Canadian Business Leaders Want More MR Spend

Less than a third of Canadian companies are involved in primary market research, and around a third of business decision-makers think their companies should spend more on MR. These are the findings of a study of 500+ business decision-makers conducted by Ipsos Reid for Canada's Marketing Research and Intelligence Association (MRIA).

Just 30% of respondents said their companies were involved in primary MR, while about four in ten were involved in data mining (42%), environmental scanning/secondary research (41%), or competitive intelligence (38%).

Six out of ten think their company should spend about the same amount on business intelligence (BI) in future, though around a third said they should be spending more on data mining (32%), market research (33%), competitive intelligence (34%), and environmental scanning/secondary market research (27%). Decision-makers from larger organisations are more likely to state that their organisation should be spending more.

Steve Mossop, President of Ipsos Reid's Canada West MR practice, says: 'The need for business intelligence among Canadian organisations is higher than ever. There is a compelling need for better intelligence, a greater organisational focus, and larger budgets in this space.'

The poll was carried out between November 7 and 15, 2005 with a randomly selected sample of 514 adults who are responsible for BI within their organisation. The sample was drawn from Ipsos Reid's Canadian Internet Panel.

The study defines BI as a process for gathering, processing, analysing and disseminating decision-making information. Sources can include data mining (from customer records, databases and other internal sources), primary market research, competitive intelligence, and environmental scanning or secondary market research.

The full results of the study will be presented by Mossop at the First National Business Intelligence Conference sponsored by MRIA on December 1 and 2 in Vancouver. For details, see www.mria-arim.ca/BICONFERENCE/default.asp.

Ipsos Reid is online at www.ipsos.ca.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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