Abstract
Over the last few decades the world has witnessed an increase in the use of technology across industries and brought along with it digitization. The qualitative market research space has not been an exception. Ghana, which like many other African countries lacks bodies of knowledge on this branch of research which depends heavily on the interventions of human researchers and subjects has also witnessed increased technology use. This research paper therefore explored how technology and digitization has impacted the commercial qualitative market research industry in Ghana by answering the following research questions;
- What forms of technology are available to qualitative market researchers in Ghana, and how have they been used?
- In what ways has technology impacted the commercial qualitative research space in Ghana?
- How can market research personnel in Ghana successfully moderate the impact of technology and digitization to better their work outcomes?
A review of literature from different authors was done to build a conceptual framework for the study, with the final stage of the ICT4D value chain developed in 2009 being settled on. Three skilled qualitative researchers from three commercial market research firms in Ghana, were interviewed to get a sense of their perceptions of technology’s impact on their work, with one of the firms was observed closely as well. The data collected was then analyzed and themes identified as; access to respondents, duration of projects, roles of researchers and data management. By analyzing the unique experiences and perceptions of the researchers, lessons were drawn on how researchers could sustainably improve the qualitative research process in the presence of new technology and recommendations made for industry as well as for future research.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1-INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………………………… 7
CHAPTER 2- LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………………………………………………. 16
CHAPTER 3-METHODOLOGY…………………………………………………………………………………… 27
- Overview…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 27
CHAPTER 4- RESULTS AND FINDINGS……………………………………………………………………. 36
Firm A……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 37
Firm B……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 37
Firm C……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 39
CHAPTER 5-CONCLUSION AND RECOMENDATIONS………………………………………… 47
CHAPTER 1-INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
A 2020 global research study of the global business environment spearheaded by Kantar TNS, a leading research firm, showed that of all the features a firm needed to sustain good business growth, its insights engine was the most crucial. An insights engine describes a firm’s coffer of market and consumer intelligence supported by technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning. The study concluded by outlining specific building blocks that had been identified to assist firms successfully create and sustain growth for all key parties especially their customers. These blocks when combined ideally focused on; being human-centric, recognizing and addressing the needs of all stakeholders, delivering ever-evolving experiences for customers and tapping into the limitless power of the combined force of creativity, data and technology.
Bill Gates, the founder of the world’s leading software manufacturer, Microsoft, once described information technology and business as inextricably interwoven, with each being almost ineffective when considered without the other. Information technology is a term coined to describe the use of any form of technology to process, store and communicate any type of information (Terashima,2002). Technology has been defined widely by different entities, and one such definition described it as a two-fold resource consisting of both a physical and an informational aspect. The physical aspect according to this definition is made up of things such as products, processes, blueprints and machines, while the informational aspect consists of ‘knowledge’ in the form of insights or capabilities in different aspects of work (Kumar et al, 1999, as cited in Wahab, 2012). Other definitions by Lovell (1998) and Bozeman (2000) describe technology as not only the expertise encompassed in a product but the application of this expertise in other forms as well. Technology in its different forms has been described as an indispensable tool that the success of
every business depends on whether heavily or otherwise and allows them to get and possibly maintain a competitive edge over competitors (Kolaski, 2018).
Data, which also moves hand in hand in with technology encompasses little different pieces of information, some of which may or may not be relevant for a certain cause (Sanders, 2016). As the definition suggests, data is vast and can come in many different forms, thus leaving the decision to the user as to what they consider relevant or useful. This brings up the discussion of how much data is available to businesses globally and how they can successfully navigate through the plethora of data. Data is growing at rapid rates as new forms of technology are being created and together are spearheading change in economies globally (Kagermann, 2014). As a result, data credibility is has become an issue, forcing firms to become more intentional and strategic about their use of technology and all that comes with it. Unavoidably, this weighs heavily on firms’ monetary resources and time therefore increasing the need for commercially generated reliable firm or industry-specific data especially for entities that cannot afford to manage independent research departments.
With technology came the creation of a ‘virtual universe’ made up of platforms such as the Internet, where data and information is made available to people online. This availability of information on such channels has largely been facilitated by digitization, which is the conversion of data and information into digital form such that it can be read, processed, stored and shared by computers (Bloomberg, 2018). Kagermann (2014) also described digitization as the convergence of real and virtual worlds made possible by Information and Communication Technology, and in addition the connecting of people regardless of geographic location or scope. A study ranking the most important qualities of service delivery to consumers showed that 82% placed high value on speed (Guta, 2018). This estimate may increase further owing to the now fast-paced nature of the
‘digital era’, which makes consumers demand more from their service providers. Similarly, users of data have become keener on getting access to useful and quality data in the shortest possible time.
