Push-button your way through this e-home - The Economic Times
Push-button your way through this e-home - The Economic Times
The above story in Economic Times describes a new trend in India- smart homes. Amit Gandhi is a environment consultant who has purchased a new house, and got it fitted with the latest gizmo-giri that he could find around. Vitrag Bafna, the MD of Zeos Infotech, the company providing this solution, has already fitted 10 homes with techno-wizardry.
This includes finger-print recognition, voice control, mobile activated devices, alerts through e-mail and mobile and so on...
Its nice. The applicability of smart systems is one that I have long believed in, and it is nice to see the belief finding justification in a developing country like India.
Magazine questions Gartner Group objectivity
Magazine questions Gartner Group objectivity
The above article highlights the potential conflict of interest that market research firms might be facing in today's complicated corporate environment. MR firms generate value by mining for knowledge inside information, by developing insights from data, by collating and churning reams of statistics and presenting them in a usable manner. The product that they deliver is a completely intangible one- knowledge and insight. In fact this product is the epitome of money-making in the knowledge industry. They are a virtualized factory which takes as input the 0s and 1s of the IT industry, string them together using their own experience (the equivalent of labour skills), their theoretical models, frameworks and methodologies (the equivalent of engines and machinery), and come out with a finished product that helps other people in the IT industry make informed decisions. This is how a MR firm works- it is a virtual factory processing information and knowledge.
Because of this inherent nature of their business, they are highly susceptible to misinterpret the data, to misread the statistics, to draw the wrong conclusions from market information. The question we have to ask is- are they accountable? Are we measuring the end result that they are giving us? Are we setting standards for them that we can judge their performance against?
Half a decade ago, manufacturing underwent a revolution. From the loosely designed, sometimes arbitirary processes, from the person-oriented and subjective measures of performance emerged the idea that would redefine the whole industry worldwide- that would lead to no less than a transformation in the way work was done. The revolution can be summed up in one word - Quality.
Are we measuring the Quality of knowledge and insights that MR firms are generating? Evidence suggests we are not. Perhaps it is time to evolve a Quality Model for MR firms, wherein clients can judge whether they are getting what they are paying for.
