When we think about 2021, it is hard to characterize it, as it wasn’t a simple year. If we were to summarize it in just two words, however, we would choose “effervescence” and “premieres”.
A continuation of the challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, 2021 made us even more professionally creative. And for us at MKOR, this meant being at the forefront of digitalization efforts in Romania.
We invite you to join us on our wonderful journey through the year we are preparing to conclude.
We launched the first live market study in Romania: Consumer Trends.Live
The headliner in terms of premieres is certainly the launch of Consumer Trends.Live – a 100% digital market research project by MKOR.
We set out to change the perspective on research and how its results can influence the decision-making process in real time. So, since the beginning of 2021, we have been monitoring 7 different industries .Live (and this is just the beginning):
- Fashion
- Beauty & Care (coming soon)
- Jewelry & Watches (coming soon)
- IT&C (coming soon)
- Electronics & Appliances (coming soon)
- Furniture & Decorations (coming soon)
- DIY (coming soon)
The Consumer Trends.Live platform is a complete market intelligence tool, through which companies can remain relevant to their target audience, but also one step ahead of the competition.
How? Through instant access to the most recent and relevant data from the market of interest, directly from the consumer. Everything is just a click away, in an interactive dashboard full of market insights, as they evolve month by month.
This year we launched the first real-time study in Romania. And in the world. Consumer Trends.Live is my passion project because it embodies everything I believe is the future of research, with us spearheading it.
In an ever-changing world, classic research is like a steam engine, which runs well, but is cumbersome. While it is very useful and, of course, the majority of our activity is in custom studies, I feel the winds of change.
In a few years, I want us to be the benchmark when it comes to real-time, accessible, and interactive market data. The client of our products will have something that clients of other research and consulting companies do not have: insights about their business and the market they operate in, even as they happen.
What a wonderful competitive advantage, to be able to react to market changes even as they occur! All this, with programmatic and automated tools, which bring not only intelligence but also conversions into leads and sales. – Corina Cimpoca, MKOR founder
We used the .Live data to offer valuable insights to the organizational environment in the country
Consumer Trends.Live is the tool that offered us valuable insights into consumer behavior in 2021, which we presented at benchmark events for the Romanian business environment, as well as abroad.
Thus, during the international event ESOMAR – Young Students short journey through ESOMAR and MR Industry, we discussed this innovative approach to market research.
Also, as research partners at retailArena 2021 – A Game of The Future, we explored the main retail trends of 2021 based on premiere data, extracted from Consumer Trends.Live.
We also found out what Romanians’ expectations are from the Store of the Future, and on December 1st we presented the top of the most appreciated Romanian retailers, from the consumers’ perspective. All this, with the help of data regarding the evolution of consumption in Q2 and Q3 2021 in the Fashion, Beauty & Care, Watches & Jewelry, IT&C, Electronics & Home Appliances, Home & Deco markets, extracted from the same Consumer Trends.Live.
We take pride in our new partners and cherish the old ones
In a year full of challenges (especially the good kind), we developed alongside our partners and identified new opportunities to grow together
In research projects, we consolidated our expertise in fields such as fintech, financial services, automotive, FMCG, construction and explored new fields such as access management or e-learning.
This year we started combining the know-how from Growth, our programmatic marketing division, with Research, which we have already been doing for 9 years, increasingly better (so I say, but also our clients, who are larger and have more frequent projects with us).
It is a paradigm shift that we are leading with great enthusiasm, not only because we are doing things that no one else is doing, but also because we generate more value. – Corina Cimpoca, MKOR founder
We are proud of premieres here as well, as we contributed to the realization of the first real-time public opinion consultation study, Un Iași Pentru Viitor.
A project I am very proud of is Un Iași pentru Viitor, initiated by IULIUS. It is the first time that the results of a public consultation are visible directly online, in a live dashboard.
More than in the case of other projects, for this one I greatly appreciated not only the openness to share, but also the final goal of the initiative: understanding the public’s perception for the strategic development of their city.
I feel proud to be part of this project, especially since we were able to contribute to such a cool and important part of it! – Corina Cimpoca, MKOR founder
We combined marketing expertise with research expertise for an insight-based programmatic marketing project (email funnels, based on evergreen studies).
A project from this year that I am very proud of is the one for a course and learning platform. They came to us for a satisfaction survey to help them better understand their customers. We proposed integrating the study (which we made evergreen) with an automated review funnel, which has already brought them over 80 reviews on Google (mostly 5 stars).
Also with them, we developed an exit survey, also evergreen, followed by an automated reactivation funnel. In the 5 months since launch, this funnel has brought them back 30% of the project investment.
In other words, we not only offer real-time data, displayed in interactive online dashboards, but also programmatic marketing that brings concrete results. – Corina Cimpoca, MKOR founder
We also launched one of the few studies on digitalization in Romania and many others. We published some of them in the Portfolio section.
