Market research is big business – to the tune of over $76 billion globally. sound huge? Well, that‘s because companies across every conceivable industry rely on market research firms to extract insights from data to drive strategy and positioning.
In this post addressed to you, my friend, I‘ll count down the 10 largest players that make up this vital ecosystem. You‘ll discover what sets the leaders apart and witness some remarkable achievements that showcase precisely why market research underpins success.
Buckle up for an exciting tour behind the scenes revealing how top firms deploy advanced analytics at massive scale! Along the way, we‘ll analyze cutting-edge innovations that provide competitive advantage along with tracing recent history explaining how the most dominant giants cemented pole positions.
An Industry Crucial to Strategic Decision Making
Let‘s kick things off by appreciating exactly why market research holds such importance. At the highest level, there are two macro trends that explain its immense value:
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Surging Data Volume: We live in a world drowning in information. 90% of the world‘s data was generated in the past two years alone according to IBM. Processing endless, diverse data streams presents unlimited potential but requires sensemaking.
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Business Complexity: Across markets from media to manufacturing, business challenges grow thornier by the day. Navigating uncertainty demands insights to clarify the best path ahead.
Market research partners serve as the compass through confusion. Leaders in our field provide orientation via five key capabilities:
- Crunching huge data sets with latest analytics methodologies
- Quantifying and qualifying how various factors impact success
- Identifying macro trends plus micro nuances that alter the landscape
- Delivering predictive intelligence presenting scenarios of what will likely unfold
- Supplying benchmarks for smart decision making amidst turbulence
The top firms unlock these superpowers at enormous scale thanks to…
Secret Weapons: Data, Tech, Experts
The elite market research houses share common ingredients responsible for formidable and reliable insights:
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Ever-Expanding Data Assets – Across industries from media consumption to pharmaceutical purchases, leading companies ingest up-to-the-second data flows into massive warehouses to fuel analytics engines.
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Cutting-Edge Technology – Processing endless information necessitates leveraging techniques like machine learning and artificial intelligence lodging human-like logic into algorithms at speed and scale.
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Seasoned Experts – No computer can replicate accumulated wisdom across statistics, psychology, economics and other intricacies that influence human behavior and markets. Top consultants supply this intuition.
Let‘s explore how the top 10 firms combine these ingredients into world-beating services!
#10: Westat – $590 Million Annual Revenue
Kicking off our tour is Westat, founded in 1963 and singularly focused on technical excellence thanks to its employee ownership structure that concentrates on long-term quality rather than short-term profits.
Westat holds its own with much larger rivals due to its pioneering survey expertise – having fielded over 20,000 studies during its lifetime directly with over 30,000 participants. The company has also been on the leading edge of critical social policy conversations around inequality, healthcare access, and responsible environmental regulation.
Thriving for almost 60 years, Westat continues pushing new frontiers in areas like detecting survey fraud via advanced analytics and improving confidence in measuring hard-to-track populations.
#9: Information Resources, Inc – $1.2 Billion
IRI zooms past Westat thanks to its commanding footprint capturing real-time purchase data from brick-and-mortar and eCommerce channels. This intelligence fuels guidance steering multi-billion CPG enterprises around pricing, assortment, promotion strategies and more.
Established in 1979, IRI‘s spectacular Liquid Data technology platform launched in 2019 represents the state-of-the-art in retail analytics. Machine learning algorithms integrate 250 data sources into accurate demand forecasting and market share simulation.
CPG giants paying six or seven figures annually clearly witness tremendous value from IRI‘s insights. As Walmart‘s former Chief Merchant Steve Bratspies once declared: "IRI data is the lifeblood of our business".
#8: The CoStar Group – $1.39 Billion
Jumping above a billion dollars, The CoStar Group has cornered the real estate market over its 35 year history accumulating the largest property database globally.
Beyond portals like Apartments.com, CoStar offers proprietary analytics to flagship REITs, brokers, banks and builders as a competitive weapon for site selection, M&A strategy, risk modeling and more. Competitors estimate that CoStar‘s data drives 90% of commercial property transactions – exemplifying indispensable intelligence.
Founder Andrew Florance captured the ethos driving relentless innovation: "If we can help our clients be more productive, they‘re going to keep coming back."
#7: GfK – $1.67 Billion
GfK aptly stands for "Growth From Knowledge", imparting insights spanning advanced analytics, panel data covering 30K individuals, and research fusing neuroscience and psychology to decode subconscious drivers of behavior.
The German firm‘s heritage dates back over 85 years when founder Erwin Gabathuler leveraged telephone methodology to pin down opinion trends. Fast forward to today with GfK providing recommendations across 100 countries shaping strategy for retailers and manufacturers.
A top client proclaimed: "We turned around declining sales and profit after GfK revealed customer pain points our management completely overlooked." This exemplifies why clients gift GfK over a billion dollars annually.
#6: S&P Global + IHS Markit Merger – $8 Billion Combined
February 2022 witnessed a seismic $44B merger between ratings agency icon S&P Global with financial information upstart IHS Markit. While dust continues settling, the union creates a data and analytics juggernaut well positioned to accelerate growth across finance, energy and more.
According to CEO Douglas Peterson, "The mix of our technology, data and research matched with IHS Markit‘s resources creates pathways to build new offerings previously unavailable in marketplace." Specifically, combining ESG insights from IHS with S&P‘s global reach opens possibilities to empower more sustainable capital allocation.
With over 200 years of collective experience, S&P Global appears stronger than ever thanks to the IHS Markit integration. Expect the merged entity to enjoy additional staying power given new capabilities to link environmental priorities with investment decisions.
