Automation in research: The second wave

A coherent, planned approach

Now we’re seeing a new approach to the use of automation in research. Instead of automating this or that individual task, automated research platforms represent a coherent, planned approach that incorporates automation throughout the research process, creating an end-to-end solution designed to achieve specific goals in simplifying or accelerating research.

For example, an automated research platform might enable studies to be initiated online, using standardized, custom or semi-custom survey templates. The platform could automatically collect and aggregate responses in real time and automate the reporting of results through a dashboard or Web portal. Such a platform would address surveys of some complexity and scope, while also meeting quick-and-easy research needs that go beyond the scope of simple, brief gen-pop survey tools, to encompass more complex, as well as repeatable, research projects.

With an automated research platform, efficiency is not an end in itself. Instead, automation is used to achieve a specific goal – in this example, the ability to conduct repeatable studies more easily, frequently and consistently, and obtain business insights faster.

For this reason, this new approach should prove far more influential in transforming the way research is conducted and consumed than piece-by-piece automation. It also enables the consumers of research to adopt new and more productive approaches to the ways they use and process it.

Still quite new

To explore the use of and attitudes toward automated research platforms, Research Now drew on responses to questions on automated research in this year’s Quirk’s Corporate Researcher Report.

The relatively low percentage of respondents who are using this unified approach to automation is not surprising, given that it is still quite new. At 28 percent, just over a quarter of survey respondents said that their company was using an automated research platform.

Several factors contribute to this cautious approach – starting with caution itself. An automated platform represents a significant change in how a company uncovers and processes important business insights. It’s natural for companies to take time to evaluate it.

In fact, in the same industry survey, 43 percent of respondents described their company as “among the later majority,” while another 19 percent reported their companies were “slow to adopt” new marketing research methodologies and technologies. Of course, in a business environment where competitive challenges are accelerating and consumers are drawn to innovation, it’s worth questioning if caution is actually the riskier approach.

For other companies, the prospect of losing some of the services that research firms traditionally provide, such as guidance in creating the survey itself or analysis of the results, may be a barrier.

Efficiency and speed to insights

Next, respondents who used an automated research platform were asked to rank by importance six factors that contribute to gathering and producing high-quality data and insights. (figure 1)

Not surprisingly, the top two factors are related to efficiency and speed to insights – the traditional benefits of automation. These are familiar goals for any company conducting research and indisputable benefits.

The ability to rapidly deploy surveys is an obvious choice for the most important benefit. We have yet to encounter a company that, having reached the decision to conduct research, doesn’t want to get into the field as soon as possible. With the speed of business continually accelerating, pressure to reach decisions more quickly is unrelenting.

Much the same applies to the ranking for real-time reporting. A conventional research process typically requires three or four weeks after the research itself has been completed to manually review and analyze data, reach recommendations and create a presentation to communicate them.

By graphically displaying research results on a dashboard or Web portal, an automated research platform can eliminate that multi-week delay. That, in turn, can have a significant impact in many common research scenarios, especially involving fast-moving or seasonal markets.

See new possibilities

With the third-most valued factor – being able to keep a finger on the pulse of consumer trends – users can begin to see genuinely new possibilities in consumer research, thanks to the capabilities of this new wave of automated solutions.

Yes, this factor is a direct result of efficiency in fielding surveys and viewing results much more quickly. However, the real benefit is not the efficiency itself but the timeliness and agility it enables – allowing companies to track consumer trends more closely and respond more quickly.

This is a significant capability. Yet consumers of research are less likely to rate it as being highly important. In fact, while this factor scored third in “most important” responses, it also tallied second in “least important” responses.

This ambivalence among researchers reflects unfamiliarity with and uncertainty about a new capability – and the same unfamiliarity affects the remaining capabilities covered in the survey.

The relatively low importance of the ability to iterate surveys may be a product of confusion as well as unfamiliarity. Researchers may think they have to give up the ability of iteration to use automated, templated surveys. However, in reality, some of the new platforms offer considerable flexibility and others allow users to make minor modifications to templates.

Other researchers may be more interested in maintaining consistency across their surveys and therefore not be interested in iteration.

There is likely less confusion about repeatability, which is a straightforward capability. There may, however, be uncertainty about its value – which is a product of the combination of cost, efficiency and faster time to insights enabled by automated platforms. As a result, researchers can conduct more individual studies quicker, using roughly the same or even fewer resources – and with greater consistency across studies. This is another new capability that may be just starting to receive serious consideration from the industry in terms of how it can help organizations – by accelerating product development, for example, or more regularly tracking consumer attitudes.

Finally, the last element cited by respondents – the ability to visualize data for internal clients – may have earned its last-place ranking by representing too much of a change in the established research work flow.

Insights managers have handled research data in more or less the same way for years. They get the raw data; they parse it and analyze it; and they wrangle it into a coherent presentation for their stakeholders. They may view the idea of providing a visualization of real-time results as diminishing their value and importance or even bypassing their expertise by feeding data directly to their colleagues.

However, the ability to visualize data internally represents an opportunity for research managers to spend less time on nuts and bolts and more time focusing on the real value they alone can bring to their organization: leveraging their deep understanding of their company’s historical use of research; interpreting results as they apply to their business; drawing insights, including those that may not be obvious; and pointing the way toward appropriate actions.

Achieve specific goals

In considering the research process holistically – and strategically applying automation throughout to achieve specific goals in deploying surveys and gathering and presenting results – automated research platforms will fundamentally change the way companies use research and the kinds of insights researchers can pursue.

Achieving that potential, however, requires more from all parties in the research process:

Research providers must do a better job of educating research consumers about automated platforms. This second wave of automation enables companies to obtain insights in new ways and gain competitive advantages they once could not.

It’s incumbent on providers to help researchers better understand these new capabilities and envision the value they can provide. Yes, that means more articles in the trade press and more sessions at industry conferences – ideally focused on the transformational capabilities of automation and how they can drive insights in new and better ways.

Research consumers should explore the opportunities these platforms can provide. Automated platforms and the capabilities they offer are here to stay.

Conducting pilot studies or small, focused tests can build familiarity with these capabilities and the processes that enable them and uncover meaningful, relevant and actionable benefits that translate to a competitive advantage for your organization.

Achieve better business decisions

Research has never been an end in itself but a means to achieve better business decisions. The current trend in automation is not an end in itself, either, or simply a way to conduct the same research more efficiently. Automated research platforms are a means to achieve new capabilities in research that will, in turn, bring new insights that enable better business decisions. As an industry, we need to embrace the change for the value it can deliver.