We have adopted digital solutions in custom studies as well, an example being the organization of a remote tasting session for a premium FMCG product, to be launched on the Romanian market at the beginning of 2022, or a custom B2B satisfaction study, which will have the report in an interactive dashboard, showing the evolution of key performance indicators, from year to year.
Starting from the foundations developed this year, next year we will develop the first research report for a client in the form of an interactive dashboard, which we will update annually with data collected from the field. Thus, the management team will have the opportunity to explore the evolution of the performance indicators we track in the study, from year to year.
In 2021, we are happy to have among our clients and partners:
- Add Wrap
- Amazon Romania
- Beck et al.
- BSG Amanet & Exchange
- Bunzl Romania
- EBIG
- Fitbit
- Glovo App
- IULIUS
- Kadra. Access Engineering
- Ottoman Darvari
- OTP Leasing
- Paysilvania
- Peditel
- Piera
- Registrul Constructorilor
- TBI Bank
- Usethics
We developed unique digital solutions for our partners
This year we continued to develop the MKOR Growth division as well, through which we support our partners with unique digital solutions, such as Microsurveys – the tool for real-time optimization of business strategy for ecommerce.
But also with personalized and targeted marketing solutions to accelerate their business growth. We are happy to have our partners by our side:
We put digitalization first
The pandemic context made us experience the power of digital in our own activity. But we didn’t stop there.
We wanted to be among the first to support local organizations when it comes to digitalization. So we explored the current stage of implementation of digitalization solutions in companies in Romania, within a study conducted together with our partners from Beck et al.
Our own experience, but also the research results, made us view digitalization as a given.
So we happily accepted the invitation to present the results obtained at the launch of IQ Digital, the initiative that aims to support the organizational environment in Romania by bringing together the know-how of digitalization specialists.
The discussion continued within the UPGRADE 100 podcast, alongside Dragoș Stanca and Marian Hurducaș.
Digitalization in Companies in Romania, conducted together with Beck et al., represented a project that I hope will be the beginning of a series of projects about digitalization in the business environment and in institutions, which will offer a barometer of our business modernization and maturation in the 21st century.
This study holds a special place for me because I care about the people at Beck et al., but also because it gave me the chance to meet the cool people from Upgrade 100, during the interventions at IQ Digital. On this occasion, I was glad to see Marian Hurducaș again, a cool guy from Cluj, whom I hadn’t seen for 13 years. – Corina Cimpoca, MKOR founder
We addressed topics of interest and provided answers to the questions of the moment
We celebrated European Diversity Month with the first study on Diversity and Inclusion in Organizations in Romania, from the employees’ perspective.
As signatories and research partners of the Romanian Diversity Charter, we have conducted the first study on D&I Management in Organizations in Romania since 2019. In 2021, we approached this subject from a new perspective: that of the employees.
However, since the challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic were also a topic of interest in 2021, we documented ourselves and came to the aid of the community with relevant information about:
- what back to school looks like in the context of the Delta variant
- the fake news phenomenon in the context of COVID-19
- the purchasing medium preferred by Fashion consumers in the month of returning to physical school
Our team has grown more than ever
We continued to learn in the year we are about to end, and we are very happy about it. But we wouldn’t have succeeded in responding to the needs of our partners and the market, and in growing, without being a united team.
Yes, we believe that “together” and “team” can be two other words to describe 2021 for us. We are a handful of people, professionals in their fields, but who together are better professionally (and personally).
We could have done anything else successfully, but we chose to grow (in) MKOR. Here is what 2021 meant for each colleague.
For me, 2021 came with a new wave of hope. After getting through the first year of the pandemic well, I knew we would gain new momentum. This is because we started the year with a new, clearer vision of our mission at MKOR: we will offer real-time insights. We are doing something no one else is doing, namely a reinterpretation of research, a new way of seeing the market, even as it evolves.
Everything you read about above would not be possible without my wonderful team. I feel like I am living my dream: I am surrounded by intelligent and capable, motivated and proactive people, from whom I have an enormous amount to learn every day.
I am honored that they chose to dedicate their energy to realizing this dream that is growing and developing, as we make it a reality, together. I am proud that I managed to create a context in which so many special people feel they belong, every day.
Last but not least, this year I evolved a lot. I learned more than ever the power of the team and the importance of having a business strategy to support the vision. I learned the hard lesson offered by the absence of some important colleagues and I realized that, while I stand by them on a human level, from a business point of view it is good to have a back-up plan (that contingency plan we read about in business manuals).
Dear colleagues, I thank you and I bow to you! Let’s make 2022 MKOR’s 10/10 year!
This year, more than ever, I felt it was about PEOPLE. It was about the cool people I discovered among our clients, the kind with whom you can always go out for coffee to talk about books, kids, travel, or business challenges alike.
But first and foremost, it was about my colleagues, who knew how to complement each other, to bring out their best, and especially to support one another in difficult moments. I feel that together we can reach Mars before Elon Musk if we want to 🙂
I thank them for giving me the opportunity to learn from them, to become a better person myself, not just professionally, but personally as well.