#5: Ipsos – $2.24 Billion
Crossing the $2 billion threshold lands long-time research leader Ipsos in our top five. Founded in Paris, Ipsos impresses via its sheer global scope operating in 90 markets – tailoring regional delivery to nuances that influence local populations.
Ipsos clients praise its advanced analytics (powered by 1 billion annual surveys!) combined with consultative interpretation helping guide better business outcomes. As industry leader LoyaltyTruth CEO effused: "Ipsos is the gold standard for integrity, security and smart integration of qualitative along with quantitative techniques."
Beyond sheer scale, Ipsos continues pushing the boundaries advancing privacy-safe research protocols to build consumer trust. Global Chief Client Officer Silman summed up the magic: "Our real power comes from fusing state-of-the-art technology with research expertise into an endlessly customizable platform." This combination cements Ipsos among the elite.
#4: Kantar – $2.87 Billion
Kantar promises "Insights Inspiring Growth" thanks to an arsenal encompassing billions of consumer interviews, real world shopper behavior tracking across retailers, and a community of 166K survey participants across 56 countries reporting attitudes and media consumption.
Owned by WPP, 30K Kantar employees including over 1000 data scientists serve leading brands across banking, CPG, entertainment and more. Long-term partnerships result from continually uncovering actionable patterns that serve performance. As Tesco CEO Sir Terry Leahy once remarked: "Kantar insights propel our business forward – they are indispensable."
Expect Kantar‘s influence to persist thanks to new techniques embedding feedback gathering directly into products. A recent initiative with Lenovo automatically activates pop-up surveys about the user experience when opting-in customers go online. This creative method generates massive response rates advancing understanding.
#3: IQVIA – $4.14 Billion
Formed in 2016 via mega merger between IMS Health and Quintiles, IQVIA confidently lives up to its bold name representing the intersection of intelligence and vitality. That surely resonates given its ranking as the 3rd largest research firm with over $4 billion in annual revenue.
At its core, IQVIA amasses and makes sense of ubiquitous healthcare data that shapes life sciences innovation. This includes linking anonymized sales, insurance claims, electronic records, and scientific literature to guide companies developing enhanced diagnostics and treatments.
Beyond scale and compliance rigor safeguarding private data, IQVIA impresses via skill translating information into intelligence optimizing R&D and product launches. Ultimately this progress fuels therapeutic breakthroughs advancing patient outcomes worldwide – crystallizing IQVIA‘s meaningful purpose as a vital cog across the integrated health ecosystem.
#2: Gartner – $4.25 Billion
Celebrating 40 years in business, Gartner continues going strong with its ubiquitous technology research used by over 15K organizations globally. Whether via world famous Magic Quadrant vendor ratings or signature Hype Cycle tracking key trend maturation, Gartner intelligence steers hyper competitive high stakes tech innovation cycles.
The company retains pole position given its unmatched depth across IT practitioners and engineers spanning 77% of the Fortune Global 500. Everyone from infrastructure to cybersecurity to emerging segments relies on Gartner‘s rigorous methodology evaluating thousands of solution providers.
In Gartner tradition, it continues releasing groundbreaking original research tracking key trends, including the recent 2022 CEO Survey. A recent CIO Research leader at bluechip General Mills reinforced Gartner‘s advantage: "Vendor evaluation frameworks accelerate our decisions on multi-million partnerships…this content literally shapes our technology roadmap and outcomes." When it comes to context for navigating change, Gartner clearly leads.
#1: Nielsen – $6.5+ Billion
Finally we reach not only the #1 spot, but our first (and only!) member of the S&P 500 – elevating Nielsen into the big league convincingly befitting its pole position in size and prestige.
Nielsen‘s dominance comes from expertise converging media and product intelligence – fueling planning and investments across both spheres. This includes syndicated data integration and predictive analytics empowering smart decision making around spending, portfolio composition, risk management and more.
Specifically, Nielsen ratings quantify multi-channel media consumption, facilitates trading via common measurement, and benchmarks performance. Similarly, purchase data and proprietary models guide smarter supply chain, pricing and promotion strategies to maximize growth.
Commenting on enduring success, CEO David Rawlinson explained: "While other competitors chase sparkly new objects, we remain loyal listening to customers…this steadfast support for current & future needs cements durable partnerships." Evidently clients agree given Nielsen leads global market research generation after generation thanks to reliable guidance amidst turbulent times.
This whirlwind tour through the top 10 market research leaders worldwide spotlights common drivers that explain their indispensable role partnering across industries:
Continuous Innovation – From artificial intelligence to embedded feedback systems, pioneers constantly expand frontiers converting torrents of data into Prescriptive intelligence illuminating optimal actions.
Trust & Security – Harnessing vast personalized information necessitates protocols steadfastly safeguarding individuals. Privacy preservation represents table stakes given sensitivities around sharing data today.
Strategic Advantage – Ultimately market research crystallizes advantage via smarter choices weren‘t around assortment, distribution partnerships, consumer experience personalization and more. Leaders actively invest to sharpen and sustain competitive edge even during downturns given disproportionate upside generated.
While other suppliers face commoditization, stalwarts in our field provide unique context and frameworks converting perplexing complexity into confident progress. Market research won‘t become less relevant anytime soon – if anything, expect reliance to grow as decision dynamics accelerate across sectors!
Hope you enjoyed this exclusive trip through the top 10 leaders powering today‘s knowledge economy! Let me know what intriguing insights stood out or surprised you on our journey. Perhaps it will provide inspiration applying similar analytics techniques toward your own professional objectives.
