Corporate Culture As A Strategic Risk MAL66:25 | Page 37

and learn more in-depth about customers, you can tailor customer experience, product, and marketing. It also allows businesses to anticipate market shifts and develop products or services that align with evolving consumer preferences.

Social market research is a great way to get data related to demographics, purchasing patterns, preferences, and other distinct categories that can be used in customer segmentation. Customers profiling and segmentation makes it easier for companies to sell their products and services as messaging is tailored to address the needs or interests of specific groups of customers. This allows for targeted innovation strategies to cater to each segment effectively.

Research is also essential in competitors’ analysis and helps companies effectively navigate the always-changing marketplace. By studying competitors’ advantages and disadvantages, market offerings as well as their tactics and market positioning brands can get insights on areas where innovation is lacking, providing opportunities to differentiation, hence gaining a competitive edge.

Before fully launching a new product, social and market research can be used to test concepts with potential customers. Concept testing helps explore various potential solutions to the problem and uncover the sweet spot of customer delight; so, then you can know where to invest costly resources and energy. This translates to business revenue and growth.

Integrating social listening tools and real-time data analysis can enable rapid feedback loops, allowing businesses to quickly adapt and iterate on innovative ideas.

Social market research has the power of maximizing the appeal of business innovations. This is even more apparent with the convergence of data points about operations, productivity, and socioeconomic factors. This convergence is a critical cog for streamlining and for developing data driven innovations.

One thing that needs attention is that social market research is only as good as the data they ' re based on. Yet, lag in getting actionable insights, lack of reliability, and siloed teams have plagued researchers, eroding confidence in data quality and increasing research costs.

This is why leading marketers are turning to Artificial Intelligence( AI). AIgenerated data is being humanized to make it more relevant, representative, and timely. It is the humanizing aspect that will determine innovation success.

According to Qualtrics ' 2024 research, 47 % of researchers globally use AI in their daily work, while 12 % have yet to combine the two.

New AI tools are changing market research by rapidly analyzing qualitative data from surveys, reviews, and focus groups, spotting trends and patterns faster than ever. When used effectively, these AI-powered tools unlock transformative insights quicker and at scales previously unattainable.

The rise of AI presents a ripe opportunity for businesses to rethink their social market research approach. Those who have scaled back or found traditional methods costly can now turn to AI-driven solutions for scalable impact, gaining an early advantage.

AI-driven market research is accessible to all, regardless of expertise. This levels the playing field and broadens its use across enterprises.

Businesses that fail to embed social market research in their innovation strategy end up shooting in the dark and wasting resources in bringing new products that may not appeal to consumers.

Without understanding consumer preferences, needs, and behaviors, businesses cannot develop products and services that are tailored to meet customer demands.

First, you need to define your research objectives and questions. Once you are clear about your goal of undertaking market research you will be able to gather focused and relevant data.

By using a combination of qualitative such as interviews, focus groups and quantitative research including surveys, data analysis one can gain a comprehensive understanding of the target market.

Businesses can also utilize advanced tools and technologies to collect and analyze data efficiently. This will allow for extraction of meaningful insights and make data-driven decisions.

Regular monitoring of market trends, customer preferences, and competitor behavior will help you stay ahead of the curve and adapt your innovation strategy accordingly.

Over the next five years, market research will undergo notable changes, driven by technological advancements, evolving consumer expectations, and an increased focus on data privacy.

Technologies leveraging AI will make data analysis more efficient, enabling us to extract insights faster and with greater precision. Despite these advancements, as researchers, our core responsibility remains to amplify the authentic voice of the customer, guided by ethical standards and respect for privacy.

This is why it is essential to continue upskilling to stay proficient in emerging tools and to uphold ethical integrity, ensuring insights reflect genuine consumer needs while building trust through transparent practices.

At Ipsos we are aware that pressure to increase the innovation success rate will intensify for the foreseeable future. That is why we have developed solutions that makes it practical for business to acquire insights that helps to reduce uncertainty, increase efficiency, and ultimately enhance the chances of innovation success in a competitive business landscape.

This means Ipsos’ clients can now continuously use data to decode innovation opportunities as they arise and effectively come up with consumer-centric business innovations.

By effectively leveraging social and market research, businesses can gain a deep understanding of customer needs and market trends, enabling them to identify opportunities for innovation and to develop products and services that truly resonate with their target audience, ultimately driving business success.

Enock Wandera is the Chief Client Officer at Ipsos Limited. You can commune with him on this and related matters on mail via: Enock. Wandera @ ipsos. com.