A Student's View of Market Research
As business students at Fox, we are encouraged to explore different career tracks within our field of study. Throughout my academic career I have done this; in addition to some great course work (Marketing Research, Digital Marketing, Data Analytics, etc) I have also completed three internships. Each of these experiences has allowed me to continue my professional development and have now led to another internship, this one in market research. I believe that understanding marketing research, and the tools used in marketing research, is important as these will allow me to build and polish skills I can use as I launch my career.
Why I believe market research is important:
Market research can be used to identify potential customers, understand existing customers, and develop effective strategies. One of my tasks with my current internship is to look for prospective customers; I must determine whether a company could benefit from the type of solution the organization is offering. This decision requires that I gather information on a number of companies and organize this data into spreadsheets; these reports serve as the "insights" which can be used by our sales organization to reach out to these prospective customers and foster new client relationships and generate revenue opportunities. I also help to gather the data used to create profiles of existing customers and analyze their buying behavior, needs, and wants; a step critical to a company seeking to offer additional products and services to existing customers based on the insights generated from the research I helped create.
What skills I can use to be an asset to an organization:
My strong analytical skills, ability to collaborate, and my work-ethic will set me apart from other candidates in the job market. I have worked to develop strong analytical skills; I've invested time examining large data sets and developing useful insights as a result of analysis. Recently I used SPSS to analyze a company's financial performance and determine what factors were driving its revenue and costs. After analyzing the company's financial performance, I was able to make suggestions where costs could be cut or where marketing strategy investments might be tweaked to capture potential revenue.
After working at a few different companies, I have also learned the importance of team work. Collaborating with different people allows for innovation and creative breakthroughs; well beyond those that would be accomplished by a single person.
As a market research intern, I realize I am presented with many ideas and/or strategies that I may not fully understand (yet) but when I analyze companies I am able to leverage my ability to identify and quickly categorize the products/services it offers. This analysis allows me to be an asset to my internship coordinator and sponsor. I look forward to launching a career in research as an analyst and seek to continue to build and use these skills.
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