Why Are Researchers Losing Their Voice When They Are Needed More Than Ever Before?

Market research is changing at lightspeed, and it’s not just due to AI. Technology obviously plays a major role, but the real drivers are a mix of internal and external factors. The result is marked research getting de-priotized. If researchers want to find their way in such a tumultuous market, they need to first understand how and why conditions are shifted. 

The Rise of Easily-Accessible Metrics

The first reason for this change away from market research as priority is the rise of easily-accessible metrics, many of which are gathered by non-research teams. Marketers directly gather many key metrics such as click rates and unique visitors from online analytical tools, CFOs measure marketing spend versus revenue, and product managers monitor the time needed for users to work through various website and application processes. 

Metrics are easy to gather, easy to track, and easy to compare, and even if they fall short of really explaining why something is happening, they are an easy means of showing what is going on.  Having firm numbers is often more attractive to many teams and leaders than an imprecise qualitative understanding of consumer behaviors.

The Declining Influence of the CMO

Another potential issue is that many Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) have lost status and a position of authority in the C-Suite. According to a recent McKinsey article, consumer-facing responsibilities in many organizations have been spread across multiple teams, leading to a reduced voice for the CMO and their insights teams. Without a single champion advocating for research, budgets will invariably diminish and with them, crucial insights workflows.

Fragmented Research and Siloed Data

The lack of a centralized authority representing consumers also leads to redundancies as various teams feel the need to conduct their own forms of consumer research. Invariably, this results in siloed data that paints an inaccurate picture of clients and can result in various teams working at cross purposes.

Losing Sight of Research’s True Purpose

But perhaps the single most important reason that researchers have lost status is that far too many insights experts have forgotten the entire point of research. Outside of academic circles, the entire raison d’être for research is to improve the bottom line of organizations. 

Research is not run just to gather and provide data, but rather to identify methods to attract more customers, to lower churn, to improve processes and employee satisfaction, to identify cross-sell or upsell opportunities or new potential products and services. It’s not about gathering data for the sake of gathering data, but rather connecting that data to ways of improving the bottom line.

From Data Collection to Actionable Recommendations

And because researchers have become focused on the process instead of the necessary end state, they fail at the point where they are most needed: providing concrete, clear recommendations to their teammates. As timelines compress and consumer cycles continue to accelerate, organizations not only need to gather, parse, analyze, and find meaning in data faster, but they need to more efficiently transform that meaning into actionable insights. 

Teams simply do not have the time to wait for long duration research projects, nor do they have the patience to read through extended reports trying to find what matters. Instead, we have to remember that internal partners are seeking clear, actionable guidance that go beyond summarizing the problem or the collected data to instead providing straightforward solutions. They want an 80% solution today instead of a 100% answer in months, and that means researchers need to embrace uncertainty and imperfection.

Rethinking the Researcher’s Role

So, how does market research regain its mojo? It starts with accepting that the role of researcher has changed. Being an expert is no longer about being the one that executes and handles all research, but rather becoming a strategic advisor, a partner that supports research across the organization and that serves as a central hub for all things consumer facing. 

It’s about making a shift from reactive, project-focused to instead aiming to proactively empower partners and to present ourselves as the voice of the customer within the organization. And finally, it’s moving from a focus on perfection to a “good enough” mindset at speed.

New Skills for a New Era

This transition is easier said than done, and new skills need to be learned. Successful researchers will lean into their ability to communicate with a range of stakeholders, will accept imperfection, will focus on supporting research instead of conducting research, and will embrace giving recommendations instead of data points. 

Perhaps most importantly, researchers will aim to be the true representative of the customer within an organization. They will be the one person that combines  all of the different points of consumer data and  provides a unified voice of the customer to guide decision-making within the company.  Successful researchers will be the ones that put the bottom line first and find new ways to leverage distributed research as a path to empowering teams. 

Embracing Change as an Opportunity

Change is never easy, and this transition may be uncomfortable. For many researchers, this may mean less time in the doing and more time in translating research to action for business decision-makers. But this is also an opportunity to spread the power of research across organizations and to reshape how insights are gathered and leveraged by firms. 

It’s a chance to teach our colleagues about the value of research and to build systems that encourage collaborative and collective research  instead of the siloed, one-off projects. And it's a chance to establish a new role and voice for researchers to guarantee them a seat at the table for years to come.