September 13, 2011

On a recent flight back to New Jersey, I was thinking about the past few days I spent at GMI’s headquarters in the beautiful city of Bellevue, Washington. Our discussions with GMI’s management team covered a lot of ground, but each topic pointed unmistakably toward the future.

In a Quirks article I wrote last November, I talked about some areas that the online market research industry needs to address in the short term.  I mentioned that the younger generation is moving away from email as a primary means of communication and toward social networks and text messaging, that the usability and appearance of our surveys needs to improve to match other online experiences, and that clients are demanding industry standards for respondent quality.

These concerns were top of mind for us as we negotiated the acquisition of GMI, one of the world’s leading online survey and sample providers.  The acquisition was announced last week.  Not only will our panel capacity grow significantly as a result (most notably in the U.S., Canada, and the European “Big 5,” as well as giving us a footprint in South America, India, and numerous additional Asian markets), but by completing this deal, we are well-positioned for the future.

• GMI has a highly experienced, forward-thinking talent pool.  One of the primary drivers of the acquisition was to tap into GMI’s innovative technology and the people who championed and developed it.  GMI has a suite of capabilities that is highly complementary to what already exists within Lightspeed Research.  The existing platforms enable integration with sample routing, workflow automation, sample blending – and social media.
• GMI’s and data-capture techniques improve respondent engagement and promote data quality.  A suite of interactive, visual-based survey question types enable clients to create surveys that are enjoyable and keep the respondent engaged to the end of the survey while maintaining data integrity.
• GMI has capabilities built specifically for the mobile platform and will complement and strengthen our current mobile survey offer.
• We have long been vocal proponents for common industry quality standards and greater transparency about online panel research practices.  Based on our experience, we believe TrueSample is the industry-wide solution.  Lightspeed Research is focused on a U.S. rollout of TrueSample in 2011.  GMI, which has been an active participant in all industry leading initiatives on data quality and standards, has recently signed an agreement with MarketTools to have its panels TrueSample certified.

Lightspeed Research’s acquisition of GMI will substantially enhance the combined organizations’ ability to provide maximum feasibility, drive industry standards on quality, and continue to bring innovative technologies to market.  The future looks very bright indeed.

Category:Future of Online Research
Posted on September 13, 2011



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