IMRS Advisory, BMI Research jointly launch new entity- AZ Research Partners

Marketing research company IMRS Advisory Pvt Ltd has tied up with BMI Research of South East Asia, one of the leading market research and consultancy companies, to simultaneously launch services across countries like India, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Singapore and Hong Kong.

The new entity, christened AZ Research, has been founded with a mission to go beyond traditional research and provide complete solution to marketing information needs of companies. For this, apart from market research, AZ Research offers a wider range of services like marketing consultancy, business category analysis with benchmarking of best practices, workshops on new research techniques and their applications for brand managers and other company executives.

Additionally, AZ Research also organises brand workshops with all stakeholders to analyse the current brand identity and strategise to create the desired identity which stretch limits for brands. As a completely new activity, AZ Research will now also provide to their clients a unique service of conceptualising and designing of brand identity elements.

Sujay Misra, MD, AZ Research Partners Pvt Ltd, explained, “With Indian companies growing beyond the Indian border, there is a need for Indian agencies providing market research consultancy across markets. BMI has traditionally had a strong presence across SE Asia, while IMRS has been the fastest growing market research agency in India over the last 10 years. With the launch of AZ Research, we strengthen our commitment towards the South East Asian market by offering a wider range of services.”

He further said, “AZ Research had developed many innovative tools, which are designed for the non-routine requirements like Kids Kanvas, which helps in identifying emergent themes with kids; Shelf Monitor to track shelf space share of FMCG brands and aging of stocks; Brand LEQ to assess the loyalty and emotional quotient of brand; Crictrac – to track audience reaction and feedback to sponsors during cricket series like IPL, ICC World Cup Twenty 20, etc.”

AZ Research is also developing research tools for the new virtual community that is more on net and mobile than in the mall nearby. As part of this exercise, AZ Research Partners is launching the largest online panel in India, starting with a size of 10,000 respondents India. In affiliation with BMI, there would be a panel size of 100,000 across South East Asia. This online panel will be accessible to brands that want to conduct surveys with bonafide consumers. AZ Research is also launching research using social networking in a formal manner for the first time in India.

AZ Research Partners will now have one of the largest networks in the industry with 35 offices in the region. This places them uniquely to service both single country and regional clients. Apart from catering to all forms of qualitative and quantitative research the team at AZ Research Partners, particularly specialises in social/ psychological and communication research.

Abhijit Mazumdar, Member of the Board, AZ Research Partners, said, “AZ Research has been launched with a global vision. While we are offering our services only across South East Asia in the launch phase, the vision is to convert the company into a global brand with operations across the world. More importantly, the company will now be able to offer marketing consultancy with a focus on developing entry strategies in emerging markets, new product development, corporate strategy, designing of brand logos and corporate manuals, development of packaging designs, etc. Going forward, AZ Research hopes to play a vital role in assisting clients in finding solutions to problems facing their brands.”