2021 was a fiery year. We started this year with big plans, very big I could say. And with contagious energy, we got to work, eager to launch not one, but two revolutionary products!
Growth marketing, a product we invented last year right at the beginning of the pandemic, and Consumer Trends.Live, the world’s first live market study with interactive dashboards.
Some might say we are crazy, we dove in headfirst, but we work with grit and a smile on our faces. It was a year in which we grew the team, modernized and automated processes, a year of hustle, and I feel we are just getting started.
I aim for next year to build funnels where we can show everyone the wonderful things we do that bring real value to businesses in all niches.
For Growth, I aim to come up with a site, perhaps, where we show numbers, show that automated marketing can be done, with the right team behind it (thank you Radu, Alexa, Vlad, Mădă, Tibi, and Madi).
We will have a Landing Page for each type of funnel we implement, where we will truly show behind-the-scenes figures, and the conversion rates we achieve.
And for Consumer Trends.Live, we will launch new markets of interest, start receiving feedback from clients, and shape the product even better. And we will present all this to you in a very cool way through one or more webinars, which we will link in a very cool marketing way, just as we do for Growth clients 🙂
2021 was a year I lived almost breathlessly, with many challenges, but also matching achievements. Every internal or client project mobilized and trained me differently. So, if I were to take something with me from everything that was 2021, I would take precisely this continuous self-discovery. I learn and grow by seeing and doing, and this fulfills me as a professional and as a person. And I would take one more thing: the power of the team.
In 2021, MKOR was like an anchor for me, that constant in my professional life. The projects I was involved in took me out of my comfort zone and propelled me into a cool team 🙂 where I received all the help I needed. And now, as we all draw the line under 2021 and reflect on how it went, being part of the MKOR team is on the good side of the line!
For me, the year 2021 was about changes and evolution on all levels.
MKOR contributed significantly to my development, creating the right context and offering me the necessary tools to advance along my long professional path. It gave me the impetus I needed to broaden my horizons and discover new things and people. It offered me countless moments of satisfaction and pride in my own work, but also opportunities to share my experience with other dear people. This journey, as beautiful as it was overwhelming in places, shaped me into the person I am today.
For more than 2 years I have been taking part in this adventure and I can only be happy to call the MKOR team my family from Cotroceni.
It was a beautiful year, with numerous development opportunities, alongside wonderful colleagues who make work seem easier.
The year 2021 at MKOR was like a course, full of lessons I had to learn. Both professionally and personally. I learned a lot, I matured more than I would have thought. At the same time, it was an intense journey, with numerous impulses. And I am very grateful to my colleagues, because they were with me on the road.
The year 2021 in the MKOR team was for me a year full of new and interesting challenges. I am proud of the fact that I manage to learn new things every day from my colleagues and thanks to them I manage to communicate better within the team, but also outside of it.
I learned within the team to be more at ease and to share my opinions. Throughout my time at MKOR I have managed and constantly manage to deepen my knowledge related to market analysis and research, thanks to the diversified projects.
My journey with MKOR, although still at the beginning, has exceeded my expectations. I learned, I discovered, I developed professionally and personally, I worked alongside wonderful people, and this is just the beginning. I am excited for what is to come and happy to be part of an avant-garde team and organization.
2021 at MKOR was full of challenges, I learned a lot, I met beautiful, independent, creative, and professional people. I am glad to be part of this strong “molecular structure,” which continuously readjusts, naturally, towards increasingly harmonious and resilient forms.
In 2021, MKOR represented a new beginning for me, refreshing and full of opportunities. In the few months that I took part in MKOR projects, I had the opportunity to work with such a well-prepared and at the same time sociable and empathetic team. I am still at the beginning of the road, in a process of learning and knowing, but at the end of this year I can say that I am grateful for the people I found in this cool team.
2021 was a year in which I met many super-smart, hard working people from whom I learned a lot, and I still have a lot to learn. MKOR offered me an environment to develop in the desired direction, an environment where I felt at home, had a lot of fun, but also worked hard!
What's next in 2022?
In 2022, we promise to remain at the forefront of digitalization efforts in Romania, and beyond.
We continue to develop the country’s first real-time market study, Consumer Trends.Live, bringing real-time data from new markets of interest.
Therefore, at the beginning of next year, we will come to the players in the Beauty & Care and IT&C industries with dashboards to help them develop their business strategies through data directly from consumers. Then, the others will follow, one by one. At the beginning of the year, we intend to launch two new industries to monitor .Live: financial services and medical services.
We also continue to stand by our partners with solutions that allow us to grow together and develop both individually and as teams.
Finally, all that remains is to wish you a better new year, full of achievements. We hope to meet again more productive and closer to our respective professional and personal goals.
Until then, if you have a strategic challenge you want us to tackle together in 2022, write to us, you will be greeted with smiles, dedication, and professionalism.
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