It’s hard to believe that 2012 is flying by so fast and that April is already coming to a close. This month has been a busy one for us, but we have some quick updates to share with all of you.
Recent Thinkstudies We have some more exciting studies for you this month, and we are seeking community members with the following experience:
Experts using ERP solutions related to process manufacturing
Professionals working in IT services companies who possess expertise implementing BI solutions within large organizations
Please reach out to us if you feel that you may be qualified for either of these studies, and we’ll be happy to send you an invite.
Blog Post We just added a new blog article to our website, which talks about the importance of gathering competitive intelligence.
Although there is no specific formula or set of rules a business can follow in order to become successful, there are certainly some ways it can make the effort to remain competitive. Offering great products and services to customers is a big part of what helps a business thrive, but that on its own is not enough if the business doesn’t keep up with the latest market trends or keep an eye on its competitive environment.
Gathering competitive intelligence is an essential part of any business and can provide strategic advantages, as well as help businesses make better, more informed decisions. Competitive intelligence encompasses much more than just competitor analysis; it deals with analyzing all the factors that affect your business, such as the overall market environment, customers, competitors, emerging technologies, and more. Since all of these factors have a significant impact on any business, it is crucial to find ways to obtain and analyze such information.
There is no doubt that businesses want to be “in the know,” but they often face the hurdle of figuring out how to sort through the wealth of information available to them in order to obtain this kind of intelligence.
“Expert-sourcing” is a concept that helps businesses gather detailed, specific market research and can serve as a great way for businesses to learn more about their unique competitive landscapes. The term refers to the concept of reaching out to knowledgeable experts in order to obtain targeted feedback and is a growing trend when it comes to obtaining competitive intelligence. What better way for a business to understand its competitive environment than to receive feedback directly from experts that have experience with its specific industry, competitors, or products?
Businesses should truly take the time to tap into these readily available resources in order to keep up with their continuously changing competitive landscape. Especially in today’s fast-paced, highly competitive business world, one surely does not want to fall behind.
March has been a very busy month for us here at Thinkspeed, as we have been working on some important client engagements. We want to take the time to share a couple of quick updates.
Featured in Crowdsourcing Industry Report
Thinkspeed recently had the opportunity to participate in a survey conducted bycrowdsourcing.orgabout enterprise crowdsourcing industry trends. The survey results include data from 32 crowdsourcing service providers and reveal strong growth in the enterprise crowdsourcing industry.
A big thanks to those of you who have expressed interest in participating in our Marketing Automation Systems study.
The study currently reviews the following vendors: Marketo, Manticore, Hubspot, Eloqua, Pardot, SilverPop, Aprimo, Neolane, SiteCore, Marketbright, Genius.com, and Market2Lead. We are open to adding any more vendors to this study that we may have missed, so feel free to reach out to us at contact@thinkspeed.com if you have any suggestions.
We have more studies in the works, so keep an eye out because we will be inviting qualified members soon.
Crowdsourcing is a topic that has gained popularity over the past few years and has generated considerable buzz. The beauty of this concept is that it places emphasis on harnessing the talents of a “crowd” of people with specialized talents to solve a problem, which ideally results in greater insight than one single person can provide.
There are some incredibly creative and useful applications of crowdsourcing today. For example, United Hatzalah of Israel is an organization that uses crowdsourcing to save lives. Its volunteers work to provide immediate emergency response at the site of an accident until the local ambulances are able to arrive. Without a doubt, it is clear that the crowdsourcing model can be applied as a powerful tool across various industries and sectors. On the enterprise side, certain companies use crowdsourcing to help generate new product ideas, test new features, complete specific tasks, etc. Thinkspeed recently had the pleasure of participating in a survey conducted by Crowdsourcing.org that focused on enterprise crowdsourcing industry trends.
The results of the survey were compiled into a Crowdsourcing Industry Report*, which concluded that the market is still “in its infancy” but is “growing at an accelerated rate.” Like Thinkspeed, the majority of crowdsourcing service providers are start-ups or small businesses. The overall industry boasted a 75% revenue increase last year and greater than 100% increase in employee count.
By the looks of it, crowdsourcing has really started to gain momentum in the enterprise landscape. If we continue to see such growth in the coming years, it’s safe to say that this market has a bright future.
Mayuri Joshi, Marketing Associate
*To purchase the Crowdsourcing Industry Report, click hereand use the following discount code: 6U9U632R
As we wrap up this short month of February, we’d like to share with you some general updates and new feature announcements.
