Cloud Computing for Market Research

Why Cloud Computing? 

In this internet age, everything is migrating to the cloud. From data storage to web applications, a lot of things are being hosted on the cloud, and it has proven to be one of the most powerful technologies of our decade.

Empowering companies by letting them create applications and products that can be accessed from anywhere in the world has greatly impacted the tech sphere. Cloud computing has drastically reduced the costs of operating and establishing a business or launching a product. With many of the world’s largest companies like Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, etc. moving on to cloud computing, it is high time other businesses do so too.

When cloud engineering is rightly leveraged, cloud technology in the business sector will help in building many powerful and scalable businesses. 

Market Research and Cloud Computing

Market Research is one of the most fundamental necessities of any business, product, service or a startup. Before you start any venture, you tend to do thorough market research to understand the current scenario. 

Market Research often uncovers many interesting facts and helps in taking the right decisions. To understand how cloud technology will aid market research, we need to understand what market research means. 

In general, market research comprises the collection and analysis of two kinds of data. The first is known as the primary information, and the other one is known as secondary information. While primary information is something that needs to be compiled by yourself, secondary information is the one that is already existing.

If you wanted to launch a financial tech product which helps in calculating a credit score, knowing the number of people who place much emphasis on their credit score will be the primary data. This can be done through surveys, person to person interviews, online forms, etc. On the other hand, if you directly search for studies and research which discuss digital literacy or the number of people using mobiles in a given country, it is secondary research. 

While curating secondary information doesn’t often demand a lot of efforts, gathering first-hand information, or the primary information is often painstaking. One can make the most out of cloud technology in market research when it comes to curating primary information. 

Cloud technology has enabled three forms of services. Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS). All these services can help businesses in market research. 

Consider an example. Let’s say you want to start a website which sells used books from people. For your initial market research, you’d have to gather information from a particular set of people in a demographic you have chosen. After doing so, you need to question them, record their answer and analyze it further to derive results which help you in your market research. 

In this scenario, let’s say you use a SaaS model product for your market research. You create a well-designed form with great questions and push them to the demographic you are targeting. Now, all their responses and their data which they disclose to you are stored on a cloud server. Again, you can apply another SaaS product which analyses this data in the cloud to deliver the results of your market research. 

On the other hand, if you are to perform a heavy marketing research campaign wherein you need a lot of processing power and storage to host the data, you can leverage the IaaS model of cloud technology. By using better infrastructure through the cloud and cutting down on the extra costs you will incur to buy new infrastructure, you can effectively perform market research. 

Bottomline

Cloud technology enabled technological developments such as SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS. All these three technologies have given rise to many tools and websites that will be of utmost use to any business looking towards performing market research. 

By unleashing the power of cloud computing, you can reduce the operational costs and achieve greater results in considerably less time.