Financial Times - Research on contraceptives most challenging for LMRB

The Lanka Market Research Bureau (LMRB), celebrated 25 years in marketing research helping firms to focus on customers, giving them an informed choice and effectively facilitating the economy from a sellers’ to a buyers’ market.

Tissa de Alwis, Managing Director LMRB who has been at the company for 21 years out of its 25 years in operation told The Sunday Times FT that the market research requirement has evolved as a strategic partner for companies.

“When we started, it was a virgin market for market research in the country and it was only the multinationals who were into market research, but now many local firms have realised the value of it,” he said.

He agreed that market research is not a perfect science and deals with people and their constantly changing feelings and behaviours, which are influenced by countless subjective factors. “To conduct marketing research you must gather facts and opinions in an orderly, objective way to find out what people want to buy, not just what you want to sell them,” he said, adding that the future trend in the research business is to provide companies with value addition – beyond numbers and data.

“It is impossible to sell products or services that customers do not want. Learning what customers want and how to present it attractively drives the need for marketing research,” he said, adding that the small businesses have an edge over larger concerns in this regard. “Large businesses must hire experts to study the mass market, while small-scale entrepreneurs are close to their customers and can learn much more quickly about their buying habits,” he said.

Mr de Alwis said that the consumers now have more choice because of research,” he said, adding that firms are targeting markets more and more, based on consumer perceptions.

“As a result of market research, rural markets have opened up and the consumers have become more intelligent,” he said. He said that a good example for rural market penetration are the small sachet sized fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) products such as shampoos and washing powder. “We often see that the consumers are willing to try out new products but they always consider the cost benefit. In such a situation, the sachets were an excellent idea,” he said.

The most challenging period at LMRB during the last 25 years was the research for family planning when contraceptives were a taboo subject. “At the time when this research was conducted initially, people were not willing to discuss about family planning openly and the use of contraceptives,” he said.

De Alwis said that in terms of creating new consumer relationships, developing new ways to create and sell brands marketing research is extremely important.

“It ensures that such information is timely and permits entrepreneurs to reduce business risks, spot current and upcoming problems in the current market, identify sales opportunities and develop plans of action,” he added.