Recent Thinkstudies We are continuing to conduct studies for our customers and have listed a couple of this month’s study topics below.
Marketing Automation Systems
Solid State Drives Adoption
If you feel that you may be qualified for either of these studies but were not invited, please reach out to us by replying to this email.
New Features and Changes Mixed Compensation Studies - We are excited to announce that we now offer studies with more than one mode of compensation, and members have the ability to choose the type they prefer. The two types of compensation currently available are monetary compensation and access to the final study results.
Profile Completion Screen- As some of you may have already noticed, we recently added a screen that prompts you for some basic profile information once you log in or go to your home page. We hope you take the time to fill out those fields as it will help our platform accurately assign you studies.
We encourage all our members to complete their entire profiles so that they will be assigned to studies that fit their unique backgrounds and expertise.
We are seeking senior-level decision makers who are responsible for purchasing and evaluating enterprise storage systems, primarily solid state drives (SSDs) and hard disk drives (HDDs), to participate in a brief research survey.
If you qualify and are interested, join the community to participate. Or you can send a note to community@thinkspeed.com if you are already a member.
We are seeking professionals possessing experience with deploying and/or purchasing Marketing Automation Solutions for a study. The study is a review of marketing automation software vendors with a focus on product features and differentiators, deployment process, and overall project success.
If you qualify and are interested, join the community to participate. Or you can send a note to community@thinkspeed.com if you are already a member.
We are excited to bring in the new year by announcing some new changes we’ve decided to make to our Thinkstudies.
Option to View Study Results Based on the feedback we received from many of you about wanting to view the results of studies in which you participate, we are introducing certain studies where respondents will be rewarded with access to study results in lieu of monetary compensation. You can read all the details in our blog post.
The study results contain slides with the aggregated survey data, a participant breakdown, and a comments section that enables study participants to engage with one another and discuss their thoughts. Take a look at what the actual study results will look like here.
Follow Up Consultations Our customers now have the option of choosing to conduct a follow up one-on-one consultation with selected study respondents. Respondents will have the ability to choose whether or not they would like to take part in the follow up and will be compensated for their time. Ariba, one of our recent engagements, successfully conducted a follow up consultation with certain study respondents and was able to obtain an in-depth understanding of the study topic.
As always, we love to hear your feedback, so feel free to reply to this email with your thoughts and comments.
We, at Thinkspeed, would like to wish each of you a happy and joyous year ahead.
Many of you have expressed interest in viewing the results of studies in which you participate. We have taken your comments to heart and are now offering studies where participants are rewarded for their time and effort by being able to access the final study results in place of monetary compensation. Having access to these results allows participants to gain a unique perspective of the study topics and provides them the opportunity to hear the thoughts of peers in their industry. We have also added a comments section to the study reports to foster further discussion and engagement among participants.
This new option to view study results also benefits members that are eager to take part in the community and provide their feedback but are not looking to or are unable to receive monetary compensation to participate in studies. We’ll still continue to have studies where participants receive financial compensation. We’d love to hear from you, so feel free to reach out to us or share your thoughts by leaving a comment!
The process of evaluating a technology purchase is an essential part of any business, so it is crucial that technology buyers utilize the proper resources to gather accurate, unbiased data prior to making a decision.
Technology buyers tend to rely on a variety of sources, such as white papers, case studies, and data sheets, to help them make informed decisions. But according to a study conducted by Eccolo Media on B2B technology collateral, corporate websites are the primary channel for obtaining these marketing resources. The survey concluded that buyers rely heavily on corporate websites to find useful collateral and revealed that company web pages, specifically product pages, are gaining popularity as a new emerging form of collateral. Though company web pages serve as excellent resources for acquiring valuable product information, they are almost always biased. Companies tailor their websites to endorse their products to customers; thus, they place emphasis on the positive aspects of their products and only highlight favorable customer reviews. While the content and references provided on corporate websites are definitely beneficial, they provide buyers with only a partial view of the overall picture. What technology purchasers can greatly benefit from prior to making an investment in an IT purchase is objective feedback from actual users of the product. Market intelligence is an avenue that can provide technology buyers with feedback directly from the source. It allows buyers to receive unbiased opinions from persons that have expertise and direct experience with the products being evaluated. Supplementing the marketing collateral received from corporate websites with market intelligence will lead to technology buyers making more informed tech purchase decisions for their respective organizations.
Many of you have expressed interest in viewing the results of studies in which you participate. We have taken your comments to heart and are now offering studies where participants are rewarded for their time and effort by being able to access the final study results in place of monetary compensation. 