DVJ’S In-House Excellence Day

Blog Lucas Hulsebos – CEO DVJ Insights

At DVJ, science plays an important role in the development of our products, validation of new techniques and the increasingly intelligent analysis of data. To make this actionable, we have set up various initiatives. The foundation is a scientific Advisory Board where we collaborate with a network of Universities in the Netherlands, Germany, England and France.

One of the initiatives that we have set up is “In House Excellence Days”. During these days we give young students a chance to spend a day in practice. Based on a concrete case, students get to work and try to find an alternative solution within one day. In collaboration with S.V.T.B. we organised an in-house excellence day for Curius, the study association of the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management at TU Delft.

OBJECTIVE OF THE “IN-HOUSE EXCELLENCE DAYS”

The purpose of the excellence day is to allow students to gain experience and get acquainted with the world of market research. If there is an interest in our beautiful profession early in the course, we hope that many students will specialise and opt for a career in market research. By being active within various advisory boards, I have noticed that only a small number of Universities really pay attention to research.

But we as an agency also benefit from these types of activities. It often gives us fresh ideas that we can then use to adjust and optimise our approach and products. The question we’ve had the students from Delft look at is how we can get students to participate in research.

INTERESTING RESULTS

The first thing the students did was check via their own social channels whether there is a willingness to participate in research. A remarkable fact is the speed with which large groups of people are reached. Within research, we still use the somewhat dated system of e-mail. According to these students, e-mail is for SPAM and serious matters, but certainly not suitable for activating people to participate in research. We knew this, but it’s always good to be confronted in this way.

Another remarkable outcome of the day was the high degree of willingness to participate in research. Everyone in the group wanted to participate in research themselves, but also hadn’t spoken to anyone who would really refuse. They are not often asked to participate and did not know that participating in research is fun if the questionnaire is made in a fun way. The research they most often participate in is the research from other students for an assignment or project.

NEXT STEP

After the first brainstorming session in the morning, the students started working on a new application that is entirely focused on students. Looking at people’s location in a smarter way, the time of day and the way in which respondents gain access to research, laid the foundation for a new application. Because the ideas were so great, we decided to further develop this idea. The enthusiasm led to all kinds of initiatives, with the idea of ​​setting up a new company being one of the options.

NEXT EXCELLENCE DAYS

Setting up these Excellence Days has already brought many new ideas to DVJ and shows us that innovation and creativity should not necessarily come from a specialist group of experts. If you give young people the guidance to come up with new ideas within the framework of what is possible, it often leads to many new insights. The next Excellence Days on the calendar are with clients, so that we don’t just solve our own issues, but also help our clients to add new elements to the research they are currently conducting.