WMC' 14 | Research Summit takes a look @ changing dynamics of research!

A full packed three day conference, World Marketing Congress 2014, (WMC’14) celebrated the theme; Looking forward, looking back: drawing on the past to shape the future of marketing this year at Mumbai’s Taj Lands End from 13th November to 15th November 2014.

As organizations across the globe demand more from their insights groups than ever before, what will your role be? Data is now a commodity. The new value proposition for the Market Research community is about uncovering real insights that will create new value. You have to tie it all together through storytelling and build a compelling business case for meaningful action.
Keeping in mind all the above mentioned points, The Market Research Summit 2014, under the World Marketing Congress 2014, took place on 14th November 2014 at Taj Lands End where research’s ability to drive innovation, inspire change and deliver results were discussed.

One of the sessions during the research summit grabbed the most of the eye-balls was the “Incite Insightful Insights” which involved the eminent speakers like Sandeep Arora, Sr. Vice President & Global Head (Research & Analytics Solutions); Datamatics Global services limited; Sumeli Chatterjee, Head - Marketing, Media & Insights, MTV India and MTV Indies; Prerna Jha, Insights Director, IMRB International; Thomas George, Managing Director, D’Well Informatics & Services Pvt Ltd; Sanjana Thakkar, Vice President –Global Market Research, Brandscapes Worldwide; Rohit Kumar, AVP Marketing (Research), Max Life Insurance Co. Ltd and R Balasubramanian, Consultant and Head CIMR, Godfrey Philips India Ltd.

The conversation started with a simple question, ‘What is an Insight’? While Sumeli Chatterjee believes that Insight is the base level of truth, R Balasubramanian believed that Insight is the first step to start a research and one can tweak insight depending upon the thoughts of his/her research agenda.  Balasubramanian said, “Research has a lot of limitations and more importantly defining a research quotient and a business quotient is very critical. At the same time it is important to know the fact that Ideas can be generated but not an Insight. If Insights are driven by top management then it is a plus point for the researcher and the organization.”

Sanjana Thakkar said, “Insight is a piece of truth on which a research rides. Research needs a reference and the Insight if used correctly can help as a reference too”. 
Taking the conversation to ‘Insight is science’, Sumeli Chatterjee said, “Insight can also be drawn from our daily life and thereafter the research can be conducted. I believe that finding an insight is an art of science.”

Continuing to Sumeli’s point, Prerna Jha said, “Collecting Data and insights both are sciences and Research is a combination of both art and science.” Thomas George believes that Insight is an intuition and to test an insight one can generalize qualitively and quantitively.  Also towards the end of session the speakers felt very strongly that the data collection tools have changed drastically and so have the thought of Insight.

Evidence matters and these awards are proof positive of the power of research. Winning an award is high-profile testimony to effective strategy, formidable imagination and rich expertise. We invite entries from agencies and clients, owners and employees, creatives and technicians. If you’re in business to create evidence that makes a real difference in commerce and society – these are the accolades worth winning. With such a fruitful session, the conference came to an end. The conference also saw participation of eminent names like Piyush Mathur, President (India Region), Nielsen; Leonie Vorster, Chief Executive Officer, Southern African Marketing Research Association; Aarti Bharadwaj, Vice President - Analytics Centre of Excellence, Starcom MediaVest Group; Jaideep Mehta, Vice President and General Manager - South Asia , IDC and Fatima El-Khatib, Regional Manager AMEA, Haystack International.