Press release

Home > About us > News > Press releases > Archive > Press release

Online Research Spending Predicted to Grow to $4 Billion by 2008

New global study envisages online research expenditure will almost triple by 2008

Seattle, WA - June 14, 2005 - Online research is set to grow from $1.3 billion to $4 billion over the next few years, according to a new report by Cambiar and GMI GMI (Global Market Insite, Inc.). The research results confirm the trend, seen to date, in online research with predicted growth driven not only by new users coming into the market - both established larger research users and smaller companies - but also through a broadening of the types of research conducted online.

"Online research continues to show strong prospects for growth," said Simon Chadwick, survey director and founding partner of Cambiar, formerly Group Chief Executive of NOP World. "Quality of sample, ease of software use and good customer service will play a major factor in the wide adoption of online research over the next few years."

The report suggests that once a company adopts online research practices, approximately 30 percent of its research budget will be devoted to this medium.

Among other findings from the survey:

• Online Research is firmly established among larger research users
  • Two-thirds of respondents currently conduct research online.
  • Two-thirds of those who are not currently conducting research online say they intend to start doing so over the next three years.
• Budgets allocated to online research set to rise
  • Companies currently doing research online spent, on average, 28 percent of their total research budgets on online methodologies in 2004. These same companies forecast this rising to 33 percent by 2006.
• By 2010, almost one-third of all survey research expenditures will be directed towards online methods
  • These results suggest that by the time the growth in online research levels off (perhaps by 2010) 25-30 percent of all survey research budgets worldwide will be allotted to online methods.
• Online research reporting goes online
  • Worldwide, more than 50 percent of reporting volume will be over the web in the next three years.
• Research companies are already heavily investing in online resources
  • 78 percent already conduct online research and have invested heavily in order to compete in this market
  • 59 percent are able to manage the entire study using their own resources
  • 82 percent possess internal resources to help them conduct research online
  • By contrast, only 38 percent of U.S companies were able to conduct online surveys entirely using their own resources – three-quarters of these respondents used service bureaus
• Research companies will continue to invest in online over the next three years
  • 55 percent intend to increase their scripting resources
  • 77 percent will invest in panel expansion
  • 55 percent intend to build new panels

The research conducted by Cambiar for GMI, was conducted among 50 research companies worldwide, representing some $1.2 billion in survey research revenues, and 43 users of research in large marketing companies.

About Cambiar

Cambiar is a management consulting firm specializing in the management of change. The company is focused on the market research industry and its ancillary supply industries and was founded by two experienced MR executives, Simon Chadwick and William “Jay” Wilson in 2004. Until May 2004, Simon was Group Chief Executive of NOP World, one of the ten largest market research companies in the world. Simon is on the board of a number of industry and academic institutions, including the Council for American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO) of which he is the current Chair.

About GMI

GMI provides integrated solutions for market research. The company’s advanced software, Net-MR, is a fully integrated net-centric suite of software tools used to manage and automate research throughout the project lifecycle, across the globe. Additionally, GMI’s highly profiled, double opt-in panels offer a single-vendor solution for global sample. One of the world’s largest actively managed panels, it contains 200 country panels, more countries than any other supplier. With operations on five continents, GMI is the partner of choice for conducting global market research at the speed of the Internet.