Clients

IRO Research

Based in Helsinki, IRO Research is the second largest research agency in Finland carrying out online, telephone and face-to-face research throughout the country. The Finnish research market is steadily growing at a rate of 2-3%, with online work the fastest area of growth. IRO is at the forefront in Finnish online research through building their IRONetPanel which currently consists of approximately 40,000 consumers. All members of IRONet- Panel have been recruited specifically for the panel from telephone interviews.

With a growing online panel IRO found themselves with several issues to address. The 40,000 names which IRO used for their online work were kept in MS Excel and the process of extracting the sample was becoming progressively more complicated as their main panel grew and the number of special interest panels increased. Also, for some clients who asked for research requiring very specific sampling from their database they used SQL queries to extract the data which made it hard to turn around sample quickly.

The Solution

The IRO operations team wanted to find a tool which would enable them to easily obtain sample from their database and feed back the interview results into the panel. IRO also wanted to set up a reward point system in the future. This was clearly too much to achieve in Excel so the team looked for a product which would suit their needs and also integrate with their Pulse Train Bellview web interviewing system. MARSC was the best fit and being product partners with Pulse Train meant that there was simple integration between the two systems enabling easy transfer of data. An advantage was gained as previously the SQL querying was done externally but, with the use of MARSC, the project managers themselves could handle these jobs.

With the MARSC consultancy team working closely with IRO’s operations team the implementation of MARSC proceeded with minimal hitches and was completed in three days. Since this time IRO have found marked improvement in quality of sample issued and that their whole sampling process is more efficient.

The Future

IRO envisage the real benefits of MARSC coming in the medium and long term as the company is able to better focus the use of their respondents thereby making fuller use of the panel.

Over the next six months MARSC will handle most IRO database sampling and all research team members will receive instruction as to the impact of MARSC and the value it will add to their work. IRO will also look into using MARSC to provide sample for their CATI fieldwork. As panel work continues at IRO the MARSC consultancy team in Centurion will be available to ask for advice and support.

"As our panels continue to grow and the sampling requirement becomes increasingly complicated we are pleased to have found in MARSC a tool enabling us to increase the quality of sample and make smarter use of the information held throughout our panel databases."
Mikko Vikstedt - Operations Director IRO