ASSIGNMENT

ON

MARKETING RESEARCH SCENARIO IN INDIA

SUBMITTED TO: SUBMITTED BY:

Mr. Ashish Arora Manjit Singh (410)

(Professor) Sunaina (445)

MBA (TYC)-3rd

Marketing Research Scenario in India

India Market Research provides an idea of the business and the consumer market pattern. They

pave the way to economic and business development and help to generate profit for the country.

An extensive Market Research in India takes care of all the queries of the marketers - giving

them the required information for a smooth marketing journey. Market research involves giving

insight to all the categories of marketing - valuation, distribution, promotion of product and

services. For betterment and improvement, market research is absolutely essential. 

There are loads of Market Research agencies and consulting firms that gives excellent

report, provides a helping hand to the Indian and international companies. Out of the lot, IMRB

International is the ground breaker in Indian Market Research.

During the 90s, not many companies were aware of Market Research. There were only a

handful of large Indian companies commissioning Market Research projects and even the

projects commissioned were not very challenging. Market Research agencies used to largely

carry out ‘information’ based projects mainly for FMCG products. For e.g. companies were

commissioning Market Research to know which brand of soaps were selling in the market and

why customers were buying a particular brand of soap etc. Client expectations were low, few

Market Research agencies in the market at that time used to deliver well and everybody was

happy. Business decisions were rarely based on Market Research and the expected deliverable

from the Market Research agencies was to fill the ‘information gaps’ of the marketing team. This

trend continued for almost the entire 90s decade.

Real transformation in the Indian Market Research scenario began to happen after MNCs

began to enter India on a large scale because of the economic liberalization. MNCs with their

exposure to and understanding of the value of Market Research began to use Market Research on

a large scale. MNCs also started using Market Research for making better business decisions.

This trend started creating an increased awareness about Market Research in India and many

more companies started commissioning Market Research.

Increasing importance of Market Research also increased client expectations. Market

Research agencies had to quickly adjust to meet increased client expectations. Many Market

Research agencies started tying up with international Market Research agencies, brought in the

latest tools, started hiring better qualified professionals as a result of which the quality of Market

Research projects increased substantially. Indian Market Research is set for even bigger growth.

Today, it is not just the MNCs and large Indian companies which commission Market Research.

There are many midsized Indian companies and even family run Indian companies which

commission Market Research. Today, the market for most products and services is very

competitive in the Indian market. Many companies understand the need to make better business

decisions in the Indian market using Market Research. The size of the Indian Market Research

industry is still very small compared to the Indian advertising industry. However, the growth of

the Indian Market Research industry during the last 20 years has been very substantial.

The market research agencies pan India; cover all the main areas of marketing - spanning

B2B and industrial research, social research, media research, brand research, corporate and

employee research, channel and retail research, product and packaging research, pricing research

and business-specialized consumer research.

Marketing Research Agencies in India

ACNielsen Ugam Solutions Mu Sigma Fractal Analytics Market Equations Cross Tab Impetus Research Private Ltd Cherry International

Focus of the India market research agencies are

Understanding consumers - The trends of the customers are tracked by the market

research agencies. Their needs, perceptions, projected demands are all studied and

marketing strategies are formed accordingly.

Investigating market - This method helps in mapping the market conditions and demands

are estimated.

Conceptualizing product development - Positioning strategies, product and service

strategies are formed accordingly after taking into consideration the marketing research

results.

AC Nielsen

AC Nielsen is one of the global leaders in market research, information and analysis. AC

Nielsen is a global marketing research firm, with worldwide headquarters in New York

City, United States of America. Regional headquarters for North America are located in

the Chicago suburb of Schaumburg, Illinois. As of May 2010, it is part of The Nielsen Company.

This company was founded in 1923 in Chicago, by Arthur C. Nielsen, Sr., in order to give

marketers reliable and objective information on the impact of marketing and sales programs.

ACNielsen began expanding internationally in 1939, and now operates in more than 100

countries.

