How Displayr helped MAC Research cut analysis time by 2/3rds—and grow their business 5x

Challenge

Finding the right tool to complete their client offering

When Michael Alborough first set up MAC Research four years ago, he noticed that the industry was shifting: his clients’ expectations were increasing and their deadlines were shrinking. They wanted more insight for less money, in a shorter amount of time.

“These insights are crucial for their businesses,” Michael explains. “But most of these companies don't have the time to physically do the research they need.”

Most importantly, his clients wanted more control over their data: they wanted interactive visualizations that they could manipulate themselves, without having to ask their market research agency for help.

“I needed a way to offer these companies fast, high-quality research, with user-friendly interfaces that allowed them to dive in and explore their own insights—at an affordable price.”

But Michael had trouble finding the software that could help him deliver everything his clients needed.

“The survey tools we looked at were not up to doing the full analytics at the speed that we needed,” he says.

Michael needed a solution that would help him automate the tedious aspects of data analysis, speed up his reporting time, and make it easy for him to wow his clients with exciting, interactive dashboards and data stories. He just needed to find the perfect fit.

Solution

All-in-one analysis and reporting software designed by market researchers, for market researchers

When Michael first tried Displayr, he quickly realized that the software was designed for his needs and had all of the research capabilities he was looking for—and more.

“I could clearly see that Displayr was designed by researchers, for researchers,” he says. “It was not a catch-all dashboard package designed by a major software company to answer lots of different business needs. It was genuinely a research product.”

He loved the user interface, which was intuitive and designed for data stories to be published as dashboards or seamlessly connect and export to PowerPoint.

“Most researchers are drowning in PowerPoint,” he laughs. “If you can't export the presentation into PowerPoint, there’s no point.”

But even more importantly, Michael was impressed with Displayr’s analysis and dashboarding capabilities.

“It's got the whole suite of tools and research techniques that you could ever want to use,” he says. “It's a one-stop-shop for analysis, reporting, and output.”

Now, Michael can start building his dashboards as soon as his clients approve the questionnaire and before he even receives the data.

“You're not moving from one system to another,” he says.

In the old way of working, you had to wait for field work to be completed, and then you received the data, cleaned the data, and finally moved on to the charting phase. With Displayr, you don't have to wait.

Using Displayr has also cut out the tedious aspects of handling the data many times, which in turn cuts down on the opportunities for human error. It allows analysts to dive deeper into the data to find the story. And it even makes their job more enjoyable.

“As researchers, we like to find the story, we like to get to the results,” he says. “When I’m using Displayr, I'm interrogating the data. I'm producing beautiful visualizations. I'm generating the story as I’m going, and I’m going really quickly. There's nothing mundane about it, like the old way of copying and pasting from Excel into PowerPoint.”

Result

Faster reporting times and 5x company growth in just two years

Today, Displayr makes MAC Research faster and more efficient, and their clients love it. Using the tool has even helped the firm generate new business.

“Displayr has generated business for us because our end clients love it. They insist that we put our projects into Displayr,” Michael says. “They want to be able to interrogate the data and use Displayr’s functionality as well.”

Using Displayr allows MAC Research to do the same analysis in only ⅓ of the time it took them before.

“It improves our business by making us faster and more effective,” Michael adds. “Nowadays, I can do a big presentation in Displayr in three days that used to take me 10 days to do. It's a huge time-saving.”

Allowing his clients access to their data also means that MAC Research isn’t fielding as many queries from clients, saving them even more time.

“When we’re setting up the project with the client, they specify the filters and functionality they want on the dashboard,” Michael adds. “That’s even more time saved for us because they don’t contact us to ask to see the data differently. They can just do it themselves.”

In the two years since MAC Research started using Displayr, the company has grown fivefold.

“We’re seeing really positive year-on-year growth, and I know a large proportion of that is because we’re using Displayr.”

“We’ve grown about fivefold in the last two years,” Michael says.

He can’t imagine working without the software now.

“To me, Displayr is the biggest game-changer we’ve seen in the research industry for decades,” Michael says. “Just because of the amount of time it saves versus charting in PowerPoint and Excel.”