One thing we can virtually count on when it comes to market research is significant line blurring over time.

Is it market research? Is it management consulting? Is it digital strategy? Is it strategic foresight?

The first, and probably greatest, area we can expect significant line blurring is between traditional market research and management consulting. Management consulting tends to gain its strength from industry experience, the gravitas of its strategic consultants, and the individual consultant’s ability to synthesize many data points into a compelling narrative (story telling). But, management consulting often lacks the kind of hard data that market research can provide. I expect management consultancies to purchase and or build internally the basic market research capacity that they need. I also expect market research to increasingly attempt to go “up market” into the consulting space.

The next likely scenario is a significant blurring between the digital strategy function and market research. This blurring will be driven by technology (online communities like MROCs, LinkedIn surveys, etc.) and social adoption of multiple digital tools and afinity communities. On one hand, this development may dramatically shorten the customer feedback loop. But, the danger is that the “research” conducted via these communities may not be terribly projectable.

Finally, strategic foresight (Futures Consulting) can be expected to leverage traditional opinion and market research in its analysis of trends and identification of possible futures, probable futures and preferred futures. In fact, market research should pay close attention to strategic foresight as this field focuses on an area in which market research is sometimes criticized – the difficulty of extrapolating “a snapshot in time” survey forward into the future.