An Evolving Journey of Change and Innovation

Pondering upon my three-decade-long career, I can say that my journey into market research was an unplanned adventure with unexpected twists and turns. It’s a story of risk taking, learning, getting out of one’s comfort zone and stepping into the unknown.

I began my professional life working with prominent companies like 3M, JWT, and The Havas Group in the Brand Planning & Management side, wherein I would be involved in developing brand positioning, strategy, creative communication alongside creating media plans. I was an active user of market research to develop these strategies.

I remember going on many field trips to interview customers face-to-face and attend focus group discussions in the tier 2 or tier 3 cities of India. At times, one needed to take a train or bus to reach the customers! The research industry has definitely evolved since then, with technology now being an integral aspect of enabling efficiency and quality in the research and delivery process.

Nevertheless, these initial experiences grounded me in the fundamentals of understanding consumer behavior.

Riding the Dot-Com Wave

Fast-forward to the late 1990s, when the dot-com boom hit India. Suddenly, there was an advent of E-commerce and digital startups, many modeled after international companies such as eBay, Expedia, etc., funded by venture capitalists at astronomical valuations! Many of these start-ups were set up by my alumni network, and it inspired me and my two co-founders to join the entrepreneurial bandwagon.

We focused on identifying a business idea within the marketing domain, which was our area of expertise. At that time, the US and European markets were transitioning to online research with companies like Greenfield Online, SSI, etc., as the internet penetration in those countries was significant. We believed there was an opportunity to set up India’s first online research agency as the market was inundated with digital start-ups. Having secured seed funding, we set up Cross-Tab in 2000 - India’s first online research agency!

This was a pivotal point in my career. I came from a line of professionals, and jumping onto the entrepreneurship bandwagon wasn’t my plan. But I had faith in my abilities and experience and thought that even if I failed, I would return to corporate life. At best, I will be behind my batch by a couple of years.

When setting up the online community in India, we knew clients would resist believing the authenticity of the respondents. Hence, we recruited our panel offline, got their physical signatures included, validated their physical addresses to authenticate their identity.

Yet, truth be told, convincing clients to trust the online research process was an uphill task! Clients would not trust the authenticity of the respondents or expect significant cost savings. Also, at that time internet penetration in India was limited to urban cities, and a national rep sample was not feasible.

To build trust, we focused on clientele with a more urban and elite target audience and conducted pilots to compare with their existing data gathered through traditional methodologies. A couple of years later, another turning point came when an international CMI client saw our capabilities when visiting his India team. He reached out to us to support his international team on a few global projects. As a leadership team, we were quick to identify a new business opportunity to support international CMI teams as their extension research team.

While one must have a focused strategic plan for your company’s future, one must be ready to grab new opportunities to evaluate if there can be a better path ahead.

New Beginnings and New Goals

When I set up Borderless Access, an independent online and mobile panel company serving global markets from India, we again identified a unique opportunity and focused on upcoming and underserved geographies of the future rather than being a ‘me too’ company. We focused on being identified as an emerging markets specialist and have now evolved to be a global insights and research company.

Borderless Access has grown by leaps and bounds. From a ten-member team 15 years ago, we are now a 400-member organization.

Today, we are working with multiple clients and agencies in India, and many have made significant strides in online research, especially post-pandemic. The market continues to be highly price sensitive. I believe clients have to balance the price and quality equation—quality in terms of data authenticity, richness of data, and the target audience reached when using digital methodologies. When the cost per interview races towards zero, quality is impacted, and this impacts the entire research community.

More and more clients in India are adopting the latest research tech tools within their research process. Post-pandemic, qualitative research has transformed and is using multiple digital tools to conduct the interviews and analyze the data/findings.

The Indian market research industry has all the capabilities required to be a major player on the global stage. As market researchers, we need to innovate and adapt to meet the evolving needs of both domestic and global clients.

The onus is on us to embrace change and fight for global prominence. As Borderless Access, we are working on multiple product ideas that can impact the research community and hope to make a mark in India as well as globally.