Hipólito “Polo” Murillo is the CEO and founding father of Axios Intelligence, a market analysis company primarily based in El Salvador. Polo has been efficiently operating Axios for the previous 20 years, main the corporate in pioneering CATI methodology in El Salvador. Dave Lovo of Echo Market Analysis sat down with Polo to speak about Axios and market analysis in El Salvador broadly.
Inform us about Axios Intelligence. What does Axios do finest?
Polo: “Our firm has all types of purchasers, it has business and industrial purchasers, we work lots with actual property growth, and we work lots with corporations and worldwide establishments, such because the American Embassy, the State Division, the World Financial institution, and so forth… I might say that presumably, though we do business research, marketing campaign analysis, and shopper product research, maybe the 2 areas the place we’re strongest are actual property growth and public opinion research.”
The place does Axios match into the bigger market analysis economic system in El Salvador?
Polo: “In El Salvador, the analysis enterprise is split into totally different tiers. And you’ve got the highest tier of corporations, those that make investments essentially the most in analysis, business corporations or multinational corporations. For instance, phone corporations, shopper corporations, shopper merchandise, and comparable corporations.
Most of those corporations rent native workplaces which are half of a bigger community. So, these are usually corporations which are primarily based within the area, however they belong to worldwide networks, or they’ve their very own community that covers all of Central America and in some circumstances just a little little bit of the Caribbean and so forth.
So, we don’t compete with them as a result of we don’t have the community, now we have correspondents, however we don’t personal it. One other tier inside business analysis is native or regional corporations, regionally we’re speaking about El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, which do rent corporations like us which have a footprint extra oriented to native or quick regional presence.
So we work in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador with out a lot drawback. A few of these corporations that haven’t any relationship with massive networks rent us. We compete on the high with a few of these networks that additionally serve them, however we additionally compete on the backside with different smaller corporations.
After which now we have the final tier, which is essentially the most aggressive and the most affordable, made up of smaller corporations, utterly nationwide. And you’ve got numerous freelancers, lots of people who simply do focus teams, individuals who labored earlier than in different analysis corporations, however they do research ad-hoc for them. After which, there are a number of niches that come out of this business scheme.
For instance, an enormous area of interest is governmental or NGO analysis or international establishments. So, we take part with international establishments, however not with the native authorities. So, we, for instance, have a few initiatives with USAID, now we have initiatives with the embassy, now we have initiatives with…
Now we have carried out initiatives, however we don’t have any proper now, with the World Financial institution and so forth. And there’s one other area of interest, for instance, which was huge at one time and now it’s huge, however for a unique variety of causes. We’re now not working in that, which is the political area of interest. So, public opinion, and politics, are different niches.
However we haven’t labored in that space for a few years. After which there are different niches particular to sure industries which have very particular wants. So, for instance, in the true property growth trade, all the businesses are native, they’re comparatively massive initiatives, and their wants are extremely particular. So, I consider that we’re presumably the biggest provider of research for native actual property growth, we work with all the massive builders, and they’re advert hoc research as much as particular research of several types of actual property growth intelligence.”
What are the primary challenges with conducting market analysis in El Salvador?
Polo: “In El Salvador, previously, essentially the most major problem we had was the safety danger of doing face-to-face surveys. Let’s say a consumer requested for a nationally consultant survey, there have been massive areas of the nation the place the pollsters couldn’t enter for safety causes.
Immediately, that’s a lot improved, however there’s nonetheless a little bit of an issue as a result of even at typical, middle-class ranges, many individuals stay in residential neighborhoods with restricted entry, or gated communities, so for face-to-face that makes it troublesome, proper? As a result of earlier than, the one drawback we had in that realm was with the very excessive socioeconomic lessons. Now it’s trickled down, and it’s a way more generalized factor to have, to stay in communities which are utterly gated.
Within the case of CATI, greater socioeconomic lessons are underrepresented. So, we don’t have a lot response from folks of a comparatively excessive socioeconomic class or revenue stage. This causes us issues, for instance, with purchasers who’re creating actual property buildings or flats value 200 thousand {dollars} or extra as a result of their clients are the identical individuals who don’t reply surveys.
These surveys can’t be obtained by way of on-line panels both, as a result of databases are fairly restricted in El Salvador. Databases in El Salvador are primarily comprised of the center socioeconomic strata, so there’s not a lot knowledge on the decrease socioeconomic strata, not to mention the higher socioeconomic strata.
One other major problem is the shortage of professionalism within the insights trade within the nation. First, there’s probably not a market analysis profession path right here. The individuals who come to market analysis on this nation, a lot of them don’t also have a primary statistical background. I imply, I’ve had discussions with colleagues the place they simply didn’t perceive the distinction between a consultant pattern and a comfort pattern, which is primary.
The consumer doesn’t know both, so the consumer goes and hires the most affordable or the one who speaks the very best as a result of they haven’t any manner of differentiating between somebody who is aware of their stuff and somebody who doesn’t. Purchasers can undergo suggestions from different purchasers, however there’s nothing structural. In order that’s an issue.
The opposite factor is that it’s very troublesome to do B2B research in El Salvador. That’s, when the consumer is an organization that makes a product to be offered to different corporations, and they should converse on to the individuals who purchase their product, except the consumer provides us the contacts and helps us contact these folks, it’s virtually inconceivable.
El Salvador wants significantly better knowledge at a macro stage. As for the info that now we have, I labored in america earlier than, so I do know what publicly obtainable knowledge in america on several types of issues seems to be like. For instance, if I wished to know the way a lot business house is out there and empty in San Francisco proper now, with two clicks I may discover it. In El Salvador that might be inconceivable.
“…we should attempt to transfer from being knowledge suppliers to being knowledge analysts and promoting the evaluation, or the worth added, fairly than promoting the methodology.”
In El Salvador, there isn’t a details about the worth of corporations; all corporations are personal; there isn’t a details about a lot of macroeconomic elements, and there’s no dependable, aggregated details about virtually something.”
We’ve talked lots about challenges immediately. What could be the best technique to transfer ahead from this level within the trade?
Polo: “I believe one of the vital necessary points that we had been speaking about at ESOMAR Mexico is that we should attempt to transfer from being knowledge suppliers to being knowledge analysts and promoting the evaluation, or the worth added, fairly than promoting the methodology. So proper now, now we have within the pipeline a few merchandise extra oriented in direction of producing knowledge fairly than in direction of promoting any particular methodology.
To ensure that all corporations to outlive, we’re going to must go just a little bit that manner; that’s, we’re going to must search for our niches, and we’re going to must attempt to promote merchandise that provide extra – that provide you with a constant, recurring return. We have to orient in direction of merchandise that aren’t solely worthwhile but in addition sustainable.”
