With the theme: “Information is Power”, Research Solutions held a one-day interactive session with various business and government institutions at the Bintumani Hotel over the holidays.
“The whole engagement is to get local companies to understand some of the research tools that are available that we can be able to use so that decision making processes can be made easier, said Kahiga Wachira, the research manager of Research Solutions.
“In other words, to make an impact on local markets”, Mr Wachira stated.
He pointed out that they felt that they had a responsibility to develop the market in which they operate.
“We find out that here in Sierra Leone, the research industry is not as advanced as other African markets. But we cannot sit back and say it is not advance while we are players in this market, so we have a responsibility as research practitioners and specifically in the field of market research to create awareness and try and develop the level of the industry in a market like Sierra Leone, said the research manager of Research Solutions.
He noted that their role mainly was to inform the decision making process when it came to marketing decisions.
Mr Wachira took the 15 representatives of big business and government institutions who attended the workshop, through research methodologies and range of studies available in their agency.
He also explained to them what exactly was market research, and using topics like customers’ satisfaction, retail census, pricing research, and brand health tracking to do this.
Andrew Allieu from NASSIT said the workshop was simply ‘great’ and that it dealt with important and pertinent issues.
Mr Mohamed Sesay from Sierra Fishing Company said the workshop was educative and informative.
He said after the workshop he now saw the relevance of research.
Moses Blake from Sam King Services accepted that Sierra Leone companies did not do research but stated that after the workshop, especially the research analysis on pricing and branding, ‘may influence a new and healthy approach which I will recommend to my institution.”
Research Solutions is an agency that does research for business institutions as well as governments. It is based in Kenya but has been operating in Sierra Leone for several years now.
The Agency develops custom designed solutions to address particular questions facing organizations and provide a wide range of services to their clients including survey design, data collection, data processing and analysis findings.
“We provide full service research agency operating throughout Africa and we carry out both social and marketing research said Kahiga.
By Mohamed Fofanah