The Value of Knowledge Management for Market Research Teams

“Everyone at my company knows exactly what I do and recognizes the value of my insights.”

It’s a phrase every market researcher dreams of saying, but unfortunately, few can make that claim–unless they have an insights management platform like Bloomfire to increase the visibility of their work, encourage stakeholders to engage with work, provide feedback on insights usage, and give them time back to focus on their most impactful activities.

If you’re thinking about investing in a platform like Bloomfire to increase the impact of your insights, we know you’ll likely need to build a business case and prove the platform’s value. We’re here to help you out: we studied platform data and surveyed our customers to better quantify the value of knowledge management for market research teams. Check out the highlights in the infographic below.

Time Savings

Let us know if you’ve heard this story before. A department head is making changes to a process that will ultimately impact the customer experience. They think they remember the market research team presenting something that could influence their approach, so they dig through their email inbox to see if the presentation was ever sent out. When they can’t find it, they reach out to a research team member to see if they can share it. The research team member then has to navigate a maze of folders in the company’s shared drive because they can’t remember where this particular presentation is stored.

Before long, an hour is gone, and the department head is no closer to getting their hands on the information they need to make an informed decision.

This type of scenario is all too common across all departments and types of organizations: according to a study from McKinsey, the average knowledge worker spends almost 20% of their workweek looking for internal information or tracking down colleagues to help them with specific tasks.

However, having a centralized, searchable source for research and insights can significantly cut down on the time your team members and stakeholders spend searching for information–which yields major cost savings.

In our survey of Bloomfire users, we found that 80% of employees save at least one hour per week by reducing their time spent searching. Based on average salaries, this means these companies are saving an average of $10 for every $1 invested in knowledge management.

Increased Insights Engagement

Whether you’re commissioning research from vendors or conducting your own research in house, your organization is making a significant investment in research. And no matter how good your insights team is, your company can’t be truly data-driven unless stakeholders are using that research to make strategic decisions. 

Fortunately, a knowledge management platform like Blomfire can encourage greater engagement with your insights by making it easier for both research team members and their stakeholders to access insights on demand. 

We’ve found that market research team members and their peers engage with their Bloomfire knowledge hubs an average of 233 days annually–or 89% of all work days in the year.

Additionally, the average Bloomfire user conducts 147 searches per year. That’s 147 opportunities to efficiently find answers to research questions–and when decision-makers are able to surface these answers on their own, they are able to focus on asking meaningful “why” follow-up questions instead of just asking, “Where can I find this asset?” This ultimately leads to more strategic thinking and better informed decisions.

Increased Insights Visibility

Insights engagement and visibility go hand in hand. But Bloomfire customers go one step further: 95% of our survey respondents say their content is both viewed more frequently and better understood since rolling out Bloomfire.

Bloomfire allows research teams to share final reports and presentations along with additional context to help their stakeholders better understand and apply their findings. Stakeholders can also add comments or questions to posts, creating a two-way conversation that leads to greater stakeholder buy-in, valuable feedback, and new ideas for future research questions. This ultimately builds or strengthens a culture of research engagement that helps businesses make more insights-driven decisions.