Thinkspeed Group Blog

Thinkspeed Research Community Update - April 2012

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 22:22:24 -0500

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.

You can check out the post and share your thoughts here: The Value of Competitive Intelligence

As always, we value your participation in the community and encourage you to refer other qualified friends or colleagues to join.

Gautham Viswanathan, CEO

The Value of Competitive Intelligence

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 11:27:01 -0500

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.

Mayuri Joshi, Marketing Associate

Thinkspeed Research Community Update - March 2012

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 16:17:30 -0500

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 by crowdsourcing.org about enterprise crowdsourcing industry trends. The survey results include data from 32 crowdsourcing service providers and reveal strong growth in the enterprise crowdsourcing industry.

You can check out our blog post here, which features some of the survey results: Crowdsourcing- The Future Looks Bright

Marketing Automation Systems Study Wrap-Up

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.

Gautham Viswanathan, CEO

Crowdsourcing: The Future Looks Bright

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 16:10:35 -0500

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 here and use the following discount code: 6U9U632R

Thinkspeed Research Community Update - February 2012

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 19:27:28 -0600

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.

Gautham Viswanathan, CEO

Experts in Solid State Drives (SSDs) needed for study

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 20:09:00 -0600

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.

Experts in Marketing Automation Systems needed for study

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:24:00 -0600

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.

Thinkspeed Research Community Update - January

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:42:00 -0600

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.

Gautham Viswanathan, CEO

Option to View Study Results

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:43:32 -0600

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!

Mayuri Joshi, Marketing Associate

How Tech Buyers Evaluate a Purchase

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:00:00 -0600

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.

Mayuri Joshi, Marketing Associate

Thinkspeed Research Community Update - December

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 11:29:11 -0600

It’s hard to believe that it’s already the end of the year, and that the holidays are quickly approaching. We wish you a safe and happy holiday season with your loved ones!

Here are a few of the updates we have for you this month:

Recent Thinkstudies

This month, we conducted more studies for our beta customers, and a couple of the study topics are listed below:

IT Outlook 2012
Internet of Things

For those of you who participated in our studies this month, we want to let you know that we have updated the Payment tab so that you can now see all your payment transaction details in one place.

YouTube Channel

We recently added a new video to our Thinkspeed YouTube channel about how we help technology investors obtain market intelligence. You can check out the video here: Market Intelligence for Technology Investors

Thank You

This year has been a big one for Thinkspeed. We have reached many milestones along the way, such as completing dozens of studies for leading companies and growing our community to the thousands we have today. We want to thank each of you for your enthusiasm and support, and we are eagerly looking forward to accomplishing many more milestones in 2012.

Gautham Viswanathan, CEO

New Features for Customers and Members - Survey Interface Redesign

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:48:18 -0600

We released some new features on our site within the past couple of weeks, mainly dealing with the redesign of the survey user interface, which we would like to share with you.

For Customers: You now have the ability to add a section description to your surveys. This can be used to provide survey-takers with additional information and help with the overall organization of the survey. We have also added the capability for you to choose whether a question should be optional or mandatory for respondents.

For Members: We have made it easier for you to see how much a study pays and when it will expire by adding two new icons that appear above the survey. There is also a new bar at the bottom of the page to help you keep track of how much of the survey you have completed, and your home page now contains information on the status of each of your surveys.

We’ll continue to keep you updated as we make more improvements to the site!

Internet of Things - members needed for study

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

We are looking for professionals who have expertise around the technology necessary to connect everyday devices to the Internet for a study assessing the awareness and adoption for the Internet of Things within the next few years.

If you qualify and are interested in participating, let us know by sending a request to join the community or sending a note to community@thinkspeed.com if you are already a community member.

Thinkspeed Research Community Update - November

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:46:00 -0600

As November comes to a close, we want to keep you up to date on some of our recent happenings. Since our update last month, we have completed more Thinkstudies for our customers and have introduced some new features on our website.

New Features for Members

In order to enhance your survey-taking experience, we have redesigned the survey interface. We added a couple of icons above the survey so that you can clearly see how much the study pays and when it will expire. You can also visually keep track of how much of the survey you have completed by the bar at the bottom, and see the status of all your surveys on your home page, at any time. We hope these changes help create a more user-friendly experience.

Recent Thinkstudies

We completed some more Thinkstudies this month, a couple of which are listed below:

Bundling IT and BPO services
Functional buyer adoption

So that you don’t miss out on the opportunity to participate in upcoming studies, please make sure that your profile information is updated to include your company, product, and technology expertise.

As always, we appreciate you being a valuable member of the Thinkspeed Research Community!

Gautham Viswanathan, CEO

Market Intelligence for Private Equity, M&A, and Venture Capital

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:53:00 -0600

Given the billions of dollars of growth stage, buyout, and merger deals that are done in the software, IT, and technology-enabled services sectors, it’s no surprise that investment teams at venture capital firms, private equity firms, and corporate development organizations take deal evaluation and analysis quite seriously.

