Abstract:

This paper cautions against rushing toward new data collection technologies and instead urges an assessment where and when they are appropriate. Only a small amount of primary research on this has been undertaken, and as such the assertions are intended as a start point for debate. The paper focuses on one area of research  with high value, account-handled customers and examines the outcomes companies seek when carrying out research with these accounts. It reviews how far current and emerging technologies could provide the outcomes and finds that current technologies lack on many counts. The authors have developed a model to assess what would have to change for new alternatives to become a suitable replacement for existing preferred data collection methodologies in the business research environment. By analysing the extremes in this way the personal but time consuming and expensive, face-to-face data collection method and the impersonal, but speedy and cheap(er) e-methods the direction that new technology must take if it is to support researchers becomes clearer.