Viewpoint
Don E. SchultzNorthwestern University
WE CAN DO BETTER
About a year ago, I stirred up what has proven to be a hornet's nest in the research community. First, I presented a paper, 'A roadmap for developing an integrated, audience-focused, market research-driven organisation' at the ESOMAR 2005 Annual Congress in Lisbon. There, I suggested too much market and marketing research was focused on inconsequential, tactical, short-term studies, used to confirm decisions managers had already made. My solution: leverage market research up to focus on financial business decisions. My argument was so powerful, the paper was simply ignored....