Market Facts rolls out speedy survey service
Arlington Heights, Ill.-based Market Facts Inc. has plugged in TeleNation Overnight, a custom survey with a 24-hour turnaround. The service offers 300 completed interviews per night, with both national and regional samples of U.S. adults over 18. Results are delivered in tabular form.
Audits & Surveys' retail survey continues
Audits and Surveys, New York, conducts an annual survey, the National Retail Sample Census, designed to map the retail landscape in the contiguous 48 states. The company this year deployed its largest interviewing crew ever. Audits & Surveys says that more than half of the 2.9 million retail stores in the United States are family-owned small business, many of which do not respond to the mailed survey forms used by the U.S. Census. Audits & Surveys' staff visits retail outlets to conduct face-to-face interviews, deriving nationally projectable information on stores by geography, category, size and type. An international version of the survey is in its fifth year.
ESRI rolls out desktop mapping package & ARC/INFO speed enhancer
Environmental Systems Research In-stitute Inc., Redlands, Calif., has formed a partnership with Wessex - a Winnetka, Ill.-based supplier of CD-based geographic data products - to jointly market First St., a state-of-the-art mapping software package that contains all of the U.S. Census Bureau's core data. First St. features ESRI's Arc View Version 2 software and a 22-CD set of geographic and demographic data from Wessex. Also part of the package are several application scripts written in Avenue, Arc View's application development language. The scripts allow novice users to do basic geographic analysis. First St. costs $1,995.
Meanwhile, ESRI has introduced ArcExpress, a speed enhancement extension for the ARC/INFO geographic information system software. The high-speed performance provided by ArcExpress allows users to more quickly accomplish demanding interactive GIS applications on UNIX work stations. ArcExpress features include: improved display speed of large spatial databases; integration with ARCPLOT and ARCEDIT; rapid display of most features; and more efficient display and editing of large data sets. The enhancement can easily be added to AML applications. No database modifications are necessary to use existing ARC/INFO coverages and symbol sets with ArcExpress, which will be integrated with ARC/INFO Rev. 7 software and offered as an optional extension.
Think Systems offers decision-support applications
Think Systems, a decision-support software developer based inParsippany,N.J., has introduced four applications designed for use by large consumer-goods companies. FYI Planner is a forecasting/planning system designed to help companies forecast and plan their sales and inventory cycles. FYI Sales is a query, analysis and reporting system that gives sales-people immediate access to the up-to-date sales information. FYI Finance is a general purpose analysis tool used to analyze, plan and monitor the financial aspects of large corporations managing multiple products. FYI TradePromoter is an integrated software tool that allows companies to plan, allocate funds and monitor trade promotion spending. The first three applications already are available; FYI TradePromoter is expected to be released during the fourth quarter of 1994.
Upgraded Apollo Windows released
Information Resources Inc., Chicago, has released Apollo Windows Version 2.0, an enhanced, more powerful version of its retail shelf-space management program. Apollo Windows helps retailers allocate space and monitor product or category performance. The new version offers a sophisticated graphing function; improved data management features; Custom Report Editor, which generates reports tailored to specific business needs; and more flexible highlighting and allocations features.
Cahners offers Marquis Who's Who
Cahners Direct Marketing Services, Des Plaines, Ill., is offering the Marquis Who's Who Database, listing information on almost 600,000 affluent and upscale professionals. Based on the exclusive series of Marquis Who's Who directories, the database icludes select individuals recognized for outstanding achievement in their field. Marquis has published Who's Who in America and other directories since 1899.
SPSS 6.1 debuts
Chicago-based SPSS has unveiled SPSS 6.1 for Windows, a statistical package that uses Microsoft's Win32s technology to run significantly faster than previous versions of the SPSS software. The company has also added a new toolbar, expanded help and several graphic file formats, along with additional statistical features such as case identification or individual points in scatterplots and boxplots, display of censored cases in Kaplan-Meier plots, one-sample t-tests and a new GLM-based loglinear procedure. The Win32s system is included with SPSS's third edition of the software, which can be used for survey research, marketing and sales analysis, quality improvement and general research. The upgrade price for SPSS 6.1 is$199forthe base and $39 to $69 for options. Purchase price is $695 for the Base system, with available options ranging from $395 to $495.
