Lubezine Magazine Vol. 4 Lubezine Magazine Vol. 4 | Page 20

ADVERTISER’S FEATURE SPOTLIGHT Consumer choices lubricants survey – GFK T he Research industry in Kenya has been known more for the Opinion polls that seem to elicit as much support as criticism depending on what side of the political divide is favoured by the opinion polls results. Obviously, Lubezine is not changing its core focus from Lubricants business into politics! However, our interest was attracted to this particular firm due to a unique research project that they have started in Nairobi focusing on the Lubes business. We caught up the Managing Director, Mr. John Muthee (pictured left) to give us more insight into this one-of-a-kind industry survey. 1. Briefly tell us who GFK is. GfK is one of the world’s largest research companies. 11,500 GfK experts are working to discover new insights about the way people live, think and shop, in over 100 markets, every day. We are constantly innovating to use the latest technologies and the smartest methodologies to give clients the clearest understanding of the most important people in the world: their customers. That knowledge empowers GfK’s clients to make the right decisions, and position their businesses for the future. GfK is an acronym that stands for Growth from Knowledge and has its Headquarters based in Germany. We are proud of our German heritage and are proud to bring to Kenya “Research Made in Germany!” In Kenya, we have been present since 2006 from our Southern Africa office. In 2010, we set up a fully-fledged office handling research in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia. 2. What is GfK’s scope of Research in Kenya? GfK in Kenya was set up to with a focus on tracking sales of electronic consumer goods from Retail outlets. These products include Mobile phone handsets, TVs, Refrigeration and IT equipment. This research was driven by multinational companies manufacturing the above products. 18 In 2012, we made a conscious decision to start tracking products that would address the needs of the local industries. We approached some players in these sectors and undertook to understand whether there were any information gaps that existed that GfK had the capacity to address. After a series of meetings we selected Paints, Cement, Tyres and Lubricants and sectors that had information gaps that we had the capacity to address locally. In February and March of this year, we undertook a study to understand the product flow of the above products from the manufacturers to the end consumers and identified channels that we believed that the largest gaps existed. Interestingly, we found out that there were no universally agreed upon facts with regards Lubezine Magazine | July-September 2012