Market Decisions' International Research Solutions

International Web Surveys

Over two billion people worldwide have Internet access, and more than one quarter (29%) of the global population uses the Internet. More than half (58%) of European Union citizens do so, along with nearly three quarters in major Asian markets and even more (77%) in North America. Used appropriately, the Internet makes it easy to survey populations from a great distance. In some cases, web surveys can provide a substantial financial savings over those conducted by phone.

Market Decisions' web surveys can handle any language, and surveys can be conducted simultaneously in multiple languages. Our special translation module allows efficient management of questionnaire translations up front, as well as fast and precise translation of open-ended, verbatim responses.

International Phone Surveys

We run our field around the clock and conduct surveys across all the world's time zones. In addition to surveys in English, we also administer them in Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese and French (among other languages), using our own multilingual staff members. For larger projects, we augment our services through a network of international research partners. And we have resources for data collection in countries where phone methodologies are not currently appropriate.

GlobalCATI International Phone Surveys

In the case of large projects or projects that include many different countries, it's more efficient to contract interviewers in target countries. To facilitate such projects, Market Decisions partners with several research companies around the world. But we don't just sub-contract the task. We use a web-based telephone interviewing system - GlobalCATI (CATI = "Computer-Aided Telephone Interviewing") - developed specifically for this situation. Interviewers around the world can log on to a secure website and conduct the survey in a way similar to using the traditional CATI software.

GlobalCATI Advantages

• Market Decisions directly manages all translations to ensure they're consistent from country to country.

• MDC programmers set up the survey. This is done just once, so programming is consistent from country to country. GlobalCATI is also designed to allow for multiple translations. With a single source for programming and setup, clients save time and money.

• With the data being collected in a single place - MDC's secure, proprietary database - we can begin data cleaning and analysis immediately. We don't have to wait for subcontractors to wrap up their part of the project and send the data to us. And we never have to spend time matching formats that vary from vendor to vendor.

• Data is received by MDC in "realtime." We know exactly when our subcontracted interviewers start. We watch their progress and monitor the quality of the returned data. We can also monitor interviewers around the world to ensure that quality standards are being met. And with real-time, online data collection, real-time, online reporting is always available to the client. You can see your data as it comes in.

Focus Groups around the Globe

International qualitative research has its own special set of challenges. Along with the translation of research documents, researchers need simultaneous translation of the focus group discussion and transcripts, and skilled moderators who speak the language of the focus group participants. Market Decisions can help you take control of the complicated logistics of conducting a focus group series across several countries so you can get qualitative research data from around the globe.

Learn more about MDC's Qualitative Services