Mumbai: The Market Research Society of India (MRSI) held its second Wednesday Webinar of the eighth season on 26th March 2025, on “Winning with Research & Insights: Award Winning Papers at GKA2024”. The session was hosted by Sivakumar Somnathan, Consumer Behaviour Consultant, Curious Cat Consulting, Amitabh Mishra, Head Insights & Analytics- India, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, Sunder Muthuraman, Independant Consultant and Mukul Gautam, Independent Consultant; including speakers Arpit Jain, Associate Director Research & Insights, Metrix Research & Analytics, Tripti Sharma, Director, Ipsos Public Affairs and Ankur Kapoor, Consumer & Market Insights Manager Lakme, Beauty Incubator & VMS Unilever. This webinar offers insights from top industry experts on leveraging research and analytics for business growth. The discussion began by exploring award-winning work on transforming retail data collection with Gen AI-powered invoice processing, highlighting how artificial intelligence and machine learning are replacing manual data entry, enabling the processing of over 10,000 invoices with high accuracy and an 80% reduction in time. Arpit Jain, Associate Director Research & Insights, Metrix Research & Analytics highlighted, “Data collection is the foundation of retail measurement services. For a company that tracks retail sales, market shares, and consumer demand, accurate and timely data is crucial. Yet, many still rely on manual, time consuming processes. To further resolve this, our team created a survey platform that serves as a single hub for retail data collection. It allows manual entries but with a simple, user-friendly interface that helps reduce errors. Built in checks and validations further improve accuracy, making data collection smoother and more efficient. The platform is designed so that even a beginner can gather reliable, high-quality data, ultimately improving retail measurement services.” Tripti Sharma, Director, Ipsos Public Affairs added, “We were approached to determine the population size and living conditions of the Puthirai Vannar community across Tamil Nadu, helping agencies develop better welfare policies. The only available data was from the census, which estimated 21,000 individuals across different districts but lacked comprehensive insights. Our challenge was the absence of sufficient data to design a traditional sampling study. As researchers, we typically know which geographies to target, but in this case, we had to take a completely different approach; figuring out how to identify these individuals and what support we could gather to reach them. If people are to receive welfare policies, caste certificates become an important document. Some people have them, some don’t, and due to stigma, some may not want to identify themselves as belonging to this community.” Speaking on the digital evolution of rural consumers, Ankur Kapoor, Consumer & Market Insights Manager, Lakme, Beauty Incubator & VMS, Unilever, said, “We knew rural was changing, and we had some data showing that it is a big part of FMCG, contributing about 40%. Recently, there has been significant digitization in rural areas, with mobile internet becoming more prevalent, better road infrastructure, and increasing purchases, including vehicles. Along with these developments, rural women are working more, and there is a growing appetite for newer foods and beauty products; clear signs that change is underway. We wanted to analyse the extent of this shift and how it should influence our priorities at Hindustan Unilever. To do this, we conducted in-depth analysis and qualitative interviews, even going through a day in the consumer’s life to gain deeper insights.” The speakers provided valuable insights into the evolving landscape of research and consumer behavior, highlighting the impact of technology, societal shifts, and data driven decision making. Their discussions emphasized the importance of adapting to change, leveraging innovation, and addressing challenges with informed strategies to drive meaningful progress in business and society. To gain deeper insights into the transformative power of research and analytics in shaping industries, watch the complete MRSI webinar.
