Frost
& Sullivan’s 6th Annual Advanced Marketing Research Summit
East
September
21-25, 2003, Hyatt Harborside
Boston,
MA
In September, I had the opportunity to attend Frost & Sullivan’s 6th Annual Advanced Market Research Summit in Boston. The event was very successful in terms of offering a knowledge-rich environment that was driven by contributions from everyone in attendance. The front office Frost & Sullivan staff on hand to run the event was a first-class crew that extended themselves efficiently and effectively, and from the participants I spoke with, out performed expectations in just about every circumstance. Run concurrently with Frost’s 11th Annual Competitive Intelligence Executive Summit, the spirit of the summits continued with deep enthusiasm for learning from peers - corporate practitioners and vendors alike - that are facing the same overriding dilemma of how to get more out of their Competitive Intelligence and Market Research capacities under tighter budgets and calendars.
From speaking with Executive Summit attendees both during and after the event, the think tanks and roundtable discussions generally did an exceptional job of discussing how CI and MR can be integrated to give businesses an even stronger competitive advantage. While we all wish there had been more time to participate in several think tanks, I walked away from having participated as a Thought Leader in ThinkTank 2, “Just in Time Research Supporting Ever Compressing Product Development Cycles”, with an newfound knowledge and appreciation for how challenging it can often be to bring together CI and MR to assist in internal product development efforts. Working efficiently to outpace your competition to market, when appropriate, with the latest and greatest innovations is often a challenging endeavor. Or, conversely, making that tough decision using CI and MR to abandon projects, especially after hefty investments in such things as R&D and personnel, when the situation just wasn’t ripe for a product launch, can be an extremely difficult one to make.
I’d like to congratulate everyone in attendance and particularly Frost & Sullivan for fostering another successful, interactive event in Boston. While the location has yet to be announced, please join me in May ’04 for the next Frost & Sullivan Executive Summit.
Derek
Johnson is Executive Director of the Recon Intelligence Outsourcing Bureau
at Aurora WDC. Email him at Derek.Johnson@AuroraWDC.com.