Specialization:

The A.C. Nielsen Center is the home of the marketing research specialization in the

Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. ACNielsen is one of the

global leaders in market research, information and analysis. He founded the ACNielsen

Company in 1923, and in doing so advanced the new field of market research. This involved: (1.)

test marketing new products to determine their viability prior to costly mass marketing and

production; and (2.) measuring product sales at a random sample of stores to determine market

share. Careful statistical sampling was crucial to this process. The techniques developed by

Nielsen were especially important for the efficient operation of a market prior to the introduction

of computerized digital networks that in the 1990s enabled continuous and comprehensive

monitoring of sales by product retailers. Nielsen was also a pioneer in developing methods of

measuring the audience of radio and television broadcasting programs, most notably the Nielsen

ratings.

Promoters Background:

Arthur Charles Nielsen was born in Chicago, Illinois. He was of Danish descent. Nielsen was

educated at University of Wisconsin (now University of Wisconsin–Madison), where he received

a B.S., summa cum laude in 1918. He was a member of Tau Beta Pi (engineering honor society),

the Sigma Phi Society and a captain of the varsity tennis team from 1916 to 1918. He

subsequently served in U.S. Naval Reserve. Nielsen worked as an electrical engineer for the Isko

Company in Chicago from 1919 to 1920 and for the H. P. Gould Company in Chicago from

1920 to 1923. With his son Arthur Nielsen, Jr., he won the U.S. Father and Son doubles titles in

1946 and 1948. He was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1971 for his

(financial) contributions to the sport. The University of Wisconsin awarded him an honorary

Doctor of Science (ScD) in 1974. Nielsen was appointed a Knight of the Order of the

Dannebrog, Ridder af Dannebrog (1961) by the nation of Denmark.

Nielsen and his wife donated the Nielsen Tennis Stadium to the University of Wisconsin–

Madison.[4] In 1990, the A.C. Nielsen family made a donation to UW-Madison to create a full-

time MBA program specializing in market research. A small tennis center in Winnetka, Illinois is

named after him. It is the only full-time market research program in the United States

Ugam Solutions

Ugam Solutions is one of the leading global providers of market research solutions with

more than 1000 knowledge associates in the UK, the USA and India. Ugam Solutions Pvt. Ltd. is

a leading third party data analytics BPO, focusing on the niche area of "Research and Analytics".

Specialization:

They have earned international recognition for offering innovative solutions, world-class

operations and quality, ad in-depth of domain experience and expertise. They are engaged in

offering mobile research solutions, healthcare data solutions, international data collection and

off-shoring solutions, which includes multivariate analysis, report writing, open-ended coding,

data processing & analysis, survey programming and project management.

Its services, which help meet the Marketing Information needs of global enterprises,

include Market Research Services (such as Survey Programming, Data Cleaning and Tabulation,

Verbatim Management and Report Writing) and Product Marketing Support Services (such as

eCatalog creation and maintenance). Ugam’s services are used by some of the world’s leading

global enterprises, including a few of the world’s top Market Research firms and media

companies.

Promoters Background:

Mr. Raj Nair is the Co-founder and Chairman of Ugam Solutions Pvt. Ltd. He is also the

founder and Chairman of Avalon Consulting (est. 1989), a leading management and strategy

consulting firm in Mumbai. Raj started his career in the Merchant Banking division of Grindlays

Bank. Raj is an Engineer from IIT Mumbai, and Management graduate from IIM, Ahmedabad.

He is very active in leading chambers of commerce and industry such as Bombay Chamber of

Commerce, Indian Merchants Chamber, and Madras Chamber of Commerce. He is also an

independent director of Mastek Ltd., a leading software services company.

Mu Sigma

Mu Sigma also has its offices in India, the US and the UK at Mumbai, North Brook and

Middlesex respectively. Mu Sigma was founded by Dhiraj C Rajaram, a former strategy

consultant for Booz Allen Hamilton and PricewaterhouseCoopers, in 2004. In 2008, Mu Sigma

raised its first institutional investment round of $30 million from FT Ventures (now FTV

Capital). In April 2011, the company raised an additional $25 million from Sequoia Capital. In

December 2011, the company announced a $108 million round of financing from Sequoia and

private equity investor General Atlantic – one of the largest investments yet in an analytics

services company. Mu Sigma reached $100 million in revenues as of June 2012.