Census Bureau writes newsletter
The U.S. Bureau of the Census, Washington, has initiated production of Census and You, a monthly newsletter offering the latest statistical trends in U.S. population figures and demographics, business, housing, income and wealth, education, agriculture and world population, with an emphasis on information vital to business planning. The newsletter will regularly offer information on new data products and services from the Census and other federal agencies, along with tables showing current economic and demographic trends and other data from recent census and survey reports. A subscription costs $21 per year.
Doane taps Canadian animal health market
Doane Marketing Research, St. Louis, is developing the syndicated 1995 Canadian Animal Health Market Study, designed to provide biannual reports on Canadian beef, dairy and pork producers' use of anthelmintics, feed medications and additives, implants and pharmaceuticals. Doane already offers a U.S. animal-health market study, and the company also plans to inaugurate a Mexican study.
Investext adds company profiles to online services
Adding to its online offerings, the Boston-based Investext Group now issues recently enhanced Fortune Company Profiles bearing new intelligence on corporations through its business information service, I/PLUS Direct. The profiles are produced by Avenue Technologies, San Francisco, with information from Thomson Financial Services, Standard & Poor's Register and Reuters News Service, among others. Each profile covers between 3,000 and 5,000 companies; offers industry peer-group comparisons and financial information, including five-year trends and statement analyses; and includes acompany development section with abstracts from 800 magazines and journals, along with as many as 10 abstracts of analyst research reports from the Investext database. The database used to compile each profile is updated whenever new information becomes available.
Claritas logs its offerings
Claritas, Alexandria, Va., has published a catalog describing each of the databases the company offers. The 112-page catalog details the geographic levels available for each database and delivery options. The print database of databases is free.
NFO, BASES team to create screening system
Greenwich, Conn.-based NFO Research Inc. and the BASES Group, Cincinnati, have combined forces to develop Volumetric Concept Screening by Mail, which enables consumerpackaged-goods manufacturers to screen and refine new product ideas. The system is designed to prevent manufacturers from wasting time on a product that is likely to fail in the marketplace. NFO mails descriptions of a company's product concepts, along with a customized questionnaire that includes BASES' standard Key Measures questions, to samples of consumers selected from NFO's 450,000-member household panel. Questionnaires are returned to and processed at NFO's Toledo, Ohio, facility, then BASES performs an analysis on the resulting data and provides ballpark estimated volume potential for certain high-potential concepts.
Nielsen to convene Hispanic panel
Northbrook, Ill.-based Nielsen Marketing Research has enlisted Hispanic Market Connections Inc., Los Altos, Calif., to co-create a Hispanic consumer panel. The two companies, given sufficient client support and funding, will unveil the panel in early 1995. The model calls for panelists to use Nielsen's handheld scanner to record all of their purchases from retail stores on an ongoing. basis. Nielsen will rely on HMC's expertise as it applies its technology to the $200 billion Hispanic market.
"Guide to American Directories" updated
B. Klein Publications, Coral Springs, Fla., has published the 13th edition of the "Guide to American Directories." The 518-page guide, edited by Barry and Bernard Klein, gives detailed descriptions of more than 10,000 directories in 200 categories. It costs $85.
Market Statistics, Scan/ US form publishing alliance
Market Statistics, a subsidiary of New York-based Bill Communications Inc., and Scan/US, Los Angeles, together are producing and distributing low-price CD-ROM products that convert Market Statistics' census-based marketing data into full-color maps. The companies group the products under the moniker Demographics USA, described as a "geomarket analysis system." The system is designed to combine marketing information systems that have volumes of integrated data but lack sophisticated mapping, the sophisticated but highly technical mapping technologies found in Geographic Information Systems, and spread-sheet tools that lack visual analysis capabilities. Demographics USA features breakdowns of consumer expenditures for various product categories; the "Effective Buying Incomes" of the population; sales demand, dining out and buying power indices; lifestyle indicators, such as GeoVALS scores; and data on working women. Demographics USA also gives users detailed street maps and Scan/US' MicroGrids, which offer data for areas as small as a 16th of a square mile. The City Edition retails for $1,295; the County Edition and ZIP Editions run $4,750 each; all three - with an enhanced ZIP Code database - can be purchased togetherfor $9,950.
