attitudes
- You get more timely, relevant information on trends and opportunities that are specific to your customers and prospects
- You gain ongoing competitive advantage by responding to changing market conditions more quickly
- You can precisely measure key business drivers
- You drive innovation
Tomorrow’s post: How this method unifies the yin and yang of market research.