Impact of Technology on Market Research

This report analyzes the significant impact of technology on market research, highlighting advancements such as social media, online tools, and virtual reality. It discusses how these technologies enable businesses like ResMarket to gather reliable data efficiently, improving decision-making and consumer understanding. The report concludes that technology has revolutionized market research, making it faster, more accurate, and cost-effective.

IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON MARKET
RESEARCH
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The main aim of the report was to understand the impact of technology on the way
market research is made in the present competitive environment. In the present study, it was
analyzed that there has been the development of various technologies that can be used by the
companies in order to get reliable and informative data to estimate the needs and demands of
consumers in real time market conditions.
Technologies like social media, internet tools, websites, VR, wearable technologies and
biometrics have increased the scope of the collection of data. Businesses can not only reach a
large number of people in seconds, but they can also observe their behaviour in terms of
emotional sensitivity.
All these technologies can be used by ResMarket easily to provide the informative and
extensive results to their clients. It will help them to improve their brand image and will also
save their time, cost and dependencies on human resources.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Impact of Technology on Market Research.................................................................................3
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6
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INTRODUCTION
Market research in the words of Blackman, (2010) can be defined as the ways in which
information is gathered to know about the need and preferences of consumers. It is mostly done
by the businesses to access the viability of products and service which helps in the discovery of
target market and also record opinions to know the interest about the product. This particular
report has been prepared to understand the ways in which technology has impacted market
research by considering cases situation of ResMarket. The study will assist them in analyzing the
impact on technology by making use of appropriate literature and market examples.
MAIN BODY
Impact of Technology on Market Research
Market research is done for the purpose of data collection, integration and data analysis
to know the preferences of consumers and their consumption patterns. In the recent years, the
impact of technology and advancement on the way of doing market research has been changed in
a drastic manner. Till the last decade, most of the market research was done by collecting the
data face to face, by emails or rarely by phone. However, the introduction of the internet
completely changed the game and introduced online surveys, website visits, and many more
other technologies (Krishnan, 2011).
Social Media is one such discovery that has made the market research more viable and
easy to collect. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn are some websites which get lots of attractions from
users and allows the companies to gather the market data easily and with feasible cost.
ResMarket can use this medium to gather the data of customers and proposed target market
segment for their clients from millions of people in very less span of time. In the recent years,
communication has helped many businesses to grow by creating a more convenient relation
between them and consumers. Technologies like the internet and mobile-phones have affected
the ways in which companies communicate with people. Social media is considered to be one of
the key sources of the collection of data as audiences on these systems update their information
through respective profiles. Websites like Facebook makes it cost effective source for the
collection of data, and for ResMarket it is a most viable tool. It also allows the companies to
gather the data of even from niche consumers which are required for some special products
(McQuarrie, 2015).
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However, Spiekermann, (2012) argued that keeping track of the data collected from these
sources is unpredictable as a large number of population is available. People provide good data
over these websites with the help of online surveys, but data gathering becomes burdensome.
With the use of effective systems, analytics can target some specific areas of social media like
the special forum to get more insight about a particular topic.
There have also been the discoveries of various online tools which can be accessed online
by ResMarket in order to collect data. Websites such as Quia.com can be used to create the
online surveys, and same can be shared with millions of people via email, message, etc. The data
filled by these people get recorded and reaches to the company in real time.
Besides all these online tools there are some other advances in the technology which has
made the field of market research advanced. The futuristic tool in virtual reality is trending in the
market where companies can link up the subjects that are being observed to their operational
strategies (Teal, 2016). The use of this tool not only allows the companies to evaluate and
collect the data in the real scenario but also allows them to record emotions, reactions, etc.
The Internet has completely changed the life of people and also their approach towards
products and services consumed by them. This tool allows the companies to develop the new
products as per the needs and demands of consumers by integrating different services. All the
information that can help the company to understand the needs and preference of consumers can
be gathered by this platform in terms of online surveys and polls which provide a large amount
of data about people perception in very less cost.
