Cheaper, Faster, Better: How Technology Delivers ROI to Insight Organizations by Ryan Smith of Qualtrics - Presented at Insight Innovation eXchange North America 2013
The most profitable and visionary companies understand the importance of gathering data to make knowledgeable business decisions and to gain competitive advantage. The trend towards enterprise DIY research is helping market research professionals gather insights faster, cheaper, and better. This session will highlight the ROI of using real-time insights by leveraging cross-enterprise solutions to make better, more timely business decisions.
Cheaper, Faster, Better: How Technology Delivers ROI to Insight Organizations by Ryan Smith of Qualtrics - Presented at Insight Innovation eXchange North America 2013
Thank you Lenny…Great intro.Excited to be here. Excited to speak about technology. At Qualtrics we really are a tech company. We are not a services company… we don’t want to be. We have MR partners who do a better job at that than we do. We create technology to automate. Technology is moving fast…. You know what I love about it… Everyone can take it at their own pace…. I feel that in the research/insights world we have been taking it our own pace for a while know…. But things are ready to speed up…. In fact, the pace of MR innovation is moving at 10Xs the speed it was when we started, but so is technology…. And it’s just starting to get fun. UBER example 85 year old grandma and Facebook example3 year old iPad whizQualtrics tech exampleTo start, I wanted to talk a little about Qualtrics beginnings and tell our story because we have a pretty unique view
Qualtrics started in the academic marketDo we have any academics in the room…We love you and we hate you: Wow! Those early days were hardAcademics were only ones willing to push the boundaries of online researchIn early 2000 I convinced a professor at Kellogg to start running projects on line… She then took it up to Wharton… I remember giving it away to Wharton and for 3 years no one did anything. They now have over 1,000 users and we have over 400,000 academicsAt first it was like pulling teeth, but now university wide use has just explodedSo, thanks to academia, you were our early investorsSo we literally stayed in our basement for 5 years… Today, we have 95 of top 100 business schools1300 universities
In 2007-2008 everything in the world changed… it changed in our world as well…. It was weird, because as the recession hit our business started growing…and I wore a pin “Say no to the recession”What was interesting, people started graduating college and taking this with them… BYOT… It worked… We didn’t have a marketing team. The thought of going to a conference like this was crazy because we barely had enough money to keep our servers up. But as we grew and organizations started to understand the importance of leveraging data to make the right decisions, rather than throwing mud at the wall to see what would stick, our business started to explode
In 2012 alone, we sent out 1 BILLION surveys to constituents around the world – this was more than the prior 9 years combined.This is really extraordinary! And if you peel back the onion, you can see that the specific research teams and individuals conducting research has literally exploded. Why am I telling you about this?
Because we have over 50,000 research projects going on in Qualtrics right now and only 400 people in this room. But we are not researchers…We are insight seekers!!!!!! And we have all of these insight seekers around us. And with the expansion of insight seekers, we see this huge push to call data collection DIY…I hate that term! It’s technology. I’ve never heard someone say that LinkedIn or Facebook is a DIY tool…or Gmail or Twitter.Technology is DIY! The goal is to automate.But these insight seekers comes from all industries, in every job function imaginable…they’re HR managers, best-selling authors, even Girl Scouts…Insight seekers range from 1-2 person teams to huge organizations with 8K users….What are they doing… Voice of the customerMarket researchCustomer loyalty/NPSEmployee feedbackAcademic researchProduct/concept TestingWebsite feedback…any number of things. But one thing is for sure organizations NEED real-time business insight: They need to “Be Right”, to be more competitive, more efficient and more profitable.Faster insights mean better, more timely decisionsIt’s just a fact. Organizations that "Compete on Insight" push out ahead of the competition. But why?Because accurate insights drive results that greatly impact the profitability of organizations of all kinds and all sizes. Businesses that develop strategies based on data enhance customer satisfaction and retention, revenue, and ultimately profitability. Data not only helps organizations to be right, it helps them to win in today’s hyper-competitive markets.So, let’s talk a little bit about technology and how it pertains to market research.In the market research world, we’re experiencing a transformational shift, and technology is leading the charge.
