But from another perspective, such a small turnover shows that this industry has great room for development. Relevant data show that the market research industry in China is developing at an amazing speed, with a total turnover growth rate of about 58%, which greatly exceeds the growth rate of 8.3% in the global market, fully reflecting the strong vitality of this industry.
A more standardized industry
In recent years, the phenomenon of disorderly competition, such as vicious price competition, cheating by interviewers and low quality, has been a shadow hanging over the investigation industry. In particular, the gradual decline in the quotation is more like a sword hanging in the minds of investigators. According to statistics, since 1999, the average quotation of domestic customers in China market research industry has generally decreased compared with 1998, with a decrease range of 21.2%-43.9%; Compared with 1998, the lowest quotation of domestic customers has also generally declined, with a decrease range of 28.7%-50%. 1998 shows that the quotation of China market research industry is far lower than that of Europe and America. Facts show that the result of low quotation will eventually reduce the quality of investigation, harm the interests of customers, and lead the industry to enter a vicious circle of "low price-low quality-low price-low quality".
For this phenomenon that damages the industry, peers in the industry are all attacking it. Mr. Li Si, general manager of Oriental Market Research Co., Ltd. told the reporter, "If there is no strong industry norm to restrain people, in the end, everyone in this line will have a hard time." Only when everyone abides by certain technical specifications, charging standards and confidentiality principles can we shut out market "violators" and ultimately protect our own interests.
Based on the understanding of industry self-discipline, the participating survey institutions jointly issued the Declaration on Industry Fairness and Self-discipline (Guangzhou Declaration) at the meeting. The declaration advocates the industry to formulate and improve the quality assurance mechanism of customer service and research; Avoid using malicious bidding strategies and belittling competitors in the same industry, do not use improper means such as kickbacks to compete for customer resources, and at the same time avoid hunting talents in the same industry by encouraging or implying breach of contract, and avoid obtaining trade secrets in the same industry through private transactions ... Although the declaration is only a beginning to standardize the market, there is reason to believe that with such a beginning, the investigation industry will gradually embark on the road of orderly competition.
Towards a specialized industry
At present, there are 400-500 professional investigation institutions in China. However, there are no more than 50 professional investigation institutions recognized by the industry, and most of them are concentrated in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The business ability of most survey companies is limited to on-site implementation, and they can only get a share by taking over subcontracted projects from foreign companies or domestic counterparts one by one. At present, only about 15% in the whole industry is far lower than the previous profit rate among investigators. No wonder Yuan Yue, chairman of Zero Market Research and Analysis Company studying in the United States, lamented that this is an industry where employees are hard and bosses are distressed.
In the interview, the reporter found that many CEOs of survey companies believe that in order to survive, they must move from passive survival to active development. This requires the survey company to take the initiative to make characteristics and take the road of professional development. Li Si, general manager of Oriental Market Research Co., Ltd. believes that the specialization of survey companies includes several aspects: first, the specialization of regions, which makes some companies reduce their costs because they are particularly familiar with a certain region; The second is functional specialization, which also makes some companies reduce costs and improve quality due to the increasingly fine division of labor. As a result, there will be specialized data collection companies, qualitative research companies and even specialized sampling companies. The third is industry specialization, which makes those companies that are particularly familiar with a certain industry become specialized companies in specialized industries.
The advantage of taking the road of specialization for research companies is that it will promote the overall value of market research companies. At present, some enterprises tend to investigate, thinking that investigation companies can only do simple data collection, but lack the ability to analyze data in depth, let alone provide consulting for enterprises, and become the outside brain of enterprises. The fact is that more and more survey companies are not satisfied with collecting data, but are narrowing their own market encirclement. For example, Oriental Market Research Company has set up special research groups for its own powerful industries, including IT, household appliances, automobiles, medicine, tourism, real estate, finance and so on. And each research group is composed of researchers who have a deep understanding and background in the industry. As you can imagine, such a research group will mean more consulting and suggestion ability for those "all-purpose oil" research companies, and its competitiveness is self-evident.
International industry
At present, it is gratifying that the development direction of internationalization has also become the knowledge of the survey industry. Due to the globalization trend of China's economy, enterprises' demand for fast, massive, multi-category, cross-regional and high-quality market information will be more sufficient, frequent and practical than ever before. The market research industry in China will face the customer's demand for information deep processing, the competition from more international peers, the bottleneck of its own management and the multiple challenges of ideas, knowledge, skills and service modes brought about by economic globalization.
In this situation, many companies have embarked on the road of joint venture and cooperation with internationally renowned investigation institutions. A few years ago, South China Company had a joint venture with Japan, Hualian Xin had a joint venture with Ipsos, and Shanghai Dazheng also had a joint venture with JFK. Now, CCTV, one of the largest market research companies in China, has also entered a comprehensive joint venture ... These companies all told reporters that the purpose of the joint venture is to learn from the advanced technology and management experience of international companies in order to upgrade themselves and meet the challenges.
At the same time, studying abroad has become a new fashion in the industry. Not to mention, the survey company bosses are eager to go abroad to participate in various international exchange activities. Some people simply go abroad for full-time study. For example, Yuan Yue, the boss of Zero, and Liu Shiqing, the boss of South China, went to the United States to study.
Many bosses confided their inner pressure to reporters: this is a high IQ industry, and this industry will need the boss's ability more than any other industry, because if you don't constantly update your knowledge, it will be difficult to retain people by your own ability, and your strong men will fire you one by one, because they have mastered the technology and customers, and it will be easy to start a company without them.
Based on this, the newly established trade association also pointed out that one of the important services of the association is to organize various kinds of training in the industry. Through training, the professional quality of each company will be improved, so as to improve the competitiveness of the whole survey industry in China. The result of improving the overall quality of the survey industry will mean that enterprises can easily find satisfactory survey companies to serve their own decisions.