Esomar Best Of India 2012: Met the challenges of changing demands

The increase of sophisticated technologies and online advances has had a huge impact on businesses, society and more specifically on the research industry. INdianNOVATION explored these developments and discussed the opportunity for the industry to play an active role in the successful application of these tools by business.

 

Esomar Best Of India 2012 was held at Mumbai in early July 2012. Aptly called INdianNOVATION this workshop wherein Qualitative research and meeting the challenge of changing demands were discussed and it  began with the opening and introduction to the programme by Mr. Pravin Shaker, Founder, The Social catalyst, Kreator-In-chief , Krea and one of the Esomar Council Members Pravin Shekar has been in the research domain for the past 1.5 decades and continues to contribute to market research in various avatars: entrepreneur, technologist, research-evangelist and speaker. He heads two entities: 'krea', an India-centric panel research firm and 'The Social Catalyst', a non-profit trust aimed at professionalising the work of NGOs. In regular demand as a speaker, Pravin has presented papers and chaired discussions at several conferences. As an ESOMAR Council member, he has been working towards spreading the use of technology in research, increasing engagement levels amongst practitioners and spearheading the movement for making market research a career of choice for students.

 

Pravin Shaker said that Esomar is a non profit body and international indicative working towards the propagating research business standard guidelines. He said that mostly international conferences are attended by top management or by those who are nearby to the venue due to budgetary and time constraints. The other option would be to take the conferences to the audience. The basic idea he said was to bring international speakers and award winning presenters to a place where it would be easy for people to attend. He also said that since boundaries are growing a lot more people need to be aware as to what research is and what are the standards. Regarding response he said that about 250-260  people have attended which indicates a hunger for knowledge. Plans are on to involve students and young researchers and train them accordingly. They can learn something new and try to experiment. The last section was about failure which according to him is fun. He said that failure encouraged one to get up and try out a different thing which was fun.He said that he was on a personal mission to hep people make market research as a carrier of choice and  make it a glamorous market research and the only way to do this would be to showcase the ground level work that is happening. With regard to category he said that they are trying to make it customize on the clients demand when they come up with qualitative and quantitative approach.

 

Govindraj Ethiraj is the former Founder-Editor in Chief of Bloomberg UTV, a 24-hourbusiness news service launched out of Mumbai in 2008. He is currently a Fellow of The Aspen Institute, Colorado. He spoke about India’s Next 300 million Consumers and how identity and linkages can expand the Marketplace.

 

Also discussed at this workshop was the topic Innovative Approaches-Digital. The introduction was done by Sandeep Arora, Senior VP and Business Head, Datamatics Global Services, Esomar representative for India.

 

Betty Adamou from Gaming thru Research ,UK spoke about the art of researching through gaming. Betty Adamou  is currently Founder & CEO of Research Through Gaming, UK and was previously UK Account Manager for Netherlands-based software company, Nebu. She has qualitative and quantitative project management experience derived from working for market research agencies and panel suppliers in the past.

 

Malte Friedrich –Freksa of YOC Germany discussed the Mobile’s emerging role in data collection. Malta Friedrich-Fresha began his research experience while studying psychology at the Humboldt University Berlin, where he wrote his diploma dissertation for DaimlerChryslerSince 2003, he has served as Head of Market Research at YOC, one of Europe’s leading Mobile Marketing companies. Malte is specialised in Online and Mobile Research with an emphasis on modern data analysis.

 

The next slot was reserved for Kalyan Karmakar from TNS India who  spoke on Market Research and Online Communities. He has more than 13 years of experience in qualitative and quantitative research and in account planning. He began his career in qualitative research in IMRB and later headed the Automotive Research Practice of IMRB Mumbai and the Financial Services IPG in The Nielsen Company, Mumbai. He has worked in FCB Ulka Advertising in strategic planning and currently heads the Digital Qualitative Research Practice at TNS India and the Qualitative Practice at TNS Mumbai. He has a keen interest in society and culture and has presented papers in ESOMAR and MRSI conferences. According to him Facebook, Twitter are a big part of the Consumer’s life these days. Earlier we used to think that it was only for the younger generation but now everyone uses it and people from small towns too are influenced by it. He said that his paper was about how social media could be used for research and how it can be integrated with day to day living. He also added that there are issues with social media such as it cannot reach everyone as connectivity is still low in India. He said that they are trying to integrated social media with face to face conventional research, therefore they are trying to reach consumers at various levels. He said that presently acceptance level is higher and more clients are using social media.

 

John Kearon, Brain Juicer UK spoke on the topic of Digital characters. The topic of discussion was ‘A living, breathing, online soap opera for insight generation. This was followed by 60 seconds presentations by Fast Track.

 

Another very interesting topic discussed at this workshop was Innovative Approaches – Neuroscienc where latest insights from Consumer Neurosciences was discussed by Caroline Winnett, Chief Marketing Officer and Co Founder NeuroFocus, USA . According to her research every second, the human brain is taking in 11,000,000 bits of information coming from our eyes, hearing, touch, tactile and spatial sensations. Our conscious brain –that part of thinking in which we are aware of thinking – can only process, at best, 40 bits of information per second. All the rest, about 99.99%, is processed subconsciously. The challenge for any marketers is obvious – “How do I get into that 40 bits of consciously processed information?” Also if people do not have access to all sources of their decisions and behaviours, then they can’t tell us why they do what they do. Hence she said that it was important to find out the secret of what people really want and need.

 

The topic of BIG DATA was introduced by Mr. Partha Rakshit, Consultant, Partha Rakshit Associates India.The other speakers with regard to this topic were Girish Venkatchalia, IBM. He spoke about how BIG data is likely to impact the MR industry. Also shown was A BIG data qualitative road movie by Sven Arn , H.T.P Germany.

 

Other speakers at the workshop included Mr. Raj Sharma  Co-Founder and President Global Majestic , MRSS. and Mr. Shivanand Shenoy , Senior Director , Client servicing, MRSS.

 

Raj Sharma said that Esomar has always been the soul body for the market research. Asia is presently in focus since last five to six years. His observation at the workshop was that what most of the speakers spoke reflected the change in the market research company. Survey days are over. New technologies are changing the market research , he said. Being at the top level Esomar has tied up with many international specialists and their services are also available on MRSS India.com. He further went on to say that association with specialist like pharmaceutical research are also foreseen in the future.

 

Shivanand Shenoy spoke about partnership sponsoring the event. He said that sponsorship is a little bit of networking. The industry has fragmented over the last few years. Three to four agencies and others who provide services to these top agencies have given an opportunity to meet up with everyone in the industry. This also helps in outsourcing people.  With regard to growth in research he said that due to technology there are more ways to do research now by meeting and  finding out data which will help ultimately help growth in the industry.

 

Another very interesting topic at this workshop was ‘The Paradox Of Success’ and why we need to experiment-fail- learn and repeat more than ever!  A frank discussion on the trials and tribulations from a couple of company owners who too are human and make mistakes was conducted. The moderator was Pravin Shaker and the panelists were John Kearon and Betty Admou.

 

The Esomar workshop and programmes were concluded with a summary and closing speech by Partha Rakshit , Consultant, P.R.Associates.

 

The event was a great success and  and perfect for managers and younger members of the MR industry. It helped them to take advantage of the unique training opportunity with international and local speakers to connect and gain further skills and exposure to international concepts, all without travelling outside India!