Harris Interactive, the global leader in online market research, uses Internet-based and traditional methodologies to provide information to a wide range of clients in such markets as advertising, e-business, education, financial services, health care and public policy. With an online panel of over 7 million people and its Global Network affiliates, Harris Interactive conducts research in more than 80 different countries, in more than 30 different languages.
With the pace of new product development accelerating to an unimaginable level, companies, governments, and institutions have to move at "Internet speed" to satisfy their respective constituencies. Market research firms have realized that only research that supports this increase in the pace of the market is of value to its customers.
In addition to the quickened pace of the market, Harris Interactive, along with other firms in the market research industry, have also noted the continual decline of telephone survey response rates and its impact on research quality and profitability. In order to address research quality issues and to enhance its leadership position, Harris Interactive chose to use the Internet as a business enabler, with goals to:
Working with SPSS MR, using the Surveycraft suite of software products, Harris Interactive effectively harnesses the power of the Internet, maintaining an online panel of more than 7 million people collecting data via the Web. In just one year, the firm has converted the majority of its research activities to the Internet and has demonstrated its ability to handle immense loads of data, providing results at the speed today's clients demand.
Widely known for its Harris Poll, Harris Interactive has been providing its customers with market research and polling services for over three decades. As an innovator in market research, Harris Interactive deliberately shifted its business model to the Web. They wanted to expand internationally using emerging technology to develop a worldwide Internet infrastructure that delivered results more quickly, while still maintaining the quality and reliability for which they had long been recognized.
We use SPSS MR solutions to execute our market plan and maintain our leadership position in the industry.
Peter Milla
Senior Vice President and CIO
Harris Interactive
Incorporating software solutions from SPSS MR, Harris Interactive developed and implemented an online survey infrastructure where large numbers of survey respondents may "self-interview" 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Current capacities, which are easily scalable in response to demand, permit 144,000 custom five-minute interviews per hour. By giving respondents the flexibility to complete surveys at times traditional research methodologies would not be able to accommodate, Harris Interactive is able to tap into information from a large source of respondents it would not otherwise be able to access. For the 2000 election, Harris Interactive polled over 240,000 likely voters in six days and achieved a 96 percent accuracy rate in predicting 73 political races.
In a time in which traditional market research companies are experiencing a decline in survey cooperation, Harris Interactive is gathering an increasing number of participants and building the largest database of cooperative respondents available anywhere.
With SPSS MR solutions, Harris Interactive is able to handle the tremendous loads that Web research generates. In the second and third quarters of 2000, Harris Interactive conducted 3.3 million online interviews -- 1.8 million in Q3, 2000 and 1.5 million in Q2, 2000. These volumes have increased significantly from the large volumes done last year (by comparison, Harris Interactive did 800,000 online interviews in Q3, 1999).
Len Bayer, executive vice president and chief scientist, attributes the higher cooperation rates to the convenience offered by around-the-clock survey availability, making the point that there are often several hundred people interviewing at 4am. The graphical nature of the Web provides for improved respondent engagement and efficiency, meaning that surveys are more fun to do, and the respondent burden to provide data is lower. On a per-minute basis, respondents can usually provide one-third more data over the Internet than by telephone.
Higher cooperation rates mean that more data is generated. Internet-based research accounted for more than 50 percent of the data Harris Interactive collected in the third quarter 2000. By shifting its focus from traditional research methodologies to Internet-based methodologies, Harris Interactive has grown at an extremely high rate. Last fiscal year saw revenue increase by a record 77 percent. Along with this growth in volume, Harris Interactive has shifted the majority of its data collection to the Internet. According to Bayer, SPSS MR products have been instrumental in facilitating this shift and handling the enormous volume of data Web research generates.
Harris Interactive is able to email more than 500,000 emails per hour to panel members in more than 100 countries worldwide asking for their participation in surveys. The firm receives two-thirds of expected responses within 48 hours and can process up to 144,000 five-minute surveys per hour. This high productivity and increased speed has enabled Harris Interactive to accomplish projects that would not have been possible without the Web. In addition, it allows the firm to conduct research at significantly lower cost and in time frames of hours and days versus weeks and months for methods such as telephone and mail. Peter Milla, senior vice president and CIO, notes that by using Internet-based methodologies, Harris Interactive is able to offer a more cost-effective, high-value product than competitors who use only traditional methodologies.
Milla notes, "Harris Interactive made a strategic business decision to become the leader in online research. If you look at the volume of research we conduct with the infrastructure we've developed, you'll see that we've accomplished that goal. Nobody else that we know of in the world does the kind of volume we do. We selected and work with SPSS MR because they offered software solutions that could help us accomplish our goal." Milla added, "We use SPSS MR products to execute our market plan and maintain our leadership position in the industry."
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