It is my great pleasure to welcome you to our annual conference. On behalf of the association, I wish to express my gratitude to all of you.

JMRA has promoted various reform programs under the basic policy of “implementation of informative organizational activities” since last year when it marked the 30th anniversary of the establishment. The annual conference is a part of this reform project, which regularizes the opportunity for researchers to offer up-to-date information to share with clients. I understand that it is one of the important missions of the association to develop a road map of solutions to industry-wide common issues enhancing “research on research” activities. I am keenly aware of the necessity to further strengthen international information exchange activities to improve the presence of the industry and researchers. I hope the presentations today were informative enough to meet your expectations. We will continue to make further efforts to enhance our annual conference for next year based on your evaluation.

Meanwhile, the Japanese market research industry is now at a major turning point. Following implementation of Private Information Protection Law last year, Revised Basic Resident Register Law took effect this November, which means that marketing research firms no longer have access to the Basic Resident Register for sampling. Furthermore, as you may already know, collection rates are substantially declining not only in marketing research but also in opinion polls. On the other hand, the popularity of online research is remarkably increasing, and in Japan, this research methodology has already become the top in sales composition by methodology. At the same time, clients are more demanding, and the provision of insights is increasingly required as well as research quality, speed and lower cost.

There is something I always think about for such a historical turning point ? that is “what are the things to change and not to change”. There is a famous term to represent innovation, which is “creative destruction” (Schumpeter). This term has two kinds of true natures. One is the industry challenge to evolve through environmental changes and technical innovations, questioning the foundation of its survival. The other is utilization of new technology platforms to create new markets and new worlds.

Today, I’d like to talk about “things not to change” no matter how the environment changes, these form the foundation for the research industry’s survival. The mission of researchers is obviously to provide research data that helps clients’ marketing and business decision making. Regardless of the research methodology or cost involved, clients expect researchers’ expertise to distill this point.

The Japanese research industry had been based on the concept that representative research by using probability samples yields accurate and useful research. However, the environment has undergone drastic changes. As mentioned earlier, it is now facing a very difficult situation in implementing representative research using probability samples. What we now need is a new paradigm. Because researchers already know perquisites for representative data, they can assess the other data. I believe this is the important competency that no other industry can develop.

The spreading of online research has dramatically reduced research costs and stimulated market revitalization. Furthermore, the development of new research methodologies utilizing online research and review of research structures has started. The situation, what we term “innovation is the mother of necessity”, as opposed to “necessity is the mother of innovation”, is happening now. In this situation, another “thing not to change” is the development of data collection field as an infrastructure to support the market economy.

During 1960’s, named as “the times of perspiration and passion”, researchers’ energy was mostly devoted to explaining social values of market research to gain the participation and cooperation in research. It is not too much to say that the “perspiration and passion” of those researchers have built the cornerstone of this industry.

The times have changed significantly. Today, research collaborators called access panels support the infrastructure. If we fail to sustain these as a research field of good quality, the foundation of the research industry would be seriously jeopardized. To “stably provide good-quality data at reasonable cost” is the eternal social mission of researchers.

There is a reason for us to call the data collection infrastructure the “field”. This is because we need to “cultivate” it; “burn agriculture” cannot yield quality crops. In addition, it requires a certain level of investment to “cultivate”. To maintain the quality of research, certain costs and rules are necessary.

JMRA released “Online Research Guideline” this November. In addition, ISO is conducting studies to maintain the quality of access panels in line with International Standards. I think the international benchmarking of the research field is our important mission. I would like everyone in the research industry as well as every research user to understand the importance of developing this field in the medium and long terms.

Incidentally, according to a report released by ESOMAR in September, “Global Market Research 2005”, it highlights six items as key trends of global research companies. The following two items caught my eye:

• Converging Business Model


• Changing Researcher Skill Set

It says convergence of business models of research firms and strategy & IT consulting firms has started and the expectations of researcher skill sets have started to change. Due to the development of the network society and changes in the IT environment, clients’ expectations for business partners have changed, and this has started to affect the structure of the industry and individual skill sets. The report explains that while research skills and usability of research data remain unchanged, researchers cannot fulfill their responsibility as business partners if they continue to stay in their world. Once they commit to being a partner in clients’ strategies, they are required to handle and analyze data other than research data and to provide business intelligence. Also, IT skills are indispensable prerequisites in any business process. We can hardly find companies that possess all of those resources and skills even when we look all over the world. The report predicts cross-industry restructuring will take place.

I presented the message, “Researchers, explore the NEW!”, at the CMRA research summit in Dalian, China in August as well as the KOSOMAR conference in Seoul, Korea in November. This message implies “challenge a new world of intelligence” in response to changes in the environment and clients’ expectations. I hope to convey this to all researchers, in particular to Japanese researchers. We at JMRA will challenge the new world with courage to enhance the presence of researchers and to establish the social credibility of marketing research.

Thank you very much for joining us today.