Specialization:

Their ecosystem offers client decision support tapping into multiple industry verticals,

supply risk and chain, multiple disciplines in marketing, leveraging and solving high-impact

problems. Their highly talented professionals use advanced analytical techniques and tools

together with deep domain expertise to solve troublesome business problems of their clients.

Promoters Background:

Mr. Dhiraj C. Rajaram is a Founder of Mu Sigma Inc. and serves as its Chairman of the

Board and Chief Executive Officer. At Mu Sigma, Mr. Rajaram is responsible for its vision and

strategic direction, building teams, aligning organizational resources to a customer centric vision

and delivering profitable growth Since 2004, Mr. Rajaram has built Mu Sigma from ground up

during which time, he executed on activities that included raising seed and growth capital for the

venture, securing key fortune 100 customers, incubating a delivery unit and hiring key leadership

members into Mu Sigma. Before Mu Sigma, Mr. Rajaram advised senior executives across a

variety of verticals as a strategy consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton and

PricewaterhouseCoopers. He serves as Director of Mu Sigma Inc. Mr. Rajaram holds an MBA

from the University of Chicago. He also received an M.S. in Computer Engineering from Wayne

State University and a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from College of Engineering

Guindy, Anna University.

Fractal Analytics:

In addition to India, Fractal Analytics have their officers in the UK, Singapore and the

USA. They are a leading provider of advanced analytics, which will be of great use to the

companies to make better decisions. Their customers were able to develop the turnover of their

businesses due to the scientific decision making skills of Fractal Analytics. Fractal Analytics is

headquartered in San Mateo, CA. Srikanth Velamakanni is the Chief Executive Officer.

Employees and founders own about 50% of the firm, the rest is owned by investors.

Specialization:

The services offered by them are text mining, data management, modeling and analysis.

Fractal Analytics is a provider of analytics services, helping companies: (a) Understand, predict

and Influence consumer behavior; (b) Improve marketing, pricing, supply chain, risk and claims

management; (c) Harmonize data, visualize information, build dashboards and forecast business

performance. The company applies advanced math and science to client-provided data to

develop custom analytics, such as: interpret and predict customer behavior patterns, predict

credit risk and claims loss, assess the impact of marketing mix on sales, predict a customer's

response to price changes, and forecast business performance.

Promoters Background:

Fractal was started in 2000 by five founders : Nirmal Palaparthi, Pradeep Suryanarayan,

Pranay Agrawal, Ramakrishna Reddy and Srikanth Velamakanni. Two of the founders, Reddy

and Suryanarayan, left the organization in 2007 and subsequently sold their stock to other

shareholders. Co-founder Nirmal Palaparthi left the company in 2011, sold a portion of his stock

to other shareholders, and remains on the board of Fractal Analytics' Singapore entity.

Cherry International

Cherry Offers marketing research, business strategy and other services to help Australian

companies do business in India.

Promoter Background:

Cherry International (CI) is led by Rajan Cherian, a mechanical engineer from BITS Pilani,

with over 20 years of marketing experience in dealing with Government and Private Sector in

India. He gained 11 years experience in a Multinational Company in India, deploying marketing

strategies with various mining, material handling and chemical industries. Later he started his

own marketing company in India before migrating to Australia in 1992.

He speaks/understands 6 Indian languages (which helps in unraveling both the social norms and

what is really being said in discussions).

He has extensively travelled to all parts of India, from Mumbai (the financial centre) in the West,

to Calcutta (the no-hurry centre) in the East, to Delhi (the fast buck centre) in the North, to

Chennai (the slow-waking centre) in the South.

Impetus Research Private Limited

Impetus Research is a full service marketing agency offering support and research services to

companies ranging belonging to different financial strata ranging from large consulting firms to

boutique research agencies. Some of the services offered by them in the marketing Research

field are qualitative research, quantitative research and survey programming. They are engaged

in multimode data collection, translation and transcription, data processing & analytics and

survey programming and hosting. Impetus Research is a focused Marketing Research services

provider that provides high quality marketing research services to its domestic & International

clients.

We undertake all support services which encompass the marketing research process individually,

such as Survey Development, Survey Programming, Data collection, Data Processing and Data

Analysis or a combination of these activities.

This enables our clients to focus on their core competencies, while we efficiently manage their

non core activities, with considerable economy of scales.

