The GRIT Report 2022 - Quo Vadis Qual Research?
The GRIT 2022 Report was announced last week. It was a business and innovation issue, and contained rankings of the Top 50/ 30 most innovative clients and suppliers globally.
Supplier rankings were split into segments – data and analytics provider, field service, full service…and Qualitative Research Providers.
The Qual Top 30 List makes interesting reading.
Whilst it’s great to see one’s own company making the cut - H/T/P was #24 - the Winner podium of Top 3 was pretty interesting.
Qualsights Nr. 1, Voxpopme Nr. 2, Remesh Nr. 3.
Tech platforms that many Qual agencies likely know and work with – for all sorts of studies.
But what else do these innovative providers of qual research they have in common?
Qual - at Scale??
They’re all digital platforms; they offer “insights in real-time”; "scale"; analysis facilitated with AI tools.
I quote from Voxpopme’s website about their own offering: “Qualitative insight can now be analyzed at quantitative scale. Leverage our robust automated analysis to uncover key insights quickly and easily.”
Sounds so easy. Insights on tap. At scale.
But is this a) realistic and b) what qual research is all about - and c) the future of qual research?
I’m sceptical. Qual is about exploring, understanding something, developing hypotheses, surfacing meaning. It’s about the power of small data, and the skill of the qualitative researcher is critical in that process.
The (over)promise of AI?
The seeming drift to ever-larger sample sizes and data sets (think MROCs) within qual– at speed, of course – easily means that time for interpretation is lost.
If tech - AI - really "works" in the sifting and sorting, then great - it really does free-up the qual researcher to spend more time on meaningful analysis, developing strategic recommendations.
But: if AI is over-sold, then the drift to numbers could be counterproductive.
Worst case - qual researchers aren't in practice relieved of any grunt work, and data inputs grow in size, invariably unstructured.
Which isn't great for thoughts of work-life balance. Or the search for insight nuggets.
Time for qual voices to push back?
Curious, as ever, as to others’ views.