SurveyMonkey announces local expansion, signals challenge to market research firms
Lurie: “We have definitely cannibalised some of the high-end research”
The world’s largest survey platform SurveyMonkey is ramping up its local operations in Australia and the APAC region in attempt to grab market share from existing research firms.
Speaking with Mumbrella, ahead of the formal opening of the new APAC office in Sydney, global CEO of SurveyMonkey, Zander Lurie, conceded they were “cannibalising” many of the local research firms marketers have traditionally relied on, but argued his firm was competing with local research companies who increasingly needed fast turn around market research.
“Marketers’ guts aren’t that good to make every decision,” said Lurie. “We have definitely cannibalised some of the high-end research where marketers were paying very expensive prices for things they can get by utilising SurveyMonkey.”
There is a saying in research that it is like a three-legged stool comprising accuracy, speed and cost.
Just about every client wants it fast, cheap and accurate – but can only have two of the three.
So I guess saying that “our advantage is speed and cost” speaks volumes.
It constantly amazes me that SurveyMonkey is so popular when there are far better and easier solutions available, like SurveyGizmo. Granted I haven’t used SurveyMonkey for a year, but prior to that whenever I’ve tried it I came away very underwhelmed.
Best of luck to them though, any global tech companies setting up in Aus are welcome as far as I’m concerned.
Pay peanuts get monkeys
There is no chance of them taking share from the high end. The platform itself is extremely unsophisticated from a survey design perspective.
However, they’ll easily pick up the lower end of the market where research buyers are focussed on time and cost and don’t understand the resulting impact on quality and data validity.
A real banana skin for amateurs.