Research Reporter

Fully integrated research management platform

As custodians of a company’s knowledge on customers and markets, market research teams are critical to a company’s long term success.

Forsta is the leading technology platform used around the globe to transform research into a source of competitive advantage.

“A related benefit from Forsta has been the enhanced profile for the MRD within the broader organization. The ease with which research can be cross-referenced has lead to greater insights, and has provided greater opportunities for research to be utilized proactively at a strategic level.”

John Dimopolous
SVP, Global Director Market Research, Reckitt Benckiser Plc

Flexible, adaptable, integrated solutions

To transform research into a source of competitive advantage, market research teams must:

• Put market research at the heart of decision-making + Ensure research quality, without increasing administration
• Pro-actively manage research resources, including costs, suppliers, internal teams, and research outputs

Forsta provides a single integrated system that allows research teams to position research as a source of competitive advantage. A flexible underlying structure meets clients’ immediate needs, while providing seamless access to capabilities as requirements change.

Partnering with experience

Deploying successful solutions requires a combination of technology and practical research experience. To achieve this, we form close partnerships with our clients to:

• Rapidly develop and implement systems that meet their immediate needs
• Develop strategies to utilize technology to continually lift the positioning of market research
• Build the implementation supports necessary to ensure system successange.

Practical, proven technology

The Forsta platform is typically provided as a service to clients over secure internet connections. New functionality is continually added to the platform, using a client-centric development cycle, where new technology is matched to the practical application requirements of our clients.

This client-centric development cycle, in combination with service delivery over the internet means new clients have immediate access to new functionality that has proven to be successful with other market research teams.

Solutions

The Forsta platform provides a single integrated system to help maximize the use of past research, increase efficiency and quality of today’s projects, and pro-actively manage research resources.

The tool has been instrumental in the way that Zurich undertakes research. It stores details of agencies that work with the organization around the world, it tracks project progress, saves data and shares findings. It has simplified research and turned the Zurich insight function into a virtual global team without borders or time zones.”

Ulrike Krebbs
Manager Market and Competitive Intelligence Group Marketing Zurich Financial Services Ltd

More insight, less administration

Market research teams are under growing pressure to produce more insight, faster, and with fewer resources. At the same time, they must be more accountable – which means additional administration and less time to focus on generating and sharing insights.

Forsta helps reduce project administration time by using:

• On-line forms to capture information once, then reuse and apply it throughout the life of a project
• Auto-created communications for repetitive tasks and project approval management
• Context-based access to past projects, internal best practices, internal experts, or preferred suppliers. The result is less administration, and higher quality output from each new project.

Pro-actively manage resources

With increasing time pressures, few market research teams have the opportunity to truly plan and proactively manage research activities. As a result, researchers can be seen as project managers whose only focus is the project at hand.

Forsta can help to position market research teams as pro-active contributors to decision-making by collating all information relevant to a project, including existing research and key findings, actions taken as a result of prior research, and current project findings.

Automated cross-project reporting then allows:

• Insight Gap Analysis to identify where business units are currently lacking information to support their marketing plans
• Supplier performance analysis to summarize work done and total fees paid, to improve rate negotiations and preferred supplier setting
• Actions and costs summaries to identify research costs and business actions taken as a result of research, as a guide to research budget setting

Partnering with experience

Successful solutions require a combination of technology and practical research experience

We combine experience in successfully implementing technology with a deep understanding of market research. Our approach is to work in partnership with our clients to provide solutions that meet immediate needs, while ensuring that new capabilities can be seamlessly adopted as requirements evolve.

Their knowledge of both technical aspects and the market research industry are the perfect combination, and has made Forsta a valuable and useful tool within our organization. Together we worked to develop the best database to suit our particular organisation. Forsta’s approach to customer service is exceptional. We’ve found them readily accessible and friendly to deal with. They are more than willing to listen to our feedback and incorporate our suggestions.”

Research Manager
National Logistics Business

Leveraging expertise

Most companies do not have researchers who are experienced in specifying system requirements, nor technology staff who understand market research.

Forsta bridges the gap between technology and research. First launched in 2001, Forsta is now the world’s leading market research management system. Clients choose Forsta to leverage:

• The experience of other market-leading teams who have driven the development of the Forsta platform
• Time-tested processes for identifying requirements, creating and rolling out market research solutions
• The expertise of Forsta consultants, who have helped large and small companies create strong deployment and maintenance strategies, avoid common pitfalls, and continually improve the value of market research

Controlled evolution

The Forsta solution recognises that requirements evolve over time. Additional functionality, company reorganizations, shifting business priorities, and policy changes must all be reflected in an application if it is continue to provide a source of competitive advantage.

The success of Forsta in meeting these evolving needs is based on:

• The ability of the platform to expand and adjust to new requirements
• Experienced Forsta consultants who understand how to anticipate and prepare for system changes
• Built-in reporting tools that allow clients to monitor the effect of system changes

Practical, proven technology

The Forsta platform provides market research teams with a technology solution that does not require IT expertise, leaving researchers free to focus on generating the customer insights that drive their organizations.

Forsta enables the research team to better manage the business’s investments in market research, supporting the team in unlocking greater insight and driving value from our existing investment. Forsta has assisted the team in streamlining some of our admin functions which frees us up to concentrate on driving value from the research investments instead of managing files and data. As well as all the features available, the technical support and immediate resolution of any issues that arise is refreshing.”

Monique Hellel
Project Manager, Customer Insight & Market Research
Commonwealth Bank of Australia

Software as a Service

While Forsta can be set up on corporate servers, clients typically choose to access their applications over the internet, using the Software as a Service model. Clients choose the Software as a Service model because:

• No internal IT resources are required, as connection to Forsta is via a secure internet connection and browser
• There are no additional internal charge backs for back-ups, system access, maintenance etc
• Clients can immediately access new capabilities available on the platform as they become available, without expensive and time-consuming roll-outs
• Forsta client managers have full accountability for ensuring the accessibility and performance of each client’s application
• The extent of involvement of internal IT is at the discretion of the market research team

Protecting client information

Market research teams are increasingly faced with a dilemma. They need to disseminate research to maximize the benefit for the business, while protecting and restricting access to what is often highly confidential data.

Forsta maximizes information accessibility, while providing clients with the ability to apply their organization’s internal security standards. In addition to data accessibility and security rules based on the client’s internal research policies, Forsta’s information protection systems include industry standard protocols for:

• Data encryption
• Physical security data backup and disaster recovery
• Secure transmission, access and detection intrusion
• Regulatory and personnel compliance