There are 1001 platforms for market research and survey analysis. Since 2020, we have made it easy for platforms to embed our MRDCL product as a white-label product, giving more or less unlimited capabilities in building variables and generating the most complex crosstabs.
With over a hundred crosstab software packages, including QPSMR, available to the insights and market research business, choosing if and when to upgrade to a powerful tab software product like MRDCL is a tough decision.
I recently met someone who had collected a lot of marketing and market research data. I was asked whether it was better to prepare one or more PowerPoint presentations or to put the data into an online dashboard. As with most questions like this, the answer was “it depends”.
If you are looking for a replacement or alternative to Quantum, you will find that there are very few options. Quantum was for many years the number one software package for market research batch tabulations using a scripting language, but it has effectively been retired as it does not run under modern versions of Windows and is no longer advertised on the owner’s website.
Qualtrics is undoubtedly a market-leading online software platform for the market research and insights industry. However, although it has a big user base, it doesn’t mean it is the right tool or, indeed, offers the best value. Qualtrics was acquired by the monolithic SAP in 2019, leading to increased pricing and, as far as one can tell, a drift away from medium-sized businesses providing market research services. So, how does Snap compare with Qualtrics?
Upgrading from QPSMR to MRDCL to produce crosstabulations and survey analysis/reporting is not a decision you should make lightly. There is a considerable gulf between a program with a graphical user interface (GUI) and any programming or scripting language. This is true about all software, not just QPSMR and MRDCL.
Experienced users of QPSMR often wonder whether they should upgrade to MRDCL. Many of our customers have taken this route, but it needs careful consideration to understand the pros and cons of making such a decision. Indeed, you could argue that taking on MRDCL is not so much an upgrade as having better tools at your disposal to handle complex or time-consuming tasks.
There are only a handful of software programs that serve the market research and insights business so that users can produce cross-tabulations (or crosstabs as they are often called) using a powerful scripting language – Quantum, MRDCL, and Merlin are three of a small bunch, although MRDCL is the only one actively and continuously developed in recent years.
If you are handling a market research project that is being conducted in more than one country, you are not only likely to encounter language issues and dealing with many stakeholders, but the issue of managing data is probably an important consideration.
There are two types of hierarchical data encountered in market research. These are respondent-based hierarchies and data-based hierarchies. In practice, they are analysed similarly, but, more importantly, they need software capable of analysing hierarchically structured data.
ABOUT US
MRDC Software has been supplying software for market research since 1992. It is known around the world for its leading tabulation software, MRDCL, but has expanded its portfolio of products to have productivity-focused software for data collection, data analysis, reporting and dashboards.
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E: nikki.sunga@mrdcsoftware.com