Turnovers in research agencies are improving slightly, as per a survey conducted by MarketResearchAgencies.eu. The survey included 114 Market Research Agencies’ (MRA) members spread across the globe. Comparing the data from Nov’09 with a report published in May’09, only 45% of the agencies have experienced a reduction in turnover, compared to 60% in May’09.

Although this is a small sign of improvement, it does gives us a small peak into what we can expect in the coming 6 months. With the global recession revenue worm slowly ceasing to dip, a slow recovery growth rate will have a positive impact on the business of the research companies. On a more positive note, 36% of the respondents have seen an increase in their turnovers, compared to 20% in May’09. The cross-section would be of more interest, in order to see how big (in terms of scale and maturity) are the agencies who have claimed an increase in the turnovers in the past 6 months. It has been the relatively small-mid size companies that have been negatively impacted by recession. This cross-section becomes important, as we also have 23% of the respondents now that have experienced a substantial decrease in their turnovers, compared to 21% in May’09.

In terms of manpower, there has been a reduction in terms of companies laying off employees and an increase in the number of respondents that have hired in the past 6 months. The increase has been very minimal, keeping in mind the agencies will be careful and definitely would like to test the waters before they think about diving in.

Looking at the future, research agencies are marginally positive about the recession in the long term. Majority of the respondents believe the impact of recession on the market research agencies would last anywhere between 6-24 months, however the % of respondents have gone down from 86% in May’09 to 80% in Nov’09. I do believe we would  see a slow and gradual rise in turnovers for research companies in the next one year. However, a lot will depend on changes in research methodologies and technologies that would come into the picture. With social media and analytical tools already enhancing (not changing) the landscape of research, it would be interesting to see what kind of impact these innovations have on the turnovers of research companies.