India lacks a professional Marketing Research (MR) firm dedicated to quality marketing research. In the absence of quality research, there is overestimation of the market size.

India’s MR professionals are second to none. In fact, international MR firms recruit their talents in MR from India. Many foreign firms are headed by Indian MR professionals.

MR starts with the brief. The better the brief, the better the research outcome. At times, the brief points out an outcome and MR firm then collects the data to support that outcome.

Assessing buying intentions of the consumers is tricky. There is a difference between an ‘intention to purchase’ and a real purchase. Sampling should be representative of the general population. It should be large enough to get validated.

MR firms here in India work on global projects too. They adapt to the changing technology and digitization. The profession has been evangelized.

The issue is how far we support MR to be a critical activity that is to be conducted by independent-minded professional services. In addition, it is difficult to assess a response to a technological breakthrough in consumer research. Some of these breakthroughs had predictions of run-away success but have vanished into thin air. Is MR the culprit? Not at all.