Market research departments are
routinely asked to validate the worthiness of an idea, to test
new product or service concepts and to conduct customer
satisfaction surveys. Surprisingly, very little market research
is funded for the purpose of identifying unmet customer needs.
But it could be – and by doing so it would transform the market
research department into a proactive and strategic function
responsible for finding growth opportunities in core and
adjacent markets and discovering opportunities for new market
creation. Imagine the market research function reporting to
management on a quarterly basis as to what opportunities for
growth exist for the company? It can happen.
Some leading companies are already making this transformation –
but it is not easy. They often talk about 2 barriers that must
be overcome. First, making it happen requires that market
researchers become skilled in the technical aspects of
outcome-driven research. Sure the methods still involve
qualitative and quantitative research, but the inputs that are
collected and the methods used to prioritize them are very
different than the methods used when conducting traditional
research. Gaining a new skill set is critical to success.
Second, company executives must allocate the money that is
required to conduct this type of research. Traditionally,
executives hesitate to fund this type of research because it is
difficult to show an ROI on such research and unfortunately, the
methods that have been historically used to uncover unmet needs
have been riddled with error and were ineffective – leaving
executives with the impression that this type of research is a
waste of money. But that has changed. With proven methods and
valuable results, it is time for companies to readdress the
issue of funding such research.
