Market researchers are pros at distilling data into conclusions that hopefully better inform their clients’ business decisions. Yet rarely does the industry hold up the same mirror to itself and how its practices are meeting its own changing future.

A new “Market Research Squared” report — market research about market researchers — in a bellwether sector does just that. Its results suggest conventional wisdom about a key market research community — and perhaps, the entire profession — is either wrong, or changing.

Companies turn to custom market research because they need specific answers in order to make critical business decisions. The problem is the way we’ve been forced to think about market research from the lens of a project, in large part, due to the way this research is and has been executed.  

By definition, market research projects are episodic in nature, rigid in question format, and take weeks and months to execute so as to deliver the insights they’re framed to address. Internal and external complexities exist to commission, source, and complete market research. Buyers often refer to the process as exhausting and expensive, and respondents find the survey length tedious and difficult to schedule during a busy day.