Maru Group CEO Ged Parton on Navigating the Future of Data

Ged is bullish on Maru39s ability to lead the insights industryamp160 Through a portfolio of market research products and services including MaruMatchbox Maru Group helps synthesize those disparate data sourcesamp160 While other companies have been slow to embrace new technologies Maru has seized the opportunity to innovateMaru Group is headquartered in London with offices around the world including in Toronto Los Angeles and New Yorkamp160 Needless to say Ged is constantly on the go and commutes between Toronto and Londonamp160 He is especially grateful for FaceTimeamp160 quotTo interact visually with a friend family member colleague or partner wherever I am in the world it39s the most humanizing thingquot he saysI can39t help but think Ged39s transatlantic travels serve as an appropriate metaphor for how he and his team are crossing not just streams but oceans of data and they are leading the charge come hell or high wateramp160 I recently spoke with Ged on the future of market research and the insights industryamp160Charlotte Lipmanamp160 How do you think the past has helped inform the future of this industryGed Partonamp160 I think the industry has experienced paradigm shifts in the past and was slow to respond to themamp160 To give you an example with the emergence of online as a mechanism for conducting surveys and interviews at the turn of this century there was a huge part of the industry that was really negative amp8211 quotThis is not the right way to do work this isn39t going to become important to usquot amp8211 and in fact the opposite was trueamp160 Online capabilities really transformed the industryamp160 I think in many ways we39re in the same scenario now and the opportunity really is for companies like ours to grab hold of the technology paradigm shift and wholeheartedly commit to itamp160 AI artificial intelligence for instance has been in the industry for a while and was adopted very quickly in certain areasamp160 I think the issue for insights services is that the need to change shouldn39t be a marginal needamp160 What I mean by that is if you39re sitting in our marketplace at the moment it39s not the unique change to one process it39s that every part of the organization needs to evolveLipmanamp160 Looking ahead to the next several years what percent of professional insights services do you see being driven by human intelligence vs AIPartonamp160 I39m of a view that 100 of our projects in four to five years39 time will include artificial intelligence of some kindamp160 But and it39s a big quotbutquot there will still need to be some type of conductor of the orchestra a human a professional advisor who39ll be synthesizing outputs and using them to tell stories for clientsamp160 There is a reality that more often than notamp160clients do have access to behavioral and transactional dataamp160 They just need support in being able to make their data singamp160 That39s about answering quotwhyquot questions that are revealed through behavioral dataamp160 Answering these quotwhyquot questions is really what we do as a businessamp160and what our competitors do tooamp160 That39s really why the industry existsamp160 Maru is committed to the notion that it39s a combination of human capital supplemented by the best that new technology can bringamp160 The future is all about the combination of the two things technology and advisoryamp160 It39s about that fuelamp160 It39s not about one or the otherLipmanamp160 That39s an interesting notion because I think there is a fear over career longevity in this spaceamp160 MediaVillage founderamp160Jack Myersamp160hasamp160an interesting take on this heamp160recently said to me that AI is really a misnomer because it is not at all artificial it39s real intel and that a more appropriate description is machine learning or machine intelligencePartonamp160 That39s a great pointamp160 I39m thinking yes many jobs will evolve and one of the challenges for all of us is helping to create environments where people think about how they can embrace the technology and how it liberates them to do things differentlyamp160 There39s additive value in what they were previously doing when processing a particular task now being done by a machineamp160 It39s kind of one of the things that39s at the heart of our businessamp160we want to take those capabilities to do more sophisticated analysis and become even more knowledgeableLipmanamp160 Our research of the media marketplaceamp160shows that advanced data and analytics is one of the leading contributors to business decision makingamp160 Do you expect that to be the case across industries amp160Partonamp160 It39s definitely the ambition of every industry to embrace the opportunity created by new and different data streamsamp160 There39s been a huge boom in the last few years of the availability of biometric dataamp160 Obviously there areamp160apps that indicate whether you39re getting a good night39s sleep that measureamp160your stats every day and so on and so forthamp160 There is all kinds of behavioral information that exists now that wasn39t really available 10 years ago or at least at the volumes that we currently haveamp160 In the past we would39ve estimated these things by having somebody literally monitor what someone39s doing either by analyzing a detailed diary that the individual would keepamp160or by having them follow an individual around a kind of ethnographic approach if you willamp160 The bias that exists in those old processes one doesn39t need to rely on nowLipmanamp160 But are business actively and always embracing all of the available data sourcesPartonamp160 The answer to that is absolutely notamp160 That39s partly because there39s so much information coming at companies and the kind of excessive data that exists isn39t currently digestible for most businessesamp160 Whether it39s attitudinal work traditional or nontraditional survey work or behavioral or transactional data where people are going what they39re doing what they39re spending on if you can capture that data in the same environment within the same ecosystem and help the data centers talk to one another then you39re in a much better place to present digestible insight as opposed to having disparate data sourcesamp160 That39s very much a notion that39s at the heart of the technology infrastructure we39re putting togetherLipmanamp160amp160So to succeed in the insights industry a company must do whatPartonamp160 It must answer the quotwhyquot questionsamp160 For clients how we have value our purpose our raison d39etre is by helping them answer why the consumer thinks as she does why she behaves as she does why she spends where she doesamp160 That is very much at the heart of the client challenge and for me it39s the inspiration for our industryClick the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writersamp160

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Maru Group CEO Ged Parton on Navigating the Future of Data

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Charlotte Lipman

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Maru Group CEO Ged Parton on Navigating the Future of Data

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Charlotte Lipman

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