Market research activities and methods

Role of market research in organizations is changing as a result of the ability to more finely segment markets, understand customers' unmet needs, and gain greater insight into the trends impacting a company's products or services.

Specifically in the areas of pricing analysis, new product development, segmentation studies, and customer loyalty programs analysis, both the techniques developed to complete these analyses and the software used to manage the process are changing at a rapid rate. Market research's function in an organization is to use these techniques, sof5tware applications, and proven methodologies for completing both primary and secondary research to support organizations' business objectives and strategies. It is the intent of this paper to define how the market research organization functions in the organization I work for, evaluating and critiquing its main strategies used for supporting and enhancing objectives and strategies.

Main Conclusions

The following are the major conclusions from this critique of the market research function in the organization I work for:

First, there is a highly project-oriented approach to running market research, focusing on increasing knowledge of new product requirements the majority of the time, and only a small percentage of total activity dedicated to understanding the customer base.

Second, the company's commitment to Voice of the Customer (VoC) programs, while more qualitative and open-ended than quantitative in nature, has lead to the development of the best new products and services in the last five years, and also solidified relationships with key customers.

Third, pricing analysis studies are becoming increasingly important and critical to our company, and as a result there is an increasing emphasis on using both statistical techniques and software applications to better understand pricing preferences between markets and segments.

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