The human element is core to Research For Good. Beyond enabling their understanding and reaching audiences, this year, we’re extending this to connect with our peers across the Market Research community.
Over the next few months, we’re sitting down with some MR industry leaders to ask five key questions to discuss emerging trends, innovation, leadership, and more. To kick things off, we started with Sean Case, Co-Founder of RFG, to reflect on the highs and lows of 2020 and what’s to come in 2021.
Check it out below!
What’s the biggest lesson you took from 2020 that you think everyone in the industry needs to know?
2020 taught us so many lessons. I think the key things I learned were:
1) Plan for the worst and hope for the best. Way too many companies were not prepared for the kind of historic downturn in business that we saw, and it hurt our industry and our industry professionals.
2) The old adage: If something can go wrong, it will, and everything can go wrong.
3) In a crisis, you can choose to survive, or you can choose to thrive. We took on the thrive mentality, which helped us stay positive, focused, and remain innovative.
What was your professional high from 2020?
First and foremost, we made it a priority and a goal to preserve everyone’s jobs within our org, with no lay-offs. I am happy to say that we accomplished this, and I couldn’t be more proud of our team for working hard to make this happen. As a business, our goal for 2020, before the pandemic started, was to launch our Enterprise MR Platform “DataForce.” While it was delayed due to the pandemic, we were still able to launch the platform, and many customers have been impressed by what it has to offer. That’s 2 highs, not one. Sorry!
What excites you about Market Research for 2021?
If this pandemic has taught us anything, MR has been behind in innovation and technology adoption. I think 2020 was the kick in the ass that we needed to start moving rapidly in this direction, and I think we will come out of 2021 way ahead of where we would have if we maintained the status quo.
What’s in the pipeline for RFG in the next 12 months?
We are laser-focused on developing Dataforce, and onboarding our first few clients. We are also continuing to develop a roadmap for the platform based on customer feedback. We are excited to begin enabling our customers to build new products, become uber-efficient, and realize the cost benefits of a model day MR platform.
Any closing thoughts?
As a closing thought, I want to thank our partners, customers, and employees for what turned out to be an amazing year in 2020. With everything stacked against us and our industry, we all managed to work together to build and launch something cool. Whether you are an MR Professional and Entrepreneur, a buyer or supplier, an Intern, or a CEO – don’t ever take this industry, your peers, or your partners for granted. In the best of times, they can help you thrive – and in the worst of times, they can help you accomplish the impossible.