Investors consider a number of factors about each deal when deciding whether to invest or buy – quality of management, company growth and profitability, potential of the target market, and the strength of the business model are just a few of the many areas for analysis. Another important area, especially in the technology sector, is to understand how a company’s products are perceived by participants in its target market.

I recently spoke with Ravi Belani, a Silicon Valley angel investor, formerly with Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Bridgewater Associates. According to Belani, one of the key areas of due diligence is to understand how a company stacks up when it goes head-to-head against its competition. To understand this question, most investors and M&A professionals utilize experts within their networks, which are of course limited, and customer references, which are likely biased. Belani feels that “a scalable way still does not exist to get data-driven market intelligence.”

Guhan Swaminathan from Virgo Capital agreed, noting “Whenever we look at a deal, I speak to whoever I can in the sector but still have a lot of trouble finding unbiased and relevant opinions that are more detailed than what I can find in general industry reports.”

Of course, investors and acquirers will continue to do what it takes to ensure they are making the right decisions when they deploy capital, but there is a clear need to confidentially source market intelligence quickly and cost-effectively.

Arun Prakash, Vice President of Marketing

Enterprise IT decision-makers needed for study

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0600

We are seeking IT professionals that exert significant influence or are the final decision-makers for enterprise IT purchases to provide insight on their predictions for corporate IT trends in 2012.

If you qualify and are interested in participating, let us know by sending a request to join the community or sending a note to community@thinkspeed.com if you are already a community member.

Market Research: Everyone is Doing It

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 16:40:56 -0500

Market research is an invaluable tool that is utilized by companies across the globe, irrespective of their size or experience, and Apple is no longer an exception, according to this article.

Whether or not you are an iPhone enthusiast, you probably know that Apple recently released the iPhone 4S, which has generated a lot of buzz and excitement in the market. What you may not know, though, is that the phone has been experiencing some major problems concerning battery life, and Apple is not exactly sure what is causing these issues. Apple is looking to market research, which is something it usually stays away from, to help quickly diagnose the problem.

Apple engineers have reached out to actual iPhone 4S users in order to track down the cause of the issue, which currently remains a mystery. Some users stated that Apple contacted them with numerous questions regarding usage, and even asked to install a monitoring program on the phone. It seems Apple is hoping that market research will help to quickly pinpoint and resolve the issue, a task that could otherwise take much longer.

Companies use market research for a variety of reasons, whether it be for testing new ideas, getting customer feedback and reactions, discovering customer needs, or in Apple’s case, solving product issues. Whatever the reason may be, market research is an essential part of a company’s efforts to innovate, expand, and gain an edge over its competitors. By taking advantage of it, companies can gather reliable, current, accurate information that would be difficult to obtain otherwise.

Mayuri Joshi, Marketing Associate

Thinkspeed Research Community Update - October

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 23:33:00 -0500

As our community continues to grow, I want to let you know we are glad to have each of you on board. Here are our latest updates:

New Features
We recently added a few new features in order to give you more control of your profile and create a better overall experience. Check out the details in our blog.

A Profile on Thinkspeed
Thinkspeed was recently profiled on Crowdsourcing.org’s web site, which details various happenings in crowdsourcing. Check out the interview with our VP of Marketing, Arun Prakash.

Member Survey
Be on the lookout for a member survey in the coming months as we would like to hear your thoughts on how to improve Thinkspeed, as well as your reaction to some new ideas.

CrowdConf 2011
Lastly, we want to thank you for your support for retweeting our contest entry. We are excited to announce that we got enough tweets and will be exhibiting at CrowdConf in San Francisco on November 2nd.

As always, thanks for being a part of Thinkspeed!

Gautham Viswanathan, CEO

IT/BPO experts in Telecoms needed for study

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

We are seeking IT and business process experts in the telecommunication sector for a study on IT and BPO trends. If you qualify, request to join the community or current members can send a note to community at thinkspeed.com to let our analysts know you are interested.

CrowdConf 2011: Here We Come

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 11:09:32 -0500

About a month ago, Thinkspeed entered a contest held by Crowdsortium, a leading website that garners the knowledge of crowdsourcing industry experts, for a chance to win a free exhibitor’s booth at CrowdConf 2011, which will be held in San Francisco on November 2.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this event, CrowdConf is a conference dedicated to the crowdsourcing movement in which professionals with a vast knowledge in the space gather to learn from other companies and share their ideas.

We are excited to announce that we received second place in the contest and will have our own booth at the conference. A huge thanks to all of you who voted for us by retweeting our entry! We couldn’t have done it without you.

We are looking forward to the opportunity to share our knowledge and experiences with other companies, as well as learn from innovative leaders in the crowdsourcing arena. Last but not least, we would like to congratulate NapkinLabs on being the winners of the booth entry contest.

Mayuri Joshi, Marketing Associate