Target set himself the objective of making a monthly publication in 2017. The goal: to explore the opinions, trends and expectations of a given population to help decision-makers both private and state-controlled to better focus their actions and communications towards their targets. In addition to the descriptive and statistical analyzes of field data, the firm intends to include in its publications documentary analyzes. Hortense Mbumba, Project Manager at Target talks about it in this interview.

Since its creation in 2011, Target regularly publishes studies. What is the average of the studies you produce per year?

The average number of published studies varies by year. For example, in 2016 we had a total of 8 publications while in 2015 there were 5 publications. The number of publications is often dictated by the growing needs of companies in terms of information.

Are there any topics most common in Target's studies?

There are a few studies that come up annually because they are highly sought after by clients but also because they allow us to present the significant developments in a rapidly expanding market. It is like the statistics on the media in Kinshasa, the favorite personalities of the Kinshasa, the key figures of mobile telephony and the perception of banks in the DRC.

Based on what criteria do you choose the topics of your studies?

As a market research agency, our role is to explore the opinions, trends and expectations of a given population to help both private and state-controlled decision-makers better focus their actions and communications towards their targets. Several criteria can be used to choose a topic. The subjects are sometimes inspired by the world days. With the women's day, we thought we would produce a publication on the specific behavior of women. The topic should also attract interest from our partners and prospects help them understand the real functioning of a market, and so on. All this is done after observing a sector in progression or regression. This is the case of the digital communication of companies. Our inspiration can also be derived from a comparative analysis of any market to know its evolution after a certain period.

What are your goals with these publications?

Our main objective is to inform companies, investors, researchers, etc. on current market trends to help them make sound decisions. At present, our publications are positioned as alarm signals to draw the attention of decision-makers to the SWOT analysis of their structure (strengths to be capitalized, weaknesses to be reinforced, opportunities to be seized and threats to be circumvented).

Did you get positive results from your clients after conducting a study and publishing the results?

Indeed, we receive many positive spin-offs from those who purchase our publications. These serve as a mirror that presents the market and many of our clients use it as a guideline for making important decisions about their structures. Some companies / organizations are able to order other specific studies based on the data from our publications for a much more in-depth analysis of their products, services or company. We also receive favorable results from researchers (master, doctorate, etc.) who use our data to better understand the market they are studying but also to make their theses more credible.

What do you plan to do in the 2017 publications?

For 2017 we will not limit ourselves solely to making descriptive and statistical analyzes of the data collected on the field, but we will associate with our publications documentary analyzes in order to better explore the marketing problem that is necessary and to make our studies more informative. The combination of these two types of analysis will make it possible to present a global and more detailed situation of the market studied. Unlike last year, we advocate at least one publication per month in various fields.

Forecast of publications in 2017.