Market researchers to convene in Johannesburg to discuss best research practices

With social media and technology being at an ever-changing front, market researchers need to change their research strategy to keep up with their target market. This technological environment has made it much easier for researchers to collect competitor information, but with these new tools market researchers still have difficulties extracting quality and reliable information. Market researchers also face the harrowing challenge of forecasting economic trends to ensure that their organisation can prosper in an uncertain economic environment, where one crashing economy can disrupt and influence other economies. With all these dynamic balls that the research department has to juggle they still need to keep the client at the centre of it all and incorporate ethnographic approaches to a very diverse African market.

In response to this, the agenda of the conference will covering topics such as maximising the efficiency of research by capturing the right audience, weighing how technology can improve the quality of data analysis and how it can be used to develop innovative products, incorporating social media tools into current market research practices, transforming research finding and intelligence, profiling the competitor to create a vantage point for better market positioning and transforming research department from a cost centre to a profit centre.

The speaker line-up includes representatives from Coca-Cola SA, Microsoft, Old mutual, GlaxoSmithKline, Toyota SA, Indigo Brands, Nissan, MTN, African Bank, Spoor and Fisher, Netcare Limited, National Bank of Malawi, Bonitas Marketing and PRASA.

This two-day conference also featuring half-day intensive workshop by Prof. Adré Schreuder, Extra-ordinary Professor, University of Pretoria, CEO, Consulta Research. He will present on profiling the competitor to create a vantage point to better position the organisation in a competitive environment and assessing the different resources to gain competitor intelligence to monitor the competitor behaviour.

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