The battle for research automation

Lucas Hulsebos – CEO easy2survey

On different conferences and in different blogs I read about the increasing awareness and attention for research automation. If we look at the bi-annual findings of the GRIT report, we see that research automation is seen as one of the game changers in research.

A new playing field

Interestingly enough, this is linked closely to the need for research that supports agile work processes. And as we all know, there are hardly any good alternatives for agile work processes. Automation makes research more agile and that is exactly what we need.

If we do a quick round on the possibilities for agile research, we see that a lot of companies step into this relatively new market. Companies that come from different directions, each using their own strength. In the figure below you can see an overview by Insight Platforms which illustrates all the new initiatives.

For technical companies this is a new playing field and a way to extent their services. They are organised around technical solutions. If they can use the same technical principles, these companies could be very successful.

The participants

As you can spot in the overview, there are already lots of companies who are offering standardised product, which can be divided into 3 groups:

1. First off, we have the more technology driven companies who have started with disrupting the field of market research with their platform solutions. As you can see, these types of companies have received significant funding which allows them to build large sales teams and really push their marketing story to the wider audience.
2. The second group are panel companies, who were initially only selling online panels but are now also competing in this field.
3. In third, there are the traditional research agencies that launch new tools to support agile working and state that research can be done much faster than before.

The battle for speed and costs

If we zoom into the solutions each of the companies provide, we see an interesting battle. A battle that seems to focus on speed and costs. The biggest challenge however is that this focus on costs and speed creates a huge issue related to quality. A lot of the solutions that have been developed to be fast and agile turn out to be quick and dirty. Although quick and dirty is a term that is used a lot in research, it should never be the objective to neglect or ignore quality. Especially those companies that lack the methodological capacity to do research well, should not be in market research. The lack of methodological becomes visible in different aspects. Samples are not representative, questionnaires are not valid, and reports don’t show information, only data. So, this should be an easy win for the traditional research companies because they have the research knowledge. The truth however is not as good as you would expect. Even the traditional agencies focus too much on costs and speed and forget about quality by providing easy solutions without knowledge.

The winners

The companies that want to create an advantage in this new domain of research automation should meet the following principles:

1. Questionnaire development: forget about do it yourself solutions and tools. Create a good set-up based on valid principles and use tested and proven methodologies.
2. Sample selection: make sure that samples are representative by using smart combinations of panels and databases. Never rely on just the easy
3. Reporting: make sure a report is more than just the questionnaire with percentages. Dare to select and prioritise. Guidance and help come from the ability to select.

Based on these requirements I believe that the battle for research automation will be won by research agencies that are able to combine smart processes with high quality research skills. If not, research automation will become a trend that will fade away quickly. Which will be a huge loss.