In simple terms, market research is used to figure out what people want, and user research is used to figure out why they want what they want.  For user research, it is specific. It helps to find out how and why people use certain products so that you can focus on ones that more people will enjoy.  

However, with market research, you get information about a market and in turn figure out what people want and how to give it to them.  

The Big Question – User research or Market research ?  

The most important difference between market research and user research has to do with the results. If you only focus on what people want and need, you might miss important information that could have helped you meet a need that wasn’t being met and grow your business. In the same way, if you only watch how people interact with and use your products, you won’t be able to predict market demand or figure out how your competitors measure up.  

Based on this information, we can see that market research and user research will happen at different points in the development of a product or service.   

Market researchers are involved in the early stages of a product’s development. They look for ways to make money and give businesses information about the market’s needs, size, competition, and pricing. They use methods that focus on numbers. They look at large groups of samples to find out the average age of potential users, how much money they make, and other general facts.  

Also Read : Five Ways Market Research Can Improve Your Business

User researchers, on the other hand, work with the product teams to make features for a specific person. Often, qualitative research on users is done. They focus on a small group of people to find out more about them and what they want. With this information, the product team can fashion products and services that are just right for their users. They find out what each person thinks about a product that already exists and how it could be made better.  

When done right, market research and user research are used to reduce business risks and give stakeholders a clear plan for making successful products and services.  

Not to be a party pooper, but if you were looking forward to seeing a winner, there is none. Both types of research should be conducted by all businesses, even B2B businesses. This doesn’t mean you should start engaging in all kinds of research.   

Your goals will help you decide between market research and user research. But if you want to create a new product/service or make an existing one work better, you need to figure out what the market wants and make sure the right product is made for the right people in the right way. So, it’s likely that if you do both types of research, your results will be better. At Prunedge, our research teams have a lot of experience figuring out what questions to ask to get the information that your business needs.    

Read Here : Prunedge wins BIG at the BoICT 2022 Awards Night

Our strategy and research experts at Prunedge will help you use insights from market and user research in the various stages of product development and marketing. We study your customer’s behavior and identify their needs, from figuring out what your target audience needs and why they need them, to developing the product, to pre-sale, point-of-sale, and after-sale. Utilising that data to advise what features to create for your product to solve your customer’s pain points. 

Click on the “get in touch” button for a free 30-minute consultation to find out how we can help provide your business with a comprehensive study that guarantees you the best results. 

What is an E-Procurement system?

The electronic procurement system is a technology that helps improve the purchasing and supply process. It also improves the transparency and efficiency of transactions between agencies and their vendors. It allows people who want to help with public procurement processes to do so through a single online portal. This leads to more transparency, healthy competition, time and cost-saving benefits. In other terms, an eProcurement system is a cloud-based software that makes it easy to find, buy, and manage goods and services online. It has digital and automated tools that businesses can use to support them, set vendor policies, and be more transparent about how the system works. 

The best eProcurement systems can seamlessly combine the tactical and transactional parts of an organization’s procurement process, for the best results. This type of procurement work refers to tasks that are done often and help keep things running smoothly, like writing purchase orders and updating product catalogs.  

Benefits of an E- procurement system include;

1. Streamlined workflow resulting in increased productivity: Businesses save time and money by using a single, automated platform for the main steps of procurement. This means they don’t have to do a lot of administrative and manual work, like filling out paperwork. When teams work together, they save time and can work on more complicated or high-value tasks. In the long run, e-procurement will free up time for the team to work on more important tasks and functions. There are many ways to speed things up, such as by using automated invoice matching. The goods can be ordered and processed in just a few minutes.

2. Cost Effective:  People who use e-procurement save a lot of time and money, because they can choose a lot more suppliers, build trading communities, and more. This makes e-procurement a lot more cost-effective than traditional procurement. Transactions save money because there are fewer people working and all processes are fully automated. This means that they cost less money. Over time, small savings per transaction add up to big money for a business.

3. E-marketing of Products: This is a great marketing tool for both sellers and buyers because there is price transparency (you can easily see how much things cost) and buyers can compare offers from different e-catalog vendors. When it comes to electronic catalogs, some suppliers are trying to make their services more standardized so that buyers can easily compare the offers of different catalogs.

IProkure, our e-procurement system, can cut down on the work your purchasing team has to do while increasing productivity and efficiency.  Furthermore, we do so at a price that you can afford because we are always looking for new ways to solve everyday human problems with technology that is both affordable and easy to use. Picking out the best e- procurement system might seem tedious. However, you have to look out for features that would be advantageous to your organization.

Some of the features that constitute a good procurement system include; 

• Vendor portal: This ensures that the registration process for prospective vendors is simple and easy. Through a systematic and rule-based registration process, they upload essential documents. The vendor dashboard also gives vendors a real-time account of the e-tendering process.  

• E-Catalog: Catalogues are digitized by storing details of all assets disposed of and all procurements made on the cloud. These details are organized and classified in to different categories and are made available for users to access rapidly and effectively.  

• Electronic Document Management and Versioning: Administrative users can approve, reject, and comment on electronic documents submitted on the platform. The vendors can also submit new versions of documents if required.  

• Approval Workflow: There is the creation of custom workflows in line with existing policies for each requisition. Vendors are notified about every approval step helping to save time, money as well as resources during the process.  

• E-Payment Module: Easy acceptance of electronic payment for online transactions. Payments of bidding/tendering fees by vendors and also ensure remuneration of contract cost electronically. Tracking of all procurement transactions is made easy because for every payment made there is a unique transaction ID auto-generated by the system.  

• Contract Performance and Evaluation: People who use the platform can be sure that the contracts they win will be properly evaluated and monitored. There is a way to keep track of the process milestones and delivery time. An alert is sent to the solution administrator on the expected delivery date for goods, projects, and services.

If your company is still doing a lot of its procurement tasks by hand or with old databases and complicated spreadsheets, you should think about getting an e-procurement system.  Spread your wings and see how Iprokure can help.