The Chief Executive Officer, TNS, West, East and Central Africa, Mr. Adeola Tejumola, in this interview with DAYO OKETOLA, says marketing research spending in Nigeria is rapidly increasing.
Governments at all levels in the country are believed not to be taking adequate advantage of social/marketing research for decision-making. Will you say this, among other factors, is responsible for the country’s slow growth?
To begin with, Nigeria is currently rated by the World Bank to be one of the fastest-growing countries in the world, with economic growth likely to reach an average of more than five per cent between 2013 and 2015. For the benefit of the growth rate predicted by the World Bank to be properly disseminated, there is the need to identify key areas of need as well as the scope and direction of development. Social and market research results illuminate the path to achieve better growth and development. The point is this: more and better use of research results will give better direction to growth and development, and help meet greater needs of the country.
What is your projection for the market research industry in Nigeria in 2013?
The market research industry, in the past five years, has been growing at double-digit pace. In view of this, the industry is projected to grow at the same pace in 2013.
What are the challenges facing the market research industry in the country?
The challenges are many and some are really daunting. We have to deal with poor infrastructure such as transportation and communication, and these often lead to high operating costs. Others are skill set deficit and huge investment in training and development for researchers to match required global standards.
How would you compare market research in Nigeria with that of South Africa?
Marketing research in South Africa is definitely more evolved. This is also true in terms of total market research spends. Within TNS, the South African market research industry is ranked in the top 14 countries in revenue terms. However, the focus currently is mainly towards the rest of Africa, which is primarily driven by Nigeria in West Africa, and Kenya in East Africa. The growth rate of the market research spends in Nigeria is currently one of the highest globally. This has generated a lot of buzz around Nigeria within the market research space.
With the proliferation of smartphones in the country, how well will you say the market research industry has taken advantage of this for research purpose?
The latest figures from the Nigerian Communications Commission show that there are over 100 million active lines in Nigeria. With a 25 per cent smartphone penetration, according to the TNS Mobile Life Report, Nigeria is unarguably the second largest smartphone market in Africa, behind South Africa. This presents a new and growing platform to engage consumers. A recent TNS study projected that over a third (33 per cent) of connected lines in Nigeria will be smartphones by 2014. This growth would be driven by availability of low cost smartphones from notable brands and continued influx of Chinese low-end smartphones.
TNS has invested heavily in technology and has developed innovative offers to ride on this trend to deliver value to clients. Some of these are mobile online research platforms, which deliver survey questions directly to smartphones via WAP, with data collected instantly on servers. Project turnaround is awesomely quick and reasonably cheaper for clients. Qualitative research app allows participants to take part in online-focused group discussions. This takes away the need for travel and respondents actually take part in discussions, right on their smartphones. This definitely delivers ease to consumers and great value to clients, who are also able to participate in such forums real time.
We also have passive listening research app, which tracks consumers’360 degree online behaviour in a non-intrusive manner. For example, websites visited and media consumption, among others.
Under our smartphone consumer panels initiative, TNS is creating panels of smartphone users who will provide ongoing feedback on brands across different categories straight from their smartphones.
In addition, TNS, as a business, has migrated over 30 per cent of surveys done to the mobile platform (use of PDAs/ smartphones) as against the traditional pen and paper methodology. This is definitely more efficient and effective.
What impact has the social media had on your operations?
TNS has also invested in social media research in a number of ways. First, TNS has developed tools that run quick polls within social media communities with respondents participating via smartphones. This is taking research consumers within their natural space. TNS also has tools to help brands evaluate their social media capital plus return on investment on digital communication.
What is the future of Computer-assisted Personal Interview as well as Mobile Computer-assisted Personal Interview in Nigeria?
Computer-assisted Personal Interview and Mobile Computer-assisted Personal Interview methodologies are buzz words today. These methodologies have been adopted very well in Nigeria and in most of the West and East African markets. They have led to reduced research costs in the long run as well as helping to ensure good quality data and tracking against any cheating/fraud as the real time data can be checked and the instruments can be tracked for their locations, even while sitting in the office, using GPS coordinates.
Overall, this methodology has helped developed strong management information system to manage the surveys in a more organised manner with better quality data available at lower costs and less time.
In terms of employment generation, how many people can the Nigerian market research industry employ? What role is TNS RMS playing in this regard?
The Nigerian market research industry is one of the fastest growing globally. This growth in the industry is definitely complemented with the generation of new jobs and employment opportunities. New research agencies are opening up, including more of global companies now setting up their shops in Nigeria. This is a good sign for more employment opportunities.
Further, a lot of multinational companies are setting up their local offices in Nigeria with a proper research function based locally. This was hitherto mainly managed from off-shore. This has also created many new employment opportunities for professionals.
TNS RMS has also exhibited strong growth in the last few years and, thereby, has been a leading employer in the market research industry. It has been seen as a strong training camp for people who aspire to work in market research in Nigeria and currently employs around 150 people full time and more than 1,000 contractual staff in Nigeria. We further aim to complement our business growth with generating new and increased employment opportunities for the people in Nigeria.
What do you think about the recently introduced Mobile Number Portability scheme?
Mobile Number Portability, recently introduced by the Nigerian Communications Commission, is a good initiative and will further increase the level of competitiveness among the GSM operators with direct impact on products and service pricing. Network operators will either have to accelerate innovation and diversify or lose their market share. The immediate priority for them, I think, is the need to accelerate diversification of revenue streams as this will help reduce churn rates and increase Average Revenue Per User. Possible areas of generating revenue include online commerce, educational services (learn foreign languages, public contents, and university exams), video/audio streaming, mobile TV, cloud services, storage apps, content streaming, mobile money, and mobile advertising, among others.