Trust in Market Research – Our Burning Platform Issue?

Our data shows that our sector has a trust problem. We argue that whilst today it is becoming a problem for data quality, tomorrow it will also become a problem for decision-maker confidence in what we do, unless we take decisive action. And this is a huge risk for our sector, our Achilles heal, for if we lose that confidence, in a world of multiple data-sources, we risk losing everything. “Over-dramatic”, I hear you say… “Impossible, of course decision-makers trust us, we are the experts”, I hear you cry. But I ask you to stop a minute and think about this. In a world of fake news, which anything which is a lie can be made to look like the truth, and anything which is the truth can be made to look like a lie, do you really think we are immune to this? Our latest Trust Survey data suggests we are not.

Lessons from Nokia

Read on and I will share with you a true story of how there are already cracks appearing in decision-maker trust. Those of you that know me well, know that I live in Finland, the home of Nokia. The fall of Nokia is a sad story, which has similarities to ours in my opinion; namely denial, apathy, over-confidence, short-sightedness. The Nokia story did not end well because they did not act even when the changes in their competitive environment were there for e everyone to see. They did not try and react until their platform was ideed burning as the CEO at the time said… and it was too late. Let this not be legacy for our industry. Maybe you can see the first flames licking at the base of our platform, maybe you can smell the smoke? I know I can. So let’s act now, before it is too late to regain decision-maker confidence. Here is the story I was recently told: ‘Their company was making a large investment decision involving a number of different business functions. The company had a very decentralized approach to Insights, so both the Innovation Director and Marketing Director had done their own research and came to the planning meeting with conflicting survey data and conflicting recommendations. The CEO sent them away asking angrily how could they trust market research to inform their decision?’ It doesn’t matter that this was a result of the company’s own poor processes, what matters is that the top management decision-makers in that company now have a lower level of trust in what we do. If you care about this and want to help us put out the flames, please get in touch. We would love to hear from you. Andrew Cannon GRBN