Research Applications
Monitoring IT Trends Over Time
Client Issue:
"We are undertaking lots of ad hoc studies addressing "hot buttons." This is costly, time consuming and inconsistent from study-to-study. We need a way of identifying new trends in advance of their becoming mainstream, and we need a way of monitoring development of markets among our customers and prospects on a global basis. We need to know if our strategies are working. We need to be able to insert questions on our "hot buttons" easily and quickly and have the results back rapidly. The data must be consistent and reliable, and we need RONIN to provide the strategic implications from the findings and recommend actions to achieve our overall objectives."
RONIN Philosophy:
RONIN has always believed in a continuous monitoring of markets. With such a rapidly moving marketplace, this allows short-term trends to be identified and acted on. As well, the longitudinal data collected allows forecasts of adoption rates for new similar products/services in the future. The concept of a core set of issues which are addressed uniformly over time coupled with an ability to insert fresh issues into the well-structured research program is fundamental to our philosophy. Again, we believe strongly that with our clients depending on global markets, trends should be monitored consistently in a global manner rather than just relying on data from a few countries. RONIN's centralized/global approach plays well to this philosophy.
The Project:
This project has been undertaken for many years by RONIN and involves a continuous telephone interviewing program into 22 countries with quarterly reporting of results. Stringent quota management is an essential part of the project as is weighting to ensure an accurate comparison at the country level. Questions reflecting new issues are introduced on a quarterly basis. The database of respondents also serves as a highly screened sample for "drilldown" quantitative and qualitative studies.
The Bottom Line:
The results of the study have become a fundamental aspect of management's market intelligence for the markets being addressed. Major decisions have been made based on the insights from the study and on subsequent "drilldown" studies.