Cross tab

Cross tab offers a full range of analytical and market research solutions to their

international clients. They are committed to deliver high quality market research services from

managing end-to-end research operations to market research process outsourcing, sample

procurement solutions and secondary research. They are operating from the cities of Bangalore

and Mumbai in India and Seattle & New York in the USA and London in the UK.

Promoters Background:

Dr. Kumar Mehta (CEO) has spent about two decades in the US market industry. Prior

to joining Cross-Tab, Kumar spent over 13 years at Microsoft in a variety of senior positions

including Director of Market Research and Senior Director of Strategy and Finance. As one of

the earliest market researchers at Microsoft and within the software industry, he has helped shape

how research is conducted within the technology marketplace. Kumar has a career in market

research playing leadership roles as a research supplier, a corporate research director, and an

internal corporate user of research. In these roles, Kumar has directed over a quarter billion

dollars of market research. He was one of the first individuals in the world to study the impact of

the Internet on consumers and businesses and collaborated on some of the largest

groundbreaking research studies on the evolution of the Internet. As a senior leader of one of the

largest global portals, Kumar engineered the first “panel deal” by a major portal thereby helping

create one of the first significant online panels in the US.

Kumar is passionate about the role market research can play in shaping businesses and has

spoken about market research transformation at a number of events. His goal is to have the

Cross-Tab group of companies help shape how research is conducted in tomorrow’s increasingly

competitive and increasingly flat world. Kumar has a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and

leads Cross-Tab from the US Headquarters in Seattle.

Kedar Sohoni is the President of Informate Mobile Intelligence, a Cross-Tab subsidiary that

has an integrated solution for providing comprehensive consumer intelligence for the mobile

industry. A dynamic individual with an illustrious career, spanning almost 14 years, Kedar is one

of the co-founders of Cross-Tab. He has also held several leadership roles with some of the

popular brands of Nestle India. An IIT-Bombay and IIM-Lucknow alumni, he has also worked

for Business Consulting Group (BCG) in the area of Industrial Market Research. Kedar has been

an active member of business forums like Mobile Entertainment Forum and IAMAI. BA.

Praveen is a co-founder of Cross-Tab and leads the corporate research services team based out

of Bangalore. Praveen is passionate about research tool design, development and evangelism and

has led various initiatives that push the boundaries around market research. He encourages his

team towards becoming trusted advisors to clients through research rigor and out-of-the-box

thinking. His team and work has driven the company’s growth manifested through three

consecutive Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Awards. Praveen is a Board Member of the

Entrepreneurs Organization’s Bangalore chapter and a speaker in the management academic

circuit. Praveen Gupta has a Bachelors and a Masters degree from BITS, Pilani and a PGDM

from IIM, Lucknow.

Ruchika Gupta is the President of Borderless Access Panels, a Cross-Tab subsidiary managing

the highest quality proprietary panels in the fast growing BRIC markets. Ruchika has several

years of work experience in advertising and marketing. She has worked with JWT, 3M, and

EuroRSCG. Ruchika has done her Masters in Management Science from BITS, Pilani. Ruchika

is one of the co-founders of Cross-Tab.

Market Equations

Market Equation is out-performing in spite of the heavy competition in market research

industry mainly because of its decade of year experience in the field of marketing research.

Thus, these companies are engaged in the offering the best market research service to

their customers, which is of great use to the customers to produce products and offer services

according to the need of the general public.

Specialization:

Market Equations is a result-oriented full service research and business analysis firm

offering outsourcing services in these two disciplines for their customers located all over the

globe. Outsourcing Market Research, Financial Research, Business Research, Social Media

Research and Data Analytics services to India can help you achieve substantial cost and time

efficiencies, superior quality and access to a vast pool of highly competent and qualified group of

industry experts, management graduates and mathematicians focused on solving complex

business problems by providing you valuable insights that have a lasting impact. Outsourcing

your Business Research & Analytics services to India gives you a competitive edge and helps

you stay ahead of your competition.

Promoter Background:

As Business Head, Abraham Thomas is instrumental in driving new customer

acquisition, achieving exponential growth in market share and providing strategic vision.

Abraham has a degree in Economics and a Post Graduate Degree in Business Management.

