Its old image hindered attracting suitably highly qualified people to it as a career of first choice - a situation which posed a major threat to its viability in a changing operating environment locally and worldwide.
Locally, this could be attributed to a large extent to the very insular nature of the industry - where each of its major players operates protectively and in isolation. It is this lack of cohesion which until recently threatened the industry in its efforts to entice a new breed of self-assured, bright, career-minded people into a very competitive environment, where flair and intellect would be rewarded, not only financially but in the sense of making a real difference in society.
Andrea Rademeyer, managing director of wholly locally-owned market research firm Ask Afrika contends that industry action has been slow. But she says that individual companies have reacted to the challenge of playing a greater role in driving key decision makers and profit areas in all major social and business environments by seeking out and harnessing the commitment and talent of school leavers and graduates.
"Due to their ability to extrapolate personal buying power decisions from cold fact, human history has been influenced by actions based on discourse and observations of the records and interpretations of historians, analysis of philosophers, social dynamic studies of sociologists and anthropologists and psychologists. Research today is a combination of all those disciplines, amongst others, and each one is very exciting as they explore the predictive and non-predictive nature of humans in their modern surroundings," she explains.
By way of example she says Ask Afrika has increased its research service staff by 40% in the past 24 months to provide the insights of a greater spread of human behavioural observation disciplines. Their graduate research and interpretive staff are highly qualified in fields that range from psychology, sociology, industrial psychology, marketing and business management, economics, actuarial sciences, statistics and mathematics.
The negative and pedestrian image malaise is not peculiar to South Africa but an international problem which has been identified as one of the key areas of concern for the long term health of the global market research industry.
This view has been reflected in the authoritative industry journal, Research World. Late last year the managing director of GP Forschungsgruppe in Munich wrote bluntly in the publication: "The image of the industry needs a serious boost in the market. Market research people have the image of a grey mouse, dry bookkeepers. It is regarded as a transition to higher positions. The products of market research are tables and statistics, not Ferrari's or Armani suits."
Looking locally, Rademeyer concurs, saying that the industry has generally attracted people who have failed in fields that they regard as closely related, such as marketing, psychology or human resources. Unregulated entry standards without professional qualifications, have also pinned it with the image of merely having call centre-type operations. Too many people have seen it as a bridging occupation to get them to where they actually want to go - either as a source of finance or merely to mark time while they look for other opportunities.
"The contradictions are obvious. On the one hand the industry wants to be taken seriously and meet the incredible challenges of its evolving role in business, social and political change. However, it would not provide the credibility platform for it to be part of decision making processes because its people were not qualified to acceptable standards or committed. It was to overcome this that we as a company set about providing the excitement and reason to join a vibrant and vital profession for those with credibility and the drive make a difference," she explained.
A lack of unity within the local industry does not promote an environment for solving the problem. The drive to attract the new generation of practitioners is not always fully endorsed by the industry as a whole, which means either nothing is done nor is there is much duplication and poaching of the few good employees that do enter as a career, she adds.
