The problem was taken to heart by Insight Marketing Strategy, a Melbourne-based strategic marketing and research consultancy, when in 1998 they embarked on an ambitious project to bring the benefits of the burgeoning knowledge management and collaboration technologies to market research management.

‘While financial information systems have been providing information at the ‘push of a button’ for many years, most of the marketing information decision makers use is still scattered around in paper-based market research reports, journal articles, consultant’s business models and competitor intelligence reports’, says Daryl Maloney McCall, one of the directors of Insight Marketing Strategy.

In what Insight Marketing Strategy believes is a world first, their resulting efforts have produced research reporter; an information management system designed specifically for market research buyers. Research reporter combines the capabilities of project management, document management and collaboration technologies to create a system specifically designed to perform key research management tasks. It is aimed at organisations which are already sophisticated users of research and wish to extract maximum value from their market research and other marketing information investments. It utilises web based technologies so that the system can reside on the organization’s internal intranet or be hosted offsite in a secure external environment.

Much has been written about the critical nature of market research to business success. But in these times of information overload and often shrinking human and financial resources to manage it, Daryl says research reporter assists smart organizations who are seeking more effective ways to manage, distribute and control the quality of information that stems from their market research investments.

‘We have had an amazing response from the clients so far. They all seem to see the benefits it can bring the organization. Their internal clients want better access to information and the research manager wants to spend more time adding value through his or her role instead of playing librarian or the policy police’, says Daryl.

Keith Mitchelhill, the Executive General Manager (E-commerce & Timber Business Group) at Boral Limited is one of three Insight Marketing Strategy clients to whom Research News spoke. He says the company plans to use research reporter as a shared central repository for market research and high-end strategic documents for a number of Boral divisions.

‘As it will be accessible by senior management from different divisions, there are times when we will need to be able to restrict access to certain reports to one division or another - or by some level of security seniority within each division. research reporter gives us the flexibility and control to configure our own security requirements on a project by project basis.’

On the proviso that her identity remains anonymous, a research manager in the utilities sector commented: ‘Internally, research reporter will promote learning about, and demystify, the research function. It has a learning centre that explains some of the basics about research, which will improve the level of understanding for internal stakeholders.

'This in turn improves their ability to prepare clear research/information briefs, saving lost of time for all parties concerned. Also, if people have ready access to the information, it frees up a lot of your time as a research manager to concentrate on value adding rather than just managing information.’ This client also said that, in addition to the benefits of using research reporter to streamline communication among internal clients, the company would use the application to select research agencies for projects.

Marian McCormick, Marketing Research Manager at Kraft, is also implementing research reporter. She learned of research reporter while working at ANZ and, after moving to her new position, quickly focused on integrating it with the Kraft intranet. ‘Statistical terminology can get quite daunting for some, so the learning centre will be a great resource for the managers with whom I work. We’ll also use the application to profile the research department and as a project management tool. It’s a great way to maximise the company’s investment in research and to enhance the quality of what we do.’

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