Starting a new business venture without carrying out background research is a common and grave mistake made by many a business in Uganda. It is among the top 10 reasons why businesses fail in Africa.

The concept of market research is still foreign to many business owners not just in Uganda but Africa in general, with only a few seeking the counsel and services of a market research company before launching a new product or business. 

While some companies may have in-house market research personnel, there are perks to outsourcing your research to a full-service market research company. 

The pros of hiring a market research company in Uganda

Extensive knowledge and well-founded practices

Being in a position to leverage the experience and great command of industry best practices is undeniably one of the perks of choosing to hire a reputable market research company.

These professionals eat, sleep and breathe research, making them your best bet for obtaining the quality results you seek to help your business soar above all others. They are also well-educated in the field with an abundance of knowledge, exposure and understanding of the best practices in business research.

Objective and impartial results

Hiring a market research agency can help your business obtain unbiased and objective results unlike using in-house personnel to whom customers may be reluctant to directly express their grievances regarding the business.

In a similar way, it is also difficult for in-house researchers to completely refrain from bias as they are not immune from the temptation to come up with the ideal results. However, hiring a market research company take over the market research project on your behalf provides for more authentic results free from office politics and internal influences. 

Moreover, a professional market research company is always working to maintain a good reputation and will strive to uphold objectivity, independence and impartiality to avoid jeopardizing its image.

Credibility and better results

When your research is conducted by a reputable research firm, it is deemed to be more credible than research done in-house. Many a time, this is because the audience fears that the results could be skewed by the company to promote its image. 

In addition, owing to the fact that these companies have years of experience conducting market research in Uganda, they are more likely to produce better results. This is because they are well-versed in choosing methodologies, designing data collection instruments, collecting the data and analyzing it. 

Notably, so, the idea of confidentiality regarding customers’ opinions about the business or product holds when the survey is done by a third-party research firm. As a result, respondents are more open to freely expressing their honest opinion than when they are interviewed by the company’s personnel.

Dedicated support team and extended resources

A professional market research company in Uganda will be well equipped with sizeable teams of professional market research analysts as well as the tools necessary to conduct thorough and all-encompassing market research for their clients. 
In most cases, small businesses and startups do not have and cannot afford to put all these resources together to conduct meaningful and impactful market research studies. They are therefore better off hiring a full-service market research agency that is capable and well-equipped to carry out the task efficiently. 

Ask the right questions

There is a common misconception in Africa that no one else knows the business better than its owner. It is assumed a business owner knows better than anyone, including the right questions that need to be asked. This is a dangerous mindset. Even within the context of Africa, African market researchers who specialize in studying businesses add a lot of value to business survival.
This is because professional market researchers spend a lot of their lives studying businesses and the environment in which they operate. 

Even when it comes to primary research which involves investigating customer needs and preferences, professional market researchers are well-equipped to design the most-suited questionnaires or interview guides that align with the objectives of your business, ask the right questions and employ the best approaches to gather and interpret the necessary data.  

The cons of hiring a market research company in Uganda

There are however a few disadvantages associated with hiring a third-party market research firm to run market research projects on your behalf.

Some research can be quite expensive

Conducting some forms of market research in Uganda may not come cheap especially if you outsource the task to a world-class professional market research agency. This is especially more so with primary research types such s qualitative interviews with numerous respondents. 

It is worth noting that a market research company also charges for the use of specialist knowledge, experience and resources in your research project, though this may vary depending on the complexity of the research. 

While some forms of research such as primary research may be costly, reliable market research is a worthwhile investment for businesses, especially new ones that want to penetrate a market. In-house research may be a cheaper option in the short term, but it may not be an efficient substitute for having your research project handled by specialist third-party professionals. 

Time-consuming

The research process from start to finish can sometimes be time-consuming with processes like finding the right questions, formulating a general plan, collecting the data, and analyzing and interpreting the results taking a bit of time to be completed. Because of this time factor, results from market research may not be instantly available for the business to utilize to drive its strategy.

Typically, market research companies in Uganda complete their market research projects within a predefined timeframe but this could last anywhere from weeks to several months.