FUTURE TALENT MEETS THE INDUSTRY
ESOMAR Latin America 2008
Name: Daniela Steffens Gibbons
Nationality: Chilean
Year of birth: 1985
University: Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile (PUC)
Title of course/programme: Business Administration
1. How do you see the market research industry evolving and how can you contribute to it?
Nowadays the industry is characterized by three major aspects: growth in the demand, specialization of agencies, homogenization of the research process and specialization of agencies.
First of all, the intense competition between companies have caused that market research have become something crucial for success. Companies need to be closer to the customer’s needs, understand deeply their perception about their products, brands and also of the competition and they have realized that the best way to discover those answers is by doing market research. Thus, there is growing demand for market research in every region of the world, and in response, there is also a great number of agencies. Not only a lot of them but also different types. For example:
- Agencies that developed their own research and then they sell them to various companies. Ex: Latin panel
- Intern department: For some companies, market research is a continuous process so sometimes is costly-efficient to have their own research area.
- Special agencies that work with sophisticate statistic software which use econometric models, data mining, calculate elasticity...etc
- Agencies that only developed qualitative research. The same for quantitative research.
- Collecting data agencies: Agencies that only do the field work.
And many other kind of agencies that are becoming specialists in only one aspect of the research.
By the other hand, there is a global tendency to homogenize the research process between the different countries in which the brand is present. Big brands are trying to develop the same methodologies everywhere their products are being sold in order to be able to make comparisons between them and to avoid designing for each parts a different research. Thus, for them is highly desirable to work with the same agency around the world and, at the same time, for the agency it is also profitable to open new agencies around he world because they know for sure that their big customers wants to work with them. In fact there have been cases where the agencies open new ones only because a major brand wants to expand its market in those places. And that is what is happening around the world!! For example although my country is very little, we have worldwide known agencies like: Nielsen, GFK (with adimark), IPSOS (search), Taylor and Taylor.
My contribution:
I am a young person that has lived in a very dynamic reality in which everything changes all the time. Thus I am an open and flexible mind person that can anticipate changes and also realize when things have to be done in a different way.
In addition, I have a fluent English, travel a lot and I also have lots of friends and family at different countries, so I think I could do a great job in an international market research agency where you need to understand other cultures and be in permanent contact with people from all over the world.
2. What are in your opinion the necessary skills for market researchers in the present environment?
I think that for market research people must be educated not only in marketing but also in other social science disciplines like: psychology, sociology, statistics because nowadays market research helps brands to have a wider understanding of their customers. For example, for in just one study you can found that agencies developed different research methodologies like quantitative surveys but also focus groups, personal interviews and ethnography to discover good insights of our customers.
It is also really important the values and ethics of the person involve in research. An agency or researcher with no ethic can easily change the data or sell the information to other companies which of course it shouldn’t be done.
3. How do you see your career unfolding and what are your aspirations?
Well, during the first years of my degree I didn’t had choice about the modules (were mainly core modules) so I had a lot of accounting, economy and finance. But now I am really happy and motivated with my studies because they are mainly marketing ones. I have only two more semesters left and I want to take at least half of my modules related with marketing. In addition, I just received a call from my university telling me that I fulfill the requisites to do a marketing master, so I am considering taking it. This means that I would not also have more marketing modules but I would also have to develop a thesis in which I would be a whole semester undertaking a market research.
Aspirations:
I would like to work in the social responsibility area of an international company because it has the perfect match between marketing and care for your society. For me it is also really important to work in a company that do care about their employees and encourage good relations between them. I am a very social person who loves to be in contact with different people, do teamwork …etc. In addition, after a couple of years of experience, I would like to undertake my own project( still looking for ideas, maybe something related with marketing below the line) in order to distribute my own time and be able to balance work, family and charity. This last aspect is something that really moves me in life.
KEEP ME INFORMED |