India, Aug. 8 -- Ask Amit Adarkar, the outgoing CEO of Ipsos India, one of the world's largest market research (MR) companies, if firms in this business will stay relevant in the age of brands' direct consumer access, online cookies and availability of social listening tools, his answer is a resounding 'yes'. "At the heart of it, what we do as market researchers is help clients solve their marketing and business problems. By that definition, the utility of MR will continue and increase. But if you define MR as focus group discussions and door-to-door surveys, then that's outdated," says Adarkar, a market research professional of 30 years, who helmed Ipsos India for 11 years. On August 5, Ipsos announced Adarkar's departure and the appointment of Suresh Ramalingam as the new CEO for India. MR comprising insights, analytics and measurement will become more critical as companies seek real-time consumer intelligence and more predictive abilities. "Market research is readying for a reset in India owing to increased use of GenerativeAI (GenAI) as well as data integration which has been a big pain point so far," Adarkar says. Synthetic data in MR will be a game changer, he says. Synthetic data is artificial data designed to mimic real-world data generated through statistical methods or through GenAI. "For instance, if I speak to 50 consumers to understand their shopping, wardrobe, reading choices, their attitudes and motivations, I can generate an artificial or synthetic sample of 50 more people based on that. So, you can generate a sample of people using AI at scale but it is based on real people," Adarkar explains. This can help create live consumer segments and communities important for research. Synthetic data creation leverages LLM (large language models). "It's a field coming of age globally though India is a bit behind. It will make things fast and efficient," Adarkar says. India's problem is that the LLMs are trained on Western data and employ the English language which cannot be copy-pasted for the Indian market. "To make these models work, you need lots of data to train. The real benefit will accrue when we have India trained models which understand Indian languages and culture better. These models need training for small-town India and rural markets. When that cycle kicks in, the MR industry will transform," he says. In India, surveys have typically not been a good tool to understand behaviour because people tend to "overclaim" things. "At best, surveys reveal their intent but not what they actually do. What they do is revealed through passive data provided by various apps sitting in their phones which see what sites they visit, what they watch or browse. Social media is what consumers share with everyone else," Adarkar says. Combine all this information and you have a far richer, integrated data on consumer habits made possible by technology. "Imagine having this enhanced data, supplemented with synthetic data provided by AI - put it together and they offer a different gamut of opportunities," he says. Much like all other market research experts, Adarkar rues the delay of the government's population census which is a data goldmine. Companies too have their own data legs. With data privacy and protection rules expected to kick in, companies will increasingly rely on first-party data as cookies will disappear. "Companies will realise the value of consumer data," Adarkar says. Going forward, the bigger challenge for market research in India will be the lack of skilled manpower for the sector. "We are a labour-rich market. But what we are short on is trained people with the right skills needed in MR from a future perspective. We need people who can use tech, AI. We need coders, prompt engineers," he says. For the next few months, Adarkar says he will be busy writing his second book that will offer a fresh perspective on "leadership in today's technology-heavy, nonlinear and attention deficit world"....