Marketing research in the 21st century: Opportunities and challenges

Abstract

The role of marketing is evolving rapidly, and design and analysis methods used by marketing researchers are also changing. These changes are emerging from transformations in management skills, technological innovations, and continuously evolving customer behavior. But perhaps the most substantial driver of these changes is the emergence of big data and the analytical methods used to examine and understand the data. To continue being relevant, marketing research must remain as dynamic as the markets themselves and adapt accordingly to the following: Data will continue increasing exponentially; data quality will improve; analytics will be more powerful, easier to use, and more widely used; management and customer decisions will increasingly be knowledge-based; privacy issues and challenges will be both a problem and an opportunity as organizations develop their analytics skills; data analytics will become firmly established as a competitive advantage, both in the marketing research industry and in academics; and for the foreseeable future, the demand for highly trained data scientists will exceed the supply.