So, we can see that for many reasons today’s researchers are feeling the pressure to quickly get their hands on accurate, actionable insights to make informed decisions. Not just any decisions—the RIGHT decisions. Talk about Eric Schmidt…Pull out dollar bill….ask audience to do same…We’re all trying to collect data, but if you peel back the onion one more level you can see that people/organizations just want to be RIGHT.The problem? The most important data is the data that you don’t have. And it’s hard to get your hands on the right data when it’s segmented and siloed.Talk about the insight seekers again…the problem with the way that we’re currently operating is that we have insight seekers gather information in different formatsSiloes, missing information, customers are over-surveyed, one hand not speaking to the other.But, if Eric Schmidt is right and data is the most important, then researchers should have the most important seat at the table. It’s clear that employees at all levels need to quickly obtain data, translate that data into insights, and then share and act on those insights across organizations. With technology, we can get everybody on same team.And this is problem worth addressing, as Gartner points out in a recent research note. (Applying Best Practices to Customer Satisfaction Surveys, Jim Davies, Published: 7 May 2013)Poorly constructed customer satisfaction surveys have low response rates and yield little insight.So, while those departments are likely pretty content with their newfound ability to collect data on anything at anytime, we can see that there are some inherent issues with this approach.The problem? Again…Data ends up siloed within and across departments, all in varying formats.Feedback from one customer could be in 10 or more different places.Unless this information can be readily accessed, shared, and assessed, it loses much of its strategic punch. Interestingly, as Forrester recently indicated in a report, many market insights pros still lack the software tools needed to evolve. (Empower Market Insights With The Right Technology, by Richard Evensen, February 8, 2013)Why?Because many still rely on more manual manipulation of data. This limits researchers agility, efficiency, and ability to provide insights.In fact, another Forrester study revealed (Q2 2011 Global Market Insights VoC Research Online Survey.) that automated data management and engaging delivery tools are still rarely used. In addition, Forrester found that less than 10% of market insights professionals have automated the management of customer feedback data via an online portal that stakeholders can access.So, this is a major problem. As 21st century businesses or organizations, we must utilize technology to compete. Period. It’s an imperative. But, how can we do this in MR?A single survey platform…it’s critical to consolidate tech platforms, to more easily share data…there aren’t firewalls between internal departments.
I subscribe personally to the “Bring me Data” motto.No more important seat than the professional insight seeker.Adobe analytics marketing acquired OmnitureOracle acquired RNOW 1.4 Billion$2.5B acquisition of ExactTarget, a data-driven digital marketing platform, by Salesforce. Platform integration is keyTell story of customer selling credit scores. VOC data, funneled into CRM system…basic power of integration
In the FIRST INNING of market research, paper and pencil ruled, focus groups and face-to-face interviews were the norm, and the research process was long and laborious and could often be fraught with errors.The perception? Market Research was SLOW, ISOLATED, STAGNANT, and EXPENSIVE. But with technology this perception can, and is, changing.I think we can all agree that technology is a beautiful thing, especially when it makes our lives easier. And we all understand that organizations need to stay on top of the latest tech innovations to remain competitive. The reasons are obvious. Technology helps us to be more informed, productive, and connected. We can all probably think of an example where technology has impacted our lives. For example, just last week I flew into San Francisco and as we landed I pulled up UBER on my cell phone and ordered up a car. By the time I grabbed my bag, deplaned and headed out, the car was already paid for and waiting for me. I never even had to stand in line for a cab at the airport. Brilliantly simple idea fueled by technology. Let’s look another example. Square. So, if you do take a cab often then you’ve probably noticed that many cabbies are processing your credit card with this service. A small plug-in card reader that works directly with a cellphone to process credit card payments for any number of reasons. Again, a technology-fueled innovation that is disrupting the way small companies do business by making it easy to take payments anytime, anywhere. So, if technology is transforming the way that we live our lives, conduct our business, and make decisions then it’s no wonder that technology is also transforming the world of market research. And this brings me to the SECOND INNING in Market Research and how technology has emerged to disrupt traditional research techniques. This 2nd inning really began once offline surveys were moved online, and a latent demand was exposed. Today’s online survey tools have enabled anyone and everyone to collect data about all sorts of things—even non-market researchers. Again, we’re seeing this everyday at Qualtrics, as evidenced by the 1Billion surveys sent using the Qualtrics platform alone last year. Our business exploded at exactly the time that this surge in DIY was born. The fun is just getting started.Introducing the THIRD INNING in the market research technology transformation: An Enterprise platform: “A Single source of Truth”If you’re org is still running on 2005 platform then it’s time for a change.We’ve ripped down our systems and started over 5 times!Advances in database technologyThe way that people conduct research is changing.Insight seekers are emerging in every profession (marketing, HR, PMK)Strong argument that being first is better than being perfect.Orgs are doing it. Corralling insights to make improvements. To fully optimize the impact that data and insights can have on an organization, a single enterprise-wide survey/data collection platform is critical. Technology is supposed to make our lives easier. Standardizing on a single insight repository allows market researchers to focus on data analysis and making strategic recommendations to their stakeholders, instead of focusing on how to collect the insights and wondering where all the data is hiding. We must consolidate the number of sources (mandate one enterprise survey platform) so that decision makers can share and collaborate on consistent dataBut to do this we have to standardize on a SINGLE, UNIFIED DATA COLLECTION PLATFORM.This fuels the RIGHT decisionsAnd it all comes back to technology.
CONCLUSION/WRAP UP>Change to MR technology and its impact on insights is well underway, but we’re still only in the third inningEmbrace these changes. Allow them to make your life easier, your work better, your decisions RIGHT.Let the technology hold it all togetherWith one enterprise-wide technology platform, it’s easier to get everybody on the same team, working toward the same goal and making decisions based on insights from the same data sets.And that is a truly beautiful thing.Thank you.