Clients and Smaller Firms May Be Most Optimistic?
One of the members, Bret Goble, of the 4000+ strong “Next gen Market Research” group I moderate on LinkedIn approached me with a request to run a poll on the site. I typically don’t allow surveys/polls in the group, because there are frankly way too many survey monkey’s out there.
However, I thought the idea of asking a simple question about market sentiment among the researchers sounded like a good idea. The question I asked was:
Within the next month I expect market research activity to
A. Increase
B. Stay about the same
C. Decrease
The poll was then posted in the Next gen Market Research Group on LinkedIn. We may possibly repeat this in a month or two if there is interest. Below are the results.
About half of market researchers expect things to stay the same. However, five in two are optimistic!
“C-Level & VP” executives seem most optimistic. Interestingly “Owners” who are usually optimistic by nature are most conservative. Perhaps they have already been hit hard and are afraid to get their hopes up? I’m not sure which of these two groups is more credible.
In terms of size, both Enterprise and small firms are most optimistic. This seems to prove what I have been suspecting. Contrary to some of the articles I’ve seen lately which claim clients should cozy up to their long time suppliers in these hard times, the opposite and more logical is happening. Larger clients are seeking out value among smaller suppliers which have less overhead and can offer more at a lower price. This should allow Enterprise firms to conduct more projects.
Business Development, and Sales are most optimistic. They are the front line so they should know if things are changing before anyone else.
Optimism decreases with age.
Not sure how useful gender is in this case.
Let me know if you found this useful and would be interested in a followup?
Tom
Link to original postTom H. C. Anderson – Anderson Analytics
