Shaping the Future: A Comprehensive Guide to Market Research

We are glad to announce the creation of a new rubric on the AmCham where our members can share their expertise and contribute articles on the topic of their choice. This month we are pleased to publish an article on the importance of market research proposed by AmCham member, Siham Malek .

Siham Malek is a market research expert with over 20 years of experience in the industry and is well-versed in a variety of research methodologies and techniques. She has a deep understanding of consumer behavior, market trends, and industry dynamics, which she uses to provide valuable insights to clients.

Throughout her career, Siham has worked with a wide range of clients in different industries, including Telecom, FMCG, Finance, Travel, and others. She has helped companies of all sizes to identify opportunities, understand their customers, and make informed business decisions.

In addition to her being the Managing Director of Integrate Kantar affiliate Maghreb, one of the leading Insights and Data providers worldwide, Siham is an active member of the Marketing and Market Research society in Morocco: Siham is the president of AMISE “Association Marocaine des Instituts de Sondages et d’Etudes” and is an active member of the Data & Digital Club of “Les Impériales."

Learn How to Shape the Future with Market Research

Are you curious to know the different types of market research and how they can help you make informed decisions about the future of your business? Do you want to have some tips on how to get the most out of your market research efforts? Buckle up and get ready to explore!

What Is Market Research?

Simply put, market research is the process of gathering information about a particular market. This can be done in a variety of ways, but typically involves surveys, focus groups, interviews and/or observational studies. The goal of market research is to understand consumer needs and wants, as well as the competitive landscape. Armed with this information, businesses can make more informed decisions about everything from product development to marketing strategy.

Understand Your W’s before starting your Market Research

Before you can even think about conducting market research, you need to understand your Ws. Why do you need to understand more? What are you trying to find out? Who is your target market? When do you need the information? And what are you willing to do with the information you collect?

These questions will help you narrow down your research focus and guide your data collection efforts. Surveys, traditional methods such as focus groups and interviews, and advanced analytics techniques like machine learning and predictive modeling can all give you valuable insights into the current market landscape and inform your decision-making. You can also fuse multiple data sources together to get a comprehensive view of customer behavior.

Traditional Market Research Methods

There are a variety of traditional market research methods that can help you get the information you need. Surveys and focus groups are two popular methods that can give you insights into your customers' thoughts and opinions. Surveys are a great way to measure and quantify. It’s the best way to collect quantitative data from a large number of people. You can ask a variety of questions, ranging from demographic information to their thoughts on your product or service for example. This data can help you understand your target audience, and quantify their needs and expectations.

Focus groups are useful for getting qualitative data. This involves gathering a group of people together to explore and deep dive into specific subjects. It helps you go beyond the numbers into understanding the patterns, the why, and the how.

Advanced Analytics and Data Fusion Techniques

Another great method to harvest your insight is to leverage advanced analytics and data fusion techniques. Advanced analytics can help you gather extensive amounts of data, gain insights that can uncover new possibilities, and understand your customers better. Data fusion takes those insights to the next level by combining multiple sources of customer data into a single package for a clearer picture. This allows you to get an even deeper understanding of why customers interact with your company or product in certain ways and how it affects their decisions. By leveraging these sophisticated methods, you can make sure that your decisions are based on real and tangible insights—ultimately helping you shape the future of your business, products, or services.

Model Building and Forecasting

Knowing your ‘why’ is only the beginning. If you want to shape the future, then you need to be able to understand and anticipate how markets will evolve. This is where modeling and forecasting come in. With modeling, you create a predictive simulation of how a product, service, or entire market reacts to different conditions or events. This can help you understand what could happen in the future and could potentially prevent financial losses or capitalize on trends that may be hard to interpret without models.

Forecasting is another important part of market research, as it involves predicting what customers are likely to do next using statistical data methods such as time series analysis, regression analysis, time-weighted trends, and many others. Forecasts can be used for budgeting purposes and to identify market opportunities ahead of competitors. By combining these two techniques with traditional market research methods such as surveys and interviews, you can gain an even better understanding of how to shape the future with informed decisions!

By arming yourself with the right market research techniques and getting the critical Ws clarified in advance, you’ll be in a much better position to make decisions that will ultimately shape the future!

To conclude, getting acquainted with the Ws is the first step to taking advantage of all that this valuable process has to offer. Surveys, traditional MR methods, advanced analytics, data fusion, and modeling are all great tools that, when used together, can help you shape the future with informed decisions!

Contact Siham Malek at: [email protected]