The holiday spirit is in the air at the MKOR team. It is the time when we celebrate the successes of 2019 and evaluate every project we have carried out. We are extracting the most important lessons and putting together the plan for 2020.
It is very important for us to share our evolution with you, our readers. So, here are the most important achievements of 2019 for us at MKOR:
Conținut
We take pride in our achievements and believe we have managed to do more and do better than last year. We strongly believe in evolution, in challenges, and in outdoing ourselves.
But let’s talk in detail about our achievements throughout the year.
1. We strengthened relationships with existing clients
Our clients from sectors such as financial services, Automotive, and IT returned with new projects, some already renewed annually, which bring them closer to their strategic goals.
These projects represent a special source of satisfaction for us because—beyond letters of recommendation—the recurrence of projects from existing clients is the way our work is validated by them.
But we didn’t stop there.
2. We welcomed new clients and projects into our portfolio
Our area of expertise has grown, taking various forms, so new fields such as retail, real estate, consulting, agribusiness, fintech, entertainment, and logistics have joined our current portfolio.
We are proud to add names such as the following to the MKOR portfolio:
- Boston Consulting Group;
- Cushman & Wakefield Echinox;
- eAgronom;
- FlixBus;
- FM Logistic;
- Iulius Group;
- TransferGo;
- VouchForMe.
Variety helps us enjoy our work and the continuously developing skills of the team.
Thus, we also added a special project to our project portfolio—a future investment in the entertainment sector, which we enjoyed due to the complex methodology we used to deliver a strategic planning tool for our client.
We went further, beyond borders, and…
3. We contributed to the launch of the first international services on the Romanian market
TransferGo
One of the international clients we collaborated with this year at MKOR was TransferGo. For them, we conducted a study to explore the fintech market in Romania, using the MKOR Panel.
In November 2019, TransferGo launched its local financial transfer service in Romania, facilitating instant money transfers between all cards issued in the country.
VouchForMe
The VouchForMe project was another challenge that helped us evolve. We conducted a study for them with a mixed methodology, consisting of a qualitative research phase (online community) and a quantitative research part (online opinion poll). Thus, we illustrated current market trends in a comprehensive way, which helped launch the concept on the local market.
In July 2019, VouchForMe launched the new type of insurance in Romania, which offers you the possibility to pay up to 50% less if family or friends guarantee for you and your driving style.
eAgronom
Another international client who used our services wanted to find out the needs and desires of Romanian farmers regarding farm management and specific activities. In our qualitative study, we conducted 30 in-depth interviews to achieve the initial objectives formulated by our client.
Following the study we conducted, eAgronom launched its services in Romania in the summer of 2019.
We welcomed another kind of challenge with open arms!
Boston Consulting Group
BCG is one of the three largest consulting companies in the world (alongside McKinsey & Company and Bain & Company), their area of expertise including corporate development, innovation, and business expansion. For them, we conducted a data collection project, through which the end client managed to get closer to its objectives.
And because we like to be alongside those who share the same values as us, we were present as speakers at the only congress of market research agencies in Romania!
4. We were speakers at Best of ESOMAR 2019
We took the stage alongside the most powerful agencies that set the tone in research and presented our market study about Innovation and Digitalization in Fashion at Best of ESOMAR 2019, the only congress focusing on news in market research.
The Innovation and Digitalization in Fashion study was conducted by the MKOR and NISSA teams with the aim of improving the customer experience concept among the brand’s customers.
We carefully analyzed how we could develop further, and…
5. We initiated the development of internal strategic projects
The proprietary MKOR panel includes people who chose to participate in our studies, expressed their explicit consent, subsequently becoming respondents of the MKOR panel. We keep in touch with our respondents permanently, whether we invite them to participate in our studies or communicate the team’s appreciation regarding their activity.
Did you know that 84% of respondents access our studies from mobile?
The panel helps us conduct a very wide variety of studies, through which we can access any respondent profile (and when we say any profile, we really mean it!). Currently, the MKOR panel includes over 40,000 active members.
In addition, our processes are optimized so that we ensure we have the highest conversion rate in the industry!
The new infrastructure will allow us to have even better control over data quality and a closer relationship with our panel respondents. Other specifications will help us welcome respondents, as well as clients, with cool and helpful news, but we want to announce these projects at the right time 🙂
Another internal project we are proud of is MKOR Business Intelligence: a dashboard that offers our clients the opportunity to access data collection in real-time, regardless of the project type (quantitative or mystery shopping).
In other words, MKOR Business Intelligence is a visualization tool with real-time statistics for data collection projects
And we thought about doing something else for ourselves: bringing in fresh talent to be able to develop even more cool projects!
6. The MKOR team has grown with new colleagues
Because projects are becoming larger and more complex, but also because some of our colleagues decided to continue their professional path in other organizations (Ștefania is now at Ateliere Fără Frontiere, and Bianca launched MakerKid, a different educational concept, in Cluj), we expanded the team.
We didn’t rush and carefully chose the sharpest minds.
The MKOR family was joined, one by one, by: Carmen, our communication and marketing specialist, Cristina is (for now) a Junior Data Analyst who makes art out of numbers, and Ana is the Data Analyst who goes deep to find out what the data has to say.
But we couldn’t overlook such an important event for us.
7. MKOR turned 7 years old
All these changes that came with the year 2019 were a good omen. Thus, we celebrated 7 years of MKOR by embracing novelty, the challenges posed by new projects, alongside a new team, in a brighter, larger, and more welcoming place: just like we are 🙂
For our team, the 7th anniversary of MKOR meant a brief recap of the efforts made over the years.
We realized that we are better, that we have changed and built ourselves with a lot of ambition, and our efforts as a team, as well as each of ours, have led us to the success we have today.
Wait a minute… did you think we were done? Not at all!
2019 marked us both professionally and emotionally. This year we also carried out two humanitarian activities. At the beginning of autumn, we filled backpacks with school supplies for ten children from disadvantaged families, preparatory class students, from Argeș county.
And on the eve of the holidays, we transformed into “Santa’s Elves”! We got moving and identified children from disadvantaged families in Bușteni.
We consulted and carefully chose the necessary items for children aged between 4 and 10. We didn’t forget sweets, clothes, and toys, nor their thirst for knowledge, so we chose educational materials for them, according to each one’s age.
We gave them the gifts personally and filled ourselves with enough emotion for the coming year.
Here we are at the end of the year, filled with beauty and joy because we can’t wait for 2020! 🙂
Thoughts at the end of 2019
We want to be better, more numerous, with a quiver even fuller of challenges. This is our letter to Santa Claus. We will fold it carefully, leave Santa milk and homemade cookies, and return in January with fresh strength.
The sweet bread is steaming on the table, carols are heard in the distance, and the tree is already decorated with our achievements. Thank you for being with us in 2019 and we look forward to seeing you in 2020.
We wish “May it be the best year yet“, which is what we wish for you too!
We know that the best ideas appear when you least expect them, especially on holiday, so if you have a collaboration idea, send it to us here. We will slow-cook it and serve it together after the holidays 🙂
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