CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – September 3, 2010 – As the pace of global competition quickens, organizations are turning to their market research groups to keep up. Effective market research departments build influence within their organization by using customers, markets and competitors as reference points to help leaders with critical decisions, according to research from benchmarking leader Best Practices, LLC.
Best-in-class market research groups are able to deliver forward-looking insights and recommendations, in part, because their leaders effectively manage workloads, according to the research. More than 60 percent of the firms participating in the study annually manage 20 or fewer projects per market research professional.
The report, “Developing the High-Performance Market Research Function,” contains more than 400 metrics and 70 best practices gleaned from 85 companies across 20 industries. The report is available online with a complimentary excerpt at http://www.best-in-class.com/rr866.htm
Market research managers and executives across all industries can use this report to compare their operations in terms of structure, project management productivity, investment per staff member and market research strategy. The findings are based on surveys and interviews with 90 market research professionals at 85 companies, including AstraZeneca, Bayer, Eli Lilly, FedEx, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Wyeth and Xerox.
“This research links insights with action items,” said Chris Bogan, chief executive officer at Best Practices, LLC. “Consider this: 70 percent of the companies in the study use a decentralized market research structure and yet often don’t provide training for the skills that make cross-functional decentralized structures work.”
Download the report excerpt online at http://www.best-in-class.com/rr866.htm to view sample best practices and performance metrics.
The study shows how leading companies:
- Build influence for business decisions through market research -- This starts with your staff. One market research leader hires experienced business strategy consultants to instruct market researchers on how to synthesize data and present findings in a format that has the most impact for senior management decisions
- Enhance market research processes -- High-performing market research organizations develop processes and job descriptions to better integrate marketing, CI and market research analysts together for efficiency and better insights.
- Develop market research staff and culture -- More than 50 percent of respondents reported providing 1-3 weeks of annual training to their market research professionals.
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