Africa Business Communities and MSI-ACI launch Africabusinesspanel.com for Market Research Agencies and Panel Providers
Africa Business Communities and MSI-ACI (re)launch together the Africa Business Panel (www.africabusinesspanel.com) for Market Research Agencies and Panel Providers. Africa Business Panel is a strong research tool with almost 15,000 members who work in the private and public sector for organizations registered in and operating out of Africa. They are the senior managers, entrepreneurs or professionals that form the backbone of the business community throughout Africa.
“When we were in Africa, we were told that asking questions about the economy to 100 business men in the street would be better to rely upon than the official economic statistics.” Marc Stubbé a managing partner at Africa Business Communities recounts.
He added “Then we got some confirmation:
• On 5 November 2010, Ghana Statistical Services announced that it was revising national GDP estimates upwards by over 60%.
• In the fall of 2011 its near-neighbor Nigeria also announced a forthcoming revision of its GDP by 50%.
• Can you imagine: The doubling of GDP in Nigeria implies that the GDP for the whole region increases by more than 15%. The value of the increase amounts to as much as 40 economies roughly the size of Malawi’s”
Even Shanta Devarajan, Chief Economist for the Africa Region of the World Bank, spoke about the urgent need to address the shortcomings of development statistics. The Danish-Canadian Professor wrote a book “Poor Numbers – How we are misled by African development statistics and what to do about it”.
For us it was obvious, there is a strong need for reliable data on how Africa and its economy, is really doing. In 2011, we started therefore the Africa Business. The opinions and answers of the panel participants are providing us with real indicators of how Africa is doing, either per country or per branch. After years of collecting the right members of the Africa Business Panel, we have been confirmed some leading international Market Research Agencies that we have something unique in our hands. With almost 15,000 African business professionals in our panel, we seem to be the biggest in the world and that the quality of the profiles is in line with the highest international standards. We can help international business panel providers to make their international offering more complete. Market research agencies or consultancy firms can choose from a menu of quantitative services. The Africa Business Panel provides direct access to the African movers and shakers powering business across hundreds of industries and job titles. The B2B panel members include IT decision makers, executive/upper management, small business owners, business decision makers, financial services professionals, contractors, HR professionals and much more.
Since we get many questions of potential clients whether we can also provide reliable consumer data and research, we will now launch africaconsumerpanel.com as well.
Rodney Tiesselinck (COO of MSI-ACI Netherlands) said, “Our clients are asking for reliable and up to date data in Africa. The moment we met the partners of Africa Business Communities, Marc Stubbé and Bas Vlugt of Africa Business Communities (ABC), we knew that combining our strengths would create a fantastic proposition for our clients. Combining our research and technology platform together with the tremendous network of Africa Business Communities has proven to be a fantastic match. Worldwide Market leaders among research companies and Panel providers like IPSOS, Survey Sampling International (SSI) and Toluna, already experienced the quality of our panels and are really enthusiastic.
Sales Manager,SSI(Survey Sampling International) says the African Business Panel will bring unrivaled access to African B2B respondents. “Their reach combined with their speed and flexibility makes the Africa Business Panel, a must-go to supplier if you need the opinion of Africa” He adds
According to Hans Pietersen – Sales Director Benelux & Scandinavia at Toluna, “We are using the African business panel for our B2B studies in Africa as it provides us with access to the exact people we are looking for to give our clients the highest possible quality, not only in the biggest economies in Africa, but also in the smaller African countries. Maximum reach at a one shop stop!”
“Especially in the last century, Africa was regarded as a dark continent primarily because of the dearth of information that existed about the region. Thanks to a range of factors, in this century, Africa is now seen to be not just opening up but coming up both socially and economically. One of the main reasons for this is that through market research, more information and knowledge is now available about the continent. With this information and knowledge, all of Africa’s stakeholders are better equipped to grapple with and make the right decisions about the opportunities and challenges that exist in our beloved continent”, Philip Okullo ,Country manager Ghana at Ipsos opines
Philip Okullo also agrees that The Africa Business Panel can support market research in Africa by facilitating, for stakeholders, online access to the professional population in the region. With digitalization, online access to relevant target profiles is an increasing need as it enables information to be gathered quickly and cost-efficiently so that based on this, decisions about the market are made faster.
About Africa Business Communities
Africa Business Communities (www.africabusinesscommunities.com) has been founded in 2010 and is active mostly in subsahara Africa. www.nigeriabusinesscommunities.com is also part of Africa Business Communities. Africa Business Communities is a Digital B2B Publisher that enables organizations to connect with African Business Professionals.
(http://www.slideshare.net/Africa-Business-Communities/africa-business-communities-general-072014)
Africa Business Communities is the largest player on LinkedIn in Africa.
http://www.africabusinesscommunities.com/africa-business-communities-linkedin-groups.html
The social networks of Africa Business Communities connects more than 1 million business professionals worldwide with an interest in the continent Africa. It offers different services in the field of marketing and communication, market research and recruitment among which:
For further information go to: http://www.africabusinesscommunities.com/about-us.html