The Relationship Between Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis
Imagine you were commissioned to provide a qualitative report on the main five hypothesised purchase criteria for your service. You have just presented the five drivers and await the client's accolades; instead the client tells you 'nothing particularly new there.'
It is rather unlikely that any one of the hypothesised top five drivers will be a surprise to the seasoned marketing manager. In fact, it is probably wise for marketing management to be highly suspicious of findings that are a surprise.
It's not the drivers that are unknown to the client but rather the importance level that each of the drivers has on purchase behaviour. That is, the inferred relative importance of each driver as determined from quantitative analysis using dependent variables such as value, advocacy or satisfaction.
Skipping Qualitative Research
The great danger with this scenario is the tendency for management to skip the qualitative stage. Anecdotally, more and more managers who understand the value of quantitative findings wish to skip the qualitative phase in the interest of expedience. This has resulted in some instances where qualitative research has had to be undertaken after the quantitative research, in order to understand what the identified driver actually means to the respondent.
A question that can soak up a great deal of 'variance explained', and therefore be reported as an important, statistically significant driver, can lack the actionability that a well-constructed question arising from qualitative research can have.
For example, in business-to-business services markets ‘understanding my business’ is often a main driver; however, qualitative research is required to identify what this actually translates to in terms of expected behaviour.
The Focus on Quantitative Findings
The past 10 years have seen an explosive growth in the population of postgraduate-qualified middle managers and a more than doubling of the global marketing research market. Marketing research is one means of providing the increasingly analytical (and perhaps risk averse) middle manager with decision tools that are complementary to managerial judgment.
The probability of action arising from research is at its best when quantitative output is complemented with qualitative research.
Complements to Business Outcomes
The likelihood of actionability is maximised when the findings are based on both qualitative and quantitative research. Anyone who has presented to executive management asking for a substantial investment in both of these forms of research knows the answer to that question. Anecdotally and intuitively, managers are more likely to bet their job on quantitative findings. However, having decided on what action to take, managers will quickly realise that it is qualitative research that provides the roadmap for actionability. In short, the most beneficial approach to market research is one that considers quantitative and qualitative research as complements to business outcomes
