Research buyers at SCIP Intellicon 2024 raised significant concerns about market intelligence quality in my workshop on the topic. Their experiences point to five critical issues affecting B2B market research:
Data Collection
Integrity Research buyers are seeing gaps in data collection. “We tested them with one number… if they couldn’t provide something really close, they were completely excluded,” one participant noted. Some found providers collecting data only from satisfied customers, missing crucial market feedback. Another participant shared how their organization discovered market sizing estimates that differed by orders of magnitude from their internal data.
Building Trust Through Process
Participants stressed the importance of ongoing dialogue with research providers. One senior buyer explained, “They wouldn’t share their internal numbers because they want us to bring an outside perspective, but there should be a balance.” Another pointed out that for high-value research, there should be “initial meetings, discussions every second week” – not just a final report delivery.
Technical Quality Control
B2B research faces a growing problem of error propagation. When flawed data appears in one report, it often spreads across multiple providers’ analyses, making triangulation between sources increasingly unreliable.
Report Production Standards
Buyers expressed concerns about rapid-fire report generation across unrelated sectors. One participant discovered the same text appearing in reports about entirely different industries, raising questions about research depth.
Market Entry and Provider Selection
The ease of creating convincing research company websites has made provider selection more challenging. Buyers noted difficulties in distinguishing between established firms with real expertise and new entrants with limited capabilities.
For research providers, these buyer concerns signal a clear need to focus on transparency, methodology explanation, and sustained client engagement throughout the research process. Firms that address these issues directly will find opportunities to differentiate themselves in an increasingly crowded market.
[Note: Based on discussions at SCIP Intellicon Barcelona, December 2024. Views expressed reflect participant perspectives.]
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