How Big Data Is Reshaping Market Research Careers (Full Transcript)

[00:00:05] Speaker 1: Hey everybody, this is Katherine from Research Rockstar. Thanks for joining me here today. I had recently done a broadcast about career paths in the market research and insights profession and I am doing part two today. Both part one and part two that I've been showing here on YouTube and of course in parallel on iTunes as a podcast are from a presentation that I gave at the recent Insights Association event in New York that was a joint chapter conference for the Insights Association chapters from New York, New England, and Philadelphia. And so this is basically the second part of my presentation from there. So just taking up where I had left off last time, one of the things we are sort of, I don't want to say struggling with, but one of the things we talk about a lot in the market research and insights profession is the impact of big data trends on the career path for people in market research and insights. And what I've established in the previous episode, so please do watch or listen to that one, is that big data is creating new career paths for those of us in market research insights. And the key point here I want to emphasize is that doesn't mean that old career paths are going away entirely, but they're changing and they are part of a bigger pie. And it's reflected in what we see in actual job postings. So if you actually look for job openings, what employers are looking for in market research and insights positions, you will see a lot of evidence of that integration. And again, please see part one for more information on that. One thing it's interesting to look at is how the job titles are indeed changing because I think it really reflects the fact that employers are looking for market research and insights people who do market research, but also can bring the market research into having a really important impact on the organization through integration with additional data sources that are a little bit outside of the conventional realm of market research. One of the things that I think reflects this is the changes in the job titles. So in the blue bar in this particular chart, this is based on data of how many people have those words in their job titles. So for example, if I look at job titles for people in the market research space, the broader market research and insight space, I see that there are still absolutely a lot of folks who have the phrase market research in their job titles. However, if I then go over and look at my green bars, these are the job postings. So what are employers looking at now? And in this case, if I look at all the job postings that are related to market research and insights at a broader level, only 20% of those postings specifically have market research in the job title. So they may be looking for people who have market research skills or capabilities or experience but the job title's not necessarily market research. By the way, the reason why these add up to 100% is because I'm using these categories for this analysis. So what does this show us? Well, if we look at the difference between the blue bars and the green bars, we do see some gaps and that indicates some trends. So we're going to expect to see a decline in the number of job titles that literally have market research in them. However, we do see an increase in other things. For example, not surprisingly, the title customer insights is becoming more popular. And another one that's becoming very popular, job titles with customer experience in it, right? We all know that CX is becoming a really hot topic in a lot of organizations. Sometimes that's inside the market research function, but sometimes it's outside of the market research function. But in any event, what we're seeing is that there are a lot of job postings where the phrase customer experience is in the job title. So by comparing what people's job titles are today versus what the employers are looking for and how they're labeling their job titles, I think it gives us a good clue about really what employers are looking for. So I hope you find that chart to be helpful. If we take a look at overall what this means for us in the market research and insights professions, I really see three broad career path options. One is the career path of being a generalist, the market researcher who knows about a lot of different market research methodologies, who perhaps is starting to learn more about big data and customer analytics so that they can really be that data source agnostic advisor. And this intersects with what McKinsey calls the translator. So McKinsey calls it the translator role. I happen to like thinking about it as the data source agnostic advisor. I guess translator's a little bit sexier. Another career option opportunity is the specialist. We're going to go over a couple of those in just a second. And then there are adjacency opportunities. Because what we're seeing in a lot of organizations is that as so many organizations become focused on being data driven and customer centric, functions and skills related to understanding customer attitudes and behaviors are becoming important in many different roles within an organization, not just the market research or insights team. So let's take a look at these three different career path opportunities. And as I go through these, think about which of these resonate with you. You know, where would you like to be in five years? In terms of the generalist opportunity, or again, what McKinsey calls the translator, this is really about being the agnostic advisor. So that when a client comes to you, whether you work with internal or external clients, but let's say you're working with a chief marketing officer at a consumer brand, and they bring you a challenge that they have, that you can recommend a methodology completely agnostically. You will recommend the best methodology from qualitative research, quantitative research, customer analytics, maybe secondary research, all the various flavors of data sources that are now available to us. Because that's what the business executive needs. They need somebody who can help guide them in a world that's becoming increasingly complex in terms of the number of data sources and data collection methodologies that are available. And if you are going to pursue this opportunity, you will probably find that it leverages many skills that you already have. If you're an experienced market research professional, you probably are excellent at project management, and data analysis, and reporting, and synthesis, and client management, and other skills. But you may have to add a few new ones. For example, it's hard to position yourself as that data agnostic advisor. If every project you've ever done was a survey project, or if every project you've done was a focus group, you have to be able to demonstrate that you have knowledge and expertise and multiple data sources and multiple methodologies. So if this is your path for the future, that's great. You just may need to add some more experience and skills in order to fully pursue it. It's potentially an exciting role, though. One of the things I like about this role is that it creates that long-term client opportunity because if they're going to be using you as this kind of advisor and you do a good job, it's really an important role. Now you're that business executive's sort of strategic advisor on all things data. How do they understand customer attitudes and behaviors using various sources of data? So I think this can be a really exciting opportunity for many market research and insights