Companies are in a unique position today, as they have an unprecedented ability to collect information about consumers through various channels and thus create rich and deep profiles of their target customers. However, what is considered a goldmine of information has actually highlighted many pain points, including: 

• Consumers are being bombarded with multiple surveys across different channels by different departments. As a result, consumers feel more and more that they are being badgered for information about themselves.
• A siloed department structure creates little incentive to collaborate across departments. Thus, repetition of similar projects by different departments occurs, contradictory results can be communicated internally, and learning based on a department’s successes and failures from past projects is not communicated across departments.

In my latest report, I posit that as experts in research processes, market insights professionals need to take control over the data by positioning themselves as the centralized knowledge house of data and analysis. By working as strategic partners alongside key stakeholders from other departments, the market insights department becomes the “glue” that links and builds a unified research program across the organization.

How might one accomplish this? Incorporate a technology tool like enterprise feedback management (EFM) throughout the organization. What is EFM? Forrester defines it as follows:

A system of software and processes that enables organizations to centrally collect, analyze, and report on feedback from key customer groups and tailor insights for various internal users.

To build this data center of excellence and bring all research data streams together, market insights professionals should start thinking about if and how they should incorporate a technology tool like EFM within their organization.

To understand the EFM landscape, my colleague Andrew McInnes and I scanned the marketplace for all the EFM vendors and conducted a capabilities assessment survey to understand their platforms and services. Also, the report provides market insights professionals with a guiding framework using Forrester’s POST methodology to help them build this centralized knowledge house as well as help them select the right EFM vendor based on key differentiators.

Have you considered implementing a data and knowledge framework solution like EFM? What do you see as the biggest challenge to building a centralized data and analytics knowledge house within the organization?