Companies are continually searching for ways to stand out from the crowd and capitalise on new technology to promote themselves. What’s clear is that the mobile phone, the device sitting in everyone’s pockets, is vitally important for the future of marketing. Firms need to go where their audience is, and their audience, invariably, is on their smartphone – be it for browsing the internet, sending an SMS, making a call, using a social media app, taking photos or any of the many other multitude of functions these ubiquitous devices can perform.

A quick downfall for many companies is competition. Even if your company or brand is offering an amazing product, if the competition does it better, than your product might die out. Knowing who your competitors are and understanding how you compare to them in the consumer's eye is a crucial part in creating a great marketing campaign.

In my other post, "LinkedIn Profile Tips for Market Researchers," I outlined how to best utilize LinkedIn as a Market Researcher and provided tips to strengthen your profile. In this post I’m going to take it a step further and outline ways to effectively network on LinkedIn as a professional within the market research industry.

The World Wide Web is an enormous place, and it can be a bit challenging to figure out how to fit in and where. I’m sure it comes as no surprise that finding a place to fit in on social media can be very beneficial. An incredible 92% of marketers indicated in a 2014 survey that social media is important for their business. LinkedIn can play an integral role in the market research world, and you may be wondering how. So, here’s my outline on how to use LinkedIn for networking.

Corn, Modified & Clean Label Starches

The starch processing industry has transformed into a bioprocessing industry to meet the demands of a multitude of market segments, such as food, industrial, bioplastics and biochemicals-based renewable sources, with highly efficient and sophisticated biochemical and engineering processes that produce a multitude of products from corn, one of the most significant crops in world. 

The Internet of Things (IoT) remains largely an amorphous construct with many different meanings to many different constituents. One thing that is clear, however, is that it represents a next generation set of technologies, systems, networks, platforms, devices, solutions and services that will transform virtually every industry vertical. Those industries that are not transformed by IoT are also those that are destined for significant contraction. IoT will also transform consumer lifestyles and lead to a new world of possibilities in terms of how people view virtual objects and interact between virtual and physical assets.

According to Bloomberg, about 80% of entrepreneurs' business ventures fail within the first 18 months. Whether or not these entrepreneurs work to turn things around, I’m not sure. But, what I do know is that once a business begins the downward spiral, there are ways that you can direct your business back to the right track, one of which, and potentially the most crucial, is market research.

China is one of the world’s fastest growing economies, housing a fifth of the global population and one of the largest healthcare markets around the world. Along with sustained economic and population growth, as well as an aging population, the Chinese healthcare market has maintained an annual average growth rate above 16% since the1990’s. In 2014, the total value of medical devices in the Chinese healthcare market reached RMB 259.5 billion (approx US$41.8 billion). Imported medical devices made by overseas and multinational companies account for about a half. Many high-tech and high-valued medical devices, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) equipment and computed tomography (CT) equipment, are almost monopolized by GE, Siemens, Philips and other overseas and multinational companies.

Custom market research offers solutions tailored to individual business needs, so each customized market research project will be different. Structure and timing depends on a number of key elements, including complexity of project objectives, determined size of primary research components, difficulty in recruiting target participant segments, etc. Though a research company may have experience conducting research in a specific market, it is important to bear in mind that each project is tailored to a specific business need and is, therefore, unique in its scope and deliverables. The fluid process of custom allows for changes and “tweaks” to improve the output as information is collected.

The United States and Europe dominate the market research industry with global revenues exceeding $40 billion. These research firms make up almost 5,000 companies in the US and generate over $15 billion in revenue here in the states.

Within this multi-billion dollar industry, there have been credibility concerns over the years. For example, back in 2013, The Globe and Mail, a leading Canadian online news source, pointed to botched political polls from a British Columbian campaign in their article entitled, “When pollsters get it wrong: The high cost of lost credibility.”

Organization's views on market research vary from company to company. Factors, such as the corporate culture, sales revenue, and overall marketing strategy, can determine the budget allocated for market research. For most companies, market research is known to play an important role in pivotal business decisions; yet, for some companies, the need doesn't always match the budget available.