2017 Predictions in Review

Some of you predicted generally accurately, some predicted optimistically, some wrote with hope and some of you got it spot on. Well done, this is a better result than last year!

Overall, though, there is one winner. It’s not to do with MR specifically but it demonstrates a predictive skill that stood out. Congratulations, Ray, on leading the pack!

Ray Poynter – Managing Director, The Future Place & NewMR:

Away from politics, watch out for some widespread weirdness in the USA in August. Across a large part of USA there will be a full solar eclipse on 21 August and I predict that it will bring all sorts of strange people out of the woodwork.

If you don’t believe Ray, this illustrates some of the widespread weirdness that Ray predicted.

Below are the main themes and a few individuals that accurately predicted some of the activity in 2017. I look forward to reading the 2018 predictions in 12 month’s time!

Automation

Mark Simon – Managing Director, North America and Managing Director Digital, Toluna:

I have no doubt we will see an acceleration of research automation in 2017.

Patricio Pagani – Company Director, Infotools: 

We are going to see a big surge in the activity around automation of research processes. From data collection to processing and also the analysis and visualization space. And the trend will continue into 2018 and beyond.

AI

Alex Hunt – President, System1 Research: 

We’ll hear more and more about Artificial Intelligence and what we hear will be less and less about tools that are actually AI. These tools will be computer-generated models with statistical algorithms that will be limited in the data they use and don’t mimic human thought in the least.

Edward Appleton –  Director Global Marketing, Happy Thinking People:  

I see 2017 as a year where technology will continue to capture attention, drive change – VR, AI for example.

Jon Puleston – Vice President Innovation, Lightspeed Research:

“AI” will assume the mantle previously held by Big Data and before that Mobile, Social Media Text Analytics & Web2.0 as the most annoyingly over used buzzword in market research in 2017.

Business as Usual

Kristin Luck -Growth Strategist, Luck Collective: 

In truth, I think as an industry we’re great at talking about the future of research, but really poor at actually moving away from the traditional methods we’re comfortable with and trying new things.

Rebecca West, Global Vice President, Marketing Research Services at Civicom:

One thing we will not see go away is traditional research. There is still a very large body of clients and researchers who believe strongly that the best way to find out what is going on with consumers or business people is to meet with them personally and talk with them.

Kevin Gray – President, Cannon Gray LLC:

Barring an economic downturn or other events that cause sudden budget cutbacks, I expect 2017 to be pretty much like 2016.

Investment

Nico Jaspers – Co-Founder and CEO at Dalia Research GmbH: 

Increased VC interest in market research/insights startups.

Leonard Murphy – Executive Editor & Producer, GreenBook & Senior Partner, Gen2 Advisors: 

Private Equity loves markets in disruption, so look for a wave of consolidation focused M&A activity driven by PE funds. VC’s love disruption as well, so there will continue to be healthy investment into early stage companies playing in the insights space.

See the full list of predictions here.