MARKET RESEARCH, THE CLOUD & NEW SOFTWARE DISTRIBUTION MODELS

 

Last month, my blog titled “The Agile Customer Manifesto-Five Musts for your Customer Input Model” (You can read the full blog here) garnered a high enough readership and interest to prompt me to comment further.
It seems to me that the move to a cloud based software distribution model is extremely disruptive to the way market research is conducted. There has been much discussion online about changes in the industry but this is one trend I have not seen addressed that I will discuss here.
Traditional primary research has been “event based” focusing on garnering customer input from a defined project which may be repeated again and updated. The new software release cycles render such processes ineffective and unfortunately in many cases I have seen result in voice of customer being skipped in product development cycles. The disconnect is often is often between product development and marketing, where the latter has not updated its approach to market research or pushed their vendors to create solutions that support the new development cycles.
How have we at Silicon Valley Research Group been adapting our methodologies?

1. Because we are a tech focused vendor, we have already worked with several cloud based vendors and are processes are aligned with these cycle times and incorporate methodologies including agile development and lean start-up.
2. Our project processes are modular and allow for scaling up and down as these cycles demand
3. Through our OpinionBridge™ offering (originally under our Wave Series research offering), we have created communities of customer audiences that provide ongoing engaged feedback to our clients’ product development teams
4. New data collection methodologies and venues such as asynchronous online focus group panel discussions augment our current methodologies. As was my vision when I founded the company 15 years ago, Silicon Valley Research remains at the forefront of adopting new tools and methodologies to provide the highest quality research output possible.
5. Lastly, and very importantly for what I personally believe is critical to superior market research performance, domain expertise in the technology area becomes a critical skill set. The new software models create challenges for vendors who work horizontally. Now, they can no longer treat a software market research assignment as a variation on what they did last month for say a coffee brand using the same templates.

I have a lot more to say about this. Do you want to hear more? We are holding events on this topic this fall per the following schedule and venues:

Thu Sep 19 2013. Seattle at Batch 206 Distillery Presentation and a spirits tasting (Vodka, Gin and something the distillery calls their Moonshine-we are very much looking forward to discovering it!)

Thu Oct 24, 2013. Silicon Valley at the Capital Club San Jose. Presentation and Wine Tasting (varietals and theme to be announced).

If you are a client or a subscriber to our newsletter and would like to attend either event, please email Wes at wesf@siliconvalleyrg.com or Meadow at meadow@siliconvalleyrg.comfor Seattle