Conversations with corporate researchers
Silvana Amparbeng
Global Market Intelligence – Research Manager, Worldpay, London
You’ve worked and studied in Italy, Spain, France and the U.K. How do these experiences impact your current role at Worldpay?
I am responsible for the European division of the group. Having lived in the key markets of my division allows me to understand the competitive dynamics and market conditions in a deeper way, giving me an edge when interpreting research results and providing recommendations.
Of the market segments you have researched, is there one that is harder to get a handle on than others?
I have to say that I’ve enjoyed researching both the health care and financial services sectors and feel quite lucky in that sense. These two sectors are very relatable and research within these fields has always enriched me at a personal level, not only professionally.
What methodology or technique do you use on a regular basis that you feel is currently undervalued by the MR community?
I feel the Delphi method is often undervalued by the corporate research community. When working agency-side, we would often use this method to inform our forecasts and put research results into perspective. It is indeed a costly research method and I understand that most corporate researchers simply don’t have budget for this. However, it is definitely worth investing in the method, especially when working on strategic plans for the business.
Can you offer a few tips for marketing researchers finding it difficult to effectively leverage big data on a budget?
As mentioned previously, budgets heavily influence the research road map – and exploiting the full potential of big data comes at a cost. In the financial services industry in particular, legacy technology and software make it even more difficult to analyze large amounts of data. In most cases the data itself is hosted in separate platforms that are unable to communicate to each other to match different pieces of the same information, therefore reducing the value of the analysis. A tip to make sense of these data lakes without breaking the bank – literally – is to make use of internal technology teams and hire the best talent. Also, many professional organizations offer training in data science and for many researchers an investment in such programs will make them stand out from the crowd as an incredible asset for their organization.
Silvana Amparbeng will be sharing a case study presentation at The Quirk’s Event in London titled, “How to Build a Market Intelligence Organization that Matters: A Case Study.”