We just completed a very interesting study at Prayag where we had to assess the potential for a certain retail/e-tail service in India. The concept is not entirely new and has been in use in other countries for quite a while now. With the Indian market opening up and consumers willing to spend – the hypothesis was that there would be a demand for the service. A client asked Prayag to assess the opportunity. We did it through a combination of primary as well as extensive secondary research – sometimes, it is not enough to rely only on responses from prospective customers. We had to analyze the entire ecosystem revolving around this service and present a holistic picture to the client with our recommendations on how viable this opportunity was.

We conducted a primary study across India including the metros and Tier II cities to assess openness to the concept the client was proposing. In addition, a detailed secondary study was performed to understand the different online shopping channels, non-cash payment options and the regulatory market in existence today. The study did throw up several interesting insights which we had not realized about the Indian market earlier. For example, did you know that -

1. Credit card circulation is actually dropping in India – number of credit cards in use was 28 million in 2006 and it now stands at 19 million
2. While all the people we spoke to possess a credit card, the usage was extremely low especially compared to global standards. Indians use their credit cards for 1% of what is called as Personal Consumer Expenditure whereas the global average is more like 5% and higher for developed countries.
3. While we like to browse and shop online, we prefer to pay physically – hence cash on delivery is a preferred option. This is quite counterintuitive – we are supposed to be a leading player in IT and most of us are unwilling to use online payment channels!
4. TV shopping networks are mostly patronized by people in Tier 2 cities and women – because their access to malls etc is limited.

This should give you an idea – personally, I found the study pretty interesting and learned a lot. During the final presentation, the President of the company wanted to know if Prayag was convinced about the opportunity based on the study we had performed. Now, such questions need to be answered responsibly as you are in some way influencing a major business decision. We had our reasons ready for recommending what we did and that satisfied the client – the important point is how and why – more on this in my next blog.

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When I started my career with a global information provider right after my MBA, my job description included conducting a large amount of research in my field of interest. I was really excited as I had a fair idea about primary and secondary research. Fortunately or unfortunately, most of my work involved secondary. It was when I joined Prayag Consulting that I was exposed to primary research in a big way.

Though we know primary research involves a lot of cold calls, telephonic interviews, field studies, in some cases even knocking at doors in an unfamiliar locality and completely depends on the treatment from the people there, we still cannot undermine its importance. Many times getting embarrassed is part and parcel of carrying out primary research, some of the contacts will respond, some may slam the phone down, and in some cases you have to disconnect the call before the contacts abuse you for calling them.

Though a lot of hardship is involved in primary research, the goal is to reach to the heart of consumer, understand what they think about the target product, learn about the macro-economic factors that will influence their buying decision, understand the influence of culture and traditions and so on. Primary research provides us with that unique data which helps us understand various influential emotional factors.

The success of primary research does not just lie in the amount of data collected, but in the success of our clients once the insights and interpretations are presented to them. If the research and analysis helps the client in making better business decisions, we can say we did the job well.

I request that everyone share their viewpoints on primary research and how it has benefited their clients.

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I  have ! Thanks to Nasscom Product Conclave 2010, I had this unique opportunity of teaming up with 6 total strangers and trying to sell a pet made out of lego blocks. This was part of a fun-filled workshop titled “Opinion vs Market Research”. Conducted by Chad Wathington from Thoughtworks Studio, this session was aimed at instructing entrepreneurs on the importance of market research.

We basically were asked to build a pet out of  lego from scratch keeping in mind a bunch of characteristics ( like no of legs, colour, barking, biting, etc ). The cost of the pet was based on which characteristic we chose to impart to the pet. On the other side of the table were the buyers who were given a list of characteristics – and they could buy from us only if our product matched their requirements. The best part was we had no idea what the buyer was looking for, and so, in the first build iteration, we failed miserably.

Now, things got interesting ! There were 3 market research reports on customer and competition intelligence which we could buy ( that would, of course, bring up our costs ). Leveraging these reports , we had to modify our pet and try to sell it again . During this iteration, we witnessed what is called a “market shock”. The buyers’ requirements suddenly changed ( they suddenly wanted more legs on their pets !! ). At the end of the third iteration, the team which sold the most number of pets won ! It wasn’t surprising that the winning team had purchased the market reports ( resulting in a slightly higher price of their pet ) and leveraged that information to understand what the customer was looking for.

Wonderful way to drive home the point, wasn’t it ? Whether you are a startup or an MNC, you need to invest into your marketing efforts and use hard core data points to understand your market.

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