Growth of Marketing Research in India

Currently in India, the national economy and marketplace are undergoing rapid changes

and transformation. A large number of reasons could be attributed to these changes. One of the

reasons in these changes in the Indian Market Scenario is Globalization, and the subsequent and

resulting explosive growth of global trade and the international competition. The marketing

function, which was earlier restricted to creating awareness and building differentiators among

products, has expanded and become central to the creation of these new products.

The other reason for these changes in the Indian Market Scenario is the technological change.

This is an important factor because the technological competitiveness is making, not only the

Indian market, but also the global marketplace cutthroat.

In the Indian Marketing Scenario, the market success goes to those companies that are best

matched to the current environmental imperatives. Those companies that can deliver what the

people want and can delight the Indian customers are the market leaders.

Today the companies are operating in such a marketplace where survival of the fittest is the law.

In order to win, the companies are coming out with various new and evolving strategies because

the Indian market is also changing very fast. It is to capture the Indian market, that the Indian and

the Multi National Companies are using all of their resources.

The size of the Indian Market Research industry is still very small compared to the Indian

advertising industry. However, the growth of the Indian Market Research industry during the last

20 years has been very substantial.

Large corporate are now spending anywhere from $5 m to $100 m on market research and

analysis. Research agencies too have tried to complement the changing needs of clients with

professional management, consolidation and creation of value through both delivery mechanisms

and interpretation. The increasing use of technology has led to standardization and consolidation

in the research industry, thus preparing the ground for greater outsourcing.

The Indian MRO space comprises over 110 vendors and most of these offer ‘non-market

research’ services also. However, interestingly, the leaders in the category are largely market

research-focused firms and not necessarily the diversified BPO and KPO firms. Indian MRO

vendors began with servicing fairly “standardized” research needs and are steadily moving up

the value chain.

ValueNotes estimates that Indian MRO revenues stand at $148 m in FY07, and are expected to

grow at a CAGR of 36% to touch $800 m by FY12. According to Arun Jethmalani, CEO,

ValueNotes, “This period (up to 2010) will witness value growth due to capacity addition in

high-end services. Initially, the services outsourced were in modular format and delivered

through short-term project based engagements. However, over time vendors have begun

providing services in both transactional and tactical level activities performed by research

agencies. There is a clear industry trend towards “integrated” services”.

Going forward, Indian MRO companies are poised to move from research back-office operations

to becoming strategic partners in executing research.

Increase in the number of companies commissioning Market Research and their willingness to

pay more resulted in big growth for the Indian Market Research industry.

Problems faced by Marketing Research in India

1. Objectives are unclear, leading to conflicting or unrealistic expectations. This often is due

to imprecise or too many goals.

Result: muddy research, weak data.

2. Sample has quality issues (participants are not sufficiently qualified or authenticated, or

do not pay adequate attention), or needed sample size is unmet.

Result: weak data, insufficient data (sample too small for use in extrapolation), research

loses credibility.

3. Instrument is poorly designed. Long, complicated questionnaire design (or rambling

discussion guides for focus groups or in-depth interviews) confuses participants with

awkward question sequences and poor answer options.

Result for quantitative: low response rates, high dropout rates, respondent fatigue, pencil

whipping, weak data.

Result for qualitative: muddy, biased interviews or focus groups; disengaged participants.

4. Data analysis is conducted with more attention to techniques than results; either the

choice of analytics is poor or is misaligned with client needs.

Result: misleading data, low usefulness.

5. Poor matching of methodology to goals and audience needs (incorrect use of qualitative

or quantitative methods).

Result: misleading data, low usefulness.

6. Schedules slip significantly; research is completed too late to support intended decisions.

Result: research loses credibility, agency loses credibility.

7. Internal skeptics or cynics derail the final presentation.

Result: research loses credibility.

8. Internal clients unable to apply the research as originally intended; “actionability” of

research is called into question.

Result: research is “shelved,” research loses credibility.

9. Research firm's representatives are unable to establish required level of credibility with

client or internal clients.

Result: research is "shelved," research loses credibility, agency loses credibility.

10. Programming (for online or telephone data collection) is done hastily, and questionnaire

logic is not enforced nor approved by client. Entire questions are missing, and answer

options are not properly presented.