professionals. Very consultative. The second category of opportunity has to do with being a specialist. You cannot be a specialist in everything these days. There are too many areas of specialty. You could be a specialist in CX or ethnography or questionnaires, right? I mean, survey research is a really complex area, and to do it well and to keep up with what's going on in terms of how to design questionnaires effectively, for example, with mobile data collection or with specific groups of people, that requires really staying up to date on research on research, on survey research. And so it's not just, you know, old-school survey research. Survey research these days is actually quite complex, and that can be a full-time job being truly a state-of-the-art survey research expert. Or maybe you want to be a specialist in shopper insights or online communities or pricing research or market segmentation. There are a lot of different areas that can be areas of specialty. And the great thing is that nobody can be a specialist in everything, so it's a great way to differentiate yourself to say, hey, you know, I've declared a specialty. I'm going to put myself out there as this specialist, and I have these credentials in this area, and I'm going to be staying up to date on the latest research on research for this specialty. And it can be an exciting opportunity. Or maybe you find a small cluster of two or three related specialties to have as the definition of your career path. But declaring a specialty can be a great way to cut through the noise and to show really where you add value to your teams and the clients that you're working with. The third area to consider for career path is what I refer to as adjacency. So again, because in a lot of organizations, market research skills often exist outside of the insights team, there could be other areas for you to apply your skills for your future career path. For example, a lot of organizations in the business intelligence team, they often have a need in those teams for people who truly have very rich, very specific market research and insight skills. So can you reposition yourself as a business intelligence researcher or a business intelligence analyst? It's absolutely worth looking at, and I would recommend that if this is something that interests you, go on to some of the job boards and search for jobs that have the phrase business intelligence in them. I think you'll be surprised at how many of them really do include the requirements for a lot of market research-related skills. CX is also an adjacent opportunity, because while in some organizations CX is within the insights team, it's not always the case. I often see organizations these days where CX is actually separate from the insights team, and that can be a whole conversation about the pros and cons of doing that. But it does happen quite a lot. So that might mean, hey, instead of positioning myself as a market researcher, maybe I need to be positioning myself as a CX researcher or a CX analyst. And again, I think if you look at the job postings that are available for people with CX and the title, I think you'll find that the actual skill requirements are very much aligned with the requirements for folks who have that interest, really, in applying their market research skills, but perhaps in an adjacent area. Same for marketing, right? There are a lot of marketing positions now that increasingly expect people to be familiar with data analysis and multiple types of data sources. And by the way, sometimes qualitative, too. This isn't all about quantitative data. For example, I've seen some really interesting job postings recently where they're looking for people who can do deep dives into understanding customers using ethnography, right? And so that's a really exciting opportunity. Related to marketing, of course, is product marketing. UX is also an interesting area. We see a lot of interest in UX, especially in software and technology companies. But again, a lot of the skill requirements are things that you may find to be really a good fit for your market research skills. Might you need to do a little bit of extension of some of your skills, maybe take a couple of related classes or do a couple of preliminary projects to kind of show that you've actually done it? Yeah, but that's an investment in your career. So if you do pursue an adjacency, I think you'll find that there are a lot of opportunities to leverage your skills and also look for new career paths. Now for those of you who are on the supplier side, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, what does this all mean for me? Because so far you've been talking about things that feel very much like it's about client side organizations. And that's true. But if you're on the supplier side, you also have opportunities. One of the things that does concern me about the supplier side these days is I see a lot of sort of small to mid-sized full service market research agencies that are sticking with that full service market research agency angle. And I'm seeing a lot of these firms are getting their margins squeezed, they're getting lost in the noise. It's not an easy business to be in these days. So I think that some of these things can apply as well for these agencies. Consider the opportunity to actually position your full service agency as that data agnostic advisor. You know, the agency that companies can come to, that clients can rely on for being completely unbiased about recommending different types of data sources and methodologies, which could indeed include, say, big data or customer analytics and so forth. Also maybe you declare specialties. Hey, maybe it's a time to reposition your firm as a market segmentation specialty or a company that specializes in doing, in CX research. I've actually seen several firms go that way, right? We've already started to see firms specializing, repositioning market research companies as CX experts. That's already started to happen to some extent. And so that's an opportunity, right? So consider the specialty opportunities for your firms. I know that that can be a hard thing to think about repositioning a full service market research agency, but it's something that has to be considered given the squeeze that a lot of these agencies are experiencing. And again, given what's going on in the world at large. I hope that this conversation has been useful. Perhaps as I talked, I inspired some ideas for your career path and the kinds of things you're going to have to invest in to really further your own career path over the next few years. I think that it's really an exciting time. So in conclusion, I'd just like to say the question should not be about whether or not big data is killing market research. The question is whether or not people in the market research profession are going to adapt for a world, for work environments, where there are many sources of data that are absolutely in use and popular. So we're just part of the pie. The pie is growing. So there are opportunities. I know change can be scary, but really some of these opportunities I think can be really exciting for a lot of people. If you have any questions, if you have any comments, please add them here. If you do like this video, please subscribe to the YouTube channel or to the podcast on iTunes. And by the way, if you have any ideas for topics, if you have any suggestions for topics that we should be covering that I can add in upcoming episodes of conversations for research rock stars, please do add them here or tweet them to me at research rocks. Thanks everybody and have a great day.