Product and Service Update - In-depth
CAPI to the rescue: How a major account customer satisfaction study redefined computer-aided personal interviewing
By Richard Nadler
Editor's note: Richard Nadler is a principal with the Technology Applications Group and Perseus Development Corp., Needham, Mass.
It was another one of those impossible projects that an over-zealous consultant had committed to deliver to an over-demanding client. Unfortunately, this time I was the consultant. In the past, I had avoided the most common pitfall in the consulting business: pricing to win, rather than pricing to do. After all, I had been a senior manager at a consulting firm for several years and should have known better.
Well, it wasn't until the project began that I realized what I had gotten myself into. The work was so overwhelming that it wasn't going to be a case of a few late nights and several long weekends for my self and my staff. No, this was going to require some ingenuity, a new approach and some slick programming.
The research program itself was solid. The objectives clear. The methodology proven. The deliverables identified. The time-frame ridiculous. The Global Major Account Customer Requirements Program was not simply a customer-satisfaction measurement effort, it was an action-oriented program with real substance behind it. The program would identify problem areas, as well as new opportunities, that could directly translate to expanded market share. It would be an opportunity for frank, one-to-one discussions with leading customers, resulting in improved customer satisfaction, one customer at a time. With a sample base of 200 customers, representing almost $900 million worth of revenue, the importance of the project could not be overstated. The program had six objectives:
- To identify, document and provide a framework for addressing specific customer needs, concerns, and issues
- To identify new business opportunities both related and unrelated to the business currently generated from the account
- To aid in the development of customer driven performance measures to ensure that internal measures relate to actual customer expectations
- To focus company resources in areas that customers perceive as most important, and that offer the highest return on investment
- To identify customer perceptions of key competitors and account specific competitive positioning strategies
- To increase customer satisfaction and loyalty and as a result market share.
These goals were to be achieved through in-depth, two-hour face-to-face interviews with the company's top 200 customers. Following each interview a 20- to 25-page report containing a mix of measurement ratings, analysis, interpretation and verbatim quotes was to be written and sent to both the respondent and the major account manager. Each report needed to be custom written and letter perfect.
The pilot interview went very smoothly. The customer was very willing to sit and respond to the 32-page questionnaire. I audiotaped the interview, which lasted for approximately two-and-a-half hours (slightly over budget). Returning to my office I began to put together the first report. Three coffee pots and 14 hours later it was complete: eight hours or one day over budget. I quickly dusted off my Intro to Finance book and turned to the chapter on the Time Value of Money. I was in deep trouble. I expected some improvement over time, but I knew I would never come near the six-hour budget per write-up I had case study-styled output. The use of the Interview Manager solved my budgetary woes: the completed interview and report can now be done in a total of five hours rather than 16, representing a 70% time savings.
The use of CAPI also added value to the research in many other ways:
- Interviews were completed using a notebook computer, giving a professional, state-of-the-art perception.
- Respondent comments were audio-recorded on the notebook computer's hard disk. I could later refer to the audio on a question-by-question basis, while reviewing or editing the interview, for transcription when convenient. The audio highlights were also added to the electronic version of the word-processor file for real impact.
- Transcribing tapes was eliminated, reducing costs and time in preparing the reports.
- Key comments were highlighted during the interview or when reviewing the interview (through a special feature we added and cleverly named "key comments"), and the system automatically summarized them for me at the beginning of the report
- The CAPI system created complete draft reports, eliminating the initial report structuring and analysis and automatically providing basic text formatting such as bold, italics and indents. All of this reduced costs, saved time, added consistency and - most importantly - allowed me more time to concentrate on the higher level analysis. The final reports were completed within a two-hour time frame, including final production using the CAPI system.
The project was an overwhelming success, and the client was delighted. They were surprised when I asked if we could competitively bid for conducting personal interviews in Hong Kong, Australia, and Singapore. But when our costs including travel came in under the costs submitted by local firms (due to the CAPI system), it was an easy decision for the client to contract with us. I particularly enjoyed the extra three days I was able to squeeze in on Fiji, although I am sure that the waiters by the beach found me to be an over-demanding client!
For more information call Andrew Hayes, Bernett Research Services, 800-254-1314, ext. 333.