Success Snapshot
Working with Cint, GfK was able to gain:
- Reduced data collection costs.
- Fast project set up, fieldwork and delivery.
- Invoicing efficiencies.
- Optimised resource allocations.
- Reduced technology costs.
The Challenge
GfK is a global leader in data and analytics for the consumer product industry, with 8,000+ experts providing market and consumer intelligence worldwide. Established nearly 90 years ago, the company has thrived due to its commitment to innovation and delivering growth to clients around the globe. As part of GfK’s ongoing programme to transform its Marketing and Consumer Intelligence business, the company’s Global Operations team identified a critical need to optimise the operations and data collection supply chain to facilitate faster delivery of insights and analytics to customers. GfK’s ambition was to move quickly toward a programmatic approach to sampling, to better optimise its operations, and to reduce manual management of project fieldwork and ultimately achieve a step change in the speed, efficiency and cost of its sampling process.
The Cint Solution
To achieve these goals and streamline its processes, GfK turned to Cint’s Access Pro as a SaaS platform for sampling automation. With a track record of powering market research technology stacks for some of the world’s largest and fastest growing insights companies, Cint is uniquely geared to help customers overcome the challenges associated with automating fieldwork and data collection. Cint implemented an end to end, “bid to bill” solution for GfK, including a Private Marketplace of some of GfK’s strategic supply partners and its own inventory.
Cint enabled GfK with:
- Universal access to supply: Through Cint, GfK can now quickly achieve complex sample configurations and access ultimate feasibility for any project by combining sample from its most essential supply sources in one place. These sources include:
- Cint’s Insight Exchange, the world’s largest consumer network for digital survey based research, offers access to 4,500 integrated panels made up of over 144 million respondents across 130 countries.
- A Private Marketplace, consisting of 16 GfK’s strategic suppliers, such as its own proprietary panel assets, which have been integrated into the Cint platform.
- Centralised control: Cint’s Access Pro gives GfK a single user interface to manage sample and fieldwork operations. It eliminates manual, email based bidding processes and the use of multiple applications for sample sourcing, project management and invoicing. GfK can now instantly check feasibility and pricing, and deploy projects at speed, all within one application. Exchange partners can be ranked in a tiering system controlled by GfK based on its own supplier scoring criteria. Projects are easily optimised in real time to ensure successful delivery, and Cint manages all post project supplier invoice reconciliation, providing a single invoice for maximum efficiency.
- Standardisation: Cint standardises operating procedures across business regions, functions and suppliers. This eliminates the need to juggle the internal complexities of managing disparate systems, data structures and processes. Access Pro inherently harmonises sample specifications, definitions and processes across suppliers whose own technology and APIs vary in approach.
- Increased data quality: All projects running sample supply through the Cint platform are subject to both GfK’s and Cint’s market leading, AI based fraud detection tools and quality measures.
- Full transparency: GfK can drill into granular data points on any of its projects running via the Cint platform from supplier pricing rate cards, panel partner profiling, and project and partner performance.
The Results
By adopting Cint’s Access Pro, GfK is moving to a more centralised and efficient approach for sampling online respondents. One single, consolidated platform provides everything needed for end to end sample automation and comprehensive supply source integration. With this approach, GfK can gain large scale time savings and deliver better outcomes for its customers. Working with Cint, GfK is able to gain:
- Reduced data collection costs: By working with suppliers in a more programmatic way, GfK can reduce sample costs by unlocking supply chain efficiencies and achieving smarter supplier optimisation. Supplier pricing is available to GfK’s Project Managers in real time and can be compared at a project level to optimise overall costs.
- Fast project set up, fieldwork and delivery: GfK is increasingly able to realise significant time savings on its ad hoc survey work and consumer insight trackers by eliminating manual tasks associated with project commissioning and fulfilment.
- Invoicing efficiencies: Time spent reconciling multiple supplier purchase orders and invoices, and handling disputes, is greatly reduced.
- Optimised resource allocations: Internal teams are better allocated, moving from manual, repetitive tasks to more value adding tasks for customers.
- Reduced technology costs: GfK was able to quickly onboard its own panels and those of its strategic suppliers to the Cint platform thanks to Cint’s existing unique network of integrated partners and supply side APIs. This meant GfK managed to avoid the heavy costs associated with integrating multiple partner APIs and accelerate its path toward programmatic data collection.
By accessing Cint’s technology and network, GfK can now shift its focus back to its core objectives of leading data and insights innovation and revolutionising the market research industry’s real time access to critical knowledge.
“We are delighted to see that further automation of GfK’s sampling process with Cint’s Access Pro is paying off. Especially in Europe, we have managed to reduce manual fieldwork management and to speed up data collection. Being in control of the supplier blend and quotas helps us achieve the efficiencies that our field management organization needs.”
Bertjan Schouten
Global Lead Online Data Collection, Global Panel Operations Manager
GfK Marketing & Consumer Intelligence