Analytical data that is collected from the people is getting more and more accurate, and
market research is getting great benefits (Shugan, 2014). It is defining the new ways that are
helping businesses to measure the data accurately which is again evolving very quickly. Market
research data can be collected faster in an efficient and accurate manner by making use
information technologies. Market research companies with the help of internet are using open
end data in terms of their surveys and primarily researchers. All the results that are gathered are
sent for automatic processing in order to identify important keywords from surveys. Technology
allows the company to sort the data usage guide to use it in the best way possible. It is also
helping to gather the knowledge about the market trends and statistics of competitors while
keeping in view the bigger picture. Market research gets more relevant results, as this micro
research is combined with the macro research, to develop effective business strategies.
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The foremost purpose of market research is to improve the quality of product distribution
and to develop better decision making strategy (Von and Gassmann, 2012). It helps to solve the
existing issues in product marketing and provide the different opportunities in order to recognize
collect and analyze the information systematically and objectively. The trend now days is to do
the market research online because it has become quick and efficient method which is used by
lots of companies. Online research makes the complete use of the freedom of the internet in
terms of its flexibility and universality. With the use of technology, ResMarket can reach the
consumers at a global location without any limitation of time. It helps to get the direct response
by giving power to consumers to provide appropriate responses. The Internet has also helped to
improve the level of research performances and has allowed the businesses to reduce their
investment in humans and material resources (Trott, 2011). Many people voluntarily accept
these online surveys and answer questions seriously. It increases the accuracy levels in the
investigation analysis.
Advancement of technology is not just limited to the internet as some emerging
technologies like biometrics; GPS tracking has also been proved very effective. Biometric is the
automated identification which is made in terms of physical, physiological, etc., to store digital
templates (Deshpande and Zaltman, 2015). The biggest advantage that researcher gets through
biometric is that it allows them to analyze the emotional and subconscious response of
respondents.
Mobile phone market research has also evolved from sending the simple messages to
sending online surveys via applications like Whatsapp, Hike, etc. Other than this, different
wearable technologies like smart watches, band, etc. are also helping the researchers to collect
the market research data in real time (ATTIH, 2014).
All these technologies have improved the performance of market research with optimal
pricing that will allow ResMarket to collect the data and analyze it in most advanced manner.
CONCLUSION
From the report, it can be analyzed that technology has completely changed the game in
terms of market research. It has made this field fast, accurate, reliable and more informative
which can be used to predict the behaviour of consumers. ResMarket can use these technologies
to provide better results to their clients, and most of these technologies are cheap and affordable.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Blackman, I. (2010). Conducting market research using the Internet: the case of Xenon
Laboratories. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing. 19(3). pp.178-187.
Deshpande, R., & Zaltman, G. (2015). Factors affecting the use of market research
information: A path analysis. Journal of marketing research, 14-31.
Krishnan, R. (2011). Marketing Research. Cengage Learning.
McQuarrie, E. (2015). The Market Research Toolbox: A Concise Guide for Beginners. SAGE
Publications.
Shugan, S. (2014). The Impact of Advancing Technology On Marketing and Academic
Research. Marketing Science. 23(4). 69-75.
Spiekermann, U. (2012). The Rise of Marketing and Market Research. Springer.
Teal, R. (2016). Technology Changing Market Feasibility. Emerald Group Publishing
Limited. 8. 333 – 356.
Trott, P. (2011). The role of market research in the development of discontinuous new
products. European Journal of Innovation Management. 4(3). 117-126.
Von Zedtwitz, M., & Gassmann, O. (2012). Market versus technology drive in R&D
internationalization: four different patterns of managing research and
development. Research policy. 31(4). 569-588.
Online
ATTIH, O., (2014). THE ROLE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN MARKETING
RESEARCH. [Pdf]. Available through: <http://www.scirj.org/papers-0714/scirj-
P0714159.pdf>. [Accessed on 23 August].
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