Question #3: Tools for Designing Inclusive Market Research

[Meg Buckley, ACDI/VOCA]

This is a question for everyone to respond to, including experts and participants:

What are processes or tools used by the private sector to ensure that perspectives and needs from women, youth, or other traditionally excluded groups are featured in the design of inclusive market research?

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[kvh...@googlemail.com]

Hi All, 

Here are some examples of how market research is being done with bring in wide perspectives:

I love this podcast with Tere of Circle de Luz sharing how she and her organisation help marginalised groups progress in business – and particularly marginalised women in business and how the IFC are working with them to make it work: https://businessfightspoverty.org/what-does-it-take-to-create-gender-equality-at-work/ - looking end to end and at the whole journey not just one off tokenism

This conversation about sharing training and engaging people across language and cultural barriers might also be of interest - the conversation is between the International Organisation for Migration and digital learning platform Quizrr: https://businessfightspoverty.org/sandra-granath-and-aleksandra-lasota-training-for-migrant-workers/  

Whilst this research on how companies can effectively target support for smallholder farmers in global supply chains looks at the use of segmentations and different examples of this in action, breaking it down into basic practical steps could be useful and I suspect transferable to other situations: https://businessfightspoverty.org/report/farmer-segmentation-guide/ https://businessfightspoverty.org/report/farmer-segmentation-guide/

[Gloria Enwema]

Hi All,

Some processes the private sector can adopt to ensure wider perspectives and needs from these marginalized groups are featured in the design of inclusive market research are;

1. Inclusive market research design: The private sector has to put ensure that the research questions, methodologies, and data collection tools are appropriate and relevant to the target group.
2. Targeted sampling: The private sector must intentionally select participants from diverse backgrounds, including women, youth, and other marginalized groups to sample the product or service. This ensures that the research sample is representative of the population and that their perspectives and needs are adequately captured.

The avenues to which these research are conducted must be easily accessible to these marginalized target groups.

[Ovidiu Bujorean]

Thank you everyone for the excellent perspectives. One point I would add is that it is important to go even a little deeper and select few stakeholders from the various categories that are usually marginalized and engage through a process of "Humble Inquiry" as defined by Prof. Ed Stein (link below) to be able to understand in more depth. Once these deeper issues have been identified, the organizer can seek to include them in the broader research to validate/ confirm them. 

Edgar Schein - Humble Inquiry - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOw0IDrKvuw