The Hindu Business Line : Net-deep and market-wise

FOR those intent on leveraging the Internet for "Market measurement and consumer insight", Rob Monster and Raymond Pettit have answers in "Market Research in the Internet Age". Such as:

Four forces in the business world have combined to drive home the importance and viability of investing in building a web-based, technology-enabled research and delivery channel. These are - rise of e-business, analytical CRM/ Insight delivery, industry convergence, and desk-top knowledge management.

Web- and data-mining tools handle extremely large quantities of data - too large for a human analyst to consider - and search for patterns, associations, and relationships. Increasingly, data- and web-mining are being integrated into a larger process termed "knowledge discovery in databases".

If you were to study 50 different operational/ analytical CRM models in existence today, not one would mention or include "market research" as a function of the system. Either CRM thinkers or developers aren't aware of the importance of the market research function, or they don't think it's a real necessity.

As VoIP (Voice-over Internet Protocol) networks continue to evolve, it will be possible to make phone calls from an interviewer's computer to any phone line in the world, based on local telephone rates. Thus, the cost of a connection with an Internet Service Provider (ISP) will increase slightly to accommodate an additional fee for a networked Internet Telephone Service Provider (ITSP) connection.

A logical next step for the market research industry would be to pursue the objective as the primary provider of business information; that is, enable the collection, analysis, and dissemination of results and insights across the continuum of information available within and without the corporation, and delivered directly to the client via the EIP (Enterprise Information Portal) or through a KM (Knowledge Management) system as needed.

The business information industry, as it is now called, readily supports so-called "scientific data-collection and delivery houses" - in deference to their statistical heritage - that carry on with time-honoured tracking studies.

And the final test of research would be how it impacts the bottomline - not in the long run but in the short.

(Book courtesy: Landmark. www.landmarkonthenet.com)