Earlier knowledge sharing helps society
Roy van Lith recently received his master degree in Marketing Management. “This Master Degree is definitely an addition to my college degree,” he says. “Now I have both the practical and theoretical knowledge in marketing.” To get his master degree, Roy conducted research on the willingness to pay from companies, students and academic researchers. In this Expert Story we’ll address his research, trends in marketing and his future goals.
Gathering data
A struggle for Roy during his research was gathering data. “But during my research I found out that other students struggle with the same problem: they need many participants in surveys and experiments for their research to be reliable. As well as researchers, they’re willing to pay to get the required amount of participants and for the number of questions asked in surveys,” Roy adds. “That’s where Syneratio could provide in: making it easier for students and researcher to get the number of participants needed.”
Mind the gap
“Another thing I found out through personal interviews was that there’s a gap between business and researchers,” Roy tells me. “Researchers publish for top journals because the universities demand it. It takes up to four years for their research to be published, whilst the most important results are know after a short amount of time. These results should be published earlier so companies can use them to innovate and improve products.”
“Society benefits from early access to research”
“Early and fast knowledge sharing is important. If a research is conducted on social media, we can read the results in four years. The question is: is it still relevant then?” Roy asks. “If universities are more open to Open Access, as researchers are, the research results could be implemented much earlier while they’re still relevant. If valorisation occurs earlier it helps both science and society!”
Up close & personal
There’s a change happening in the world of marketing and communication, according to Roy. “Companies realise now that mass communication doesn’t always work. They use new ways to approach their customers. With location based messages that pop-up when you’re near the store, of with personal discounts adjusted to your buying behaviour,” he explains.
“More sales thanks to effective location based messaging”
“This way, companies can constantly respond to the customer’s needs to get more sales. This new way of approaching is already booming in the United States, and in Europe it’s used more and more.” Big brands such as McDonalds and Starbucks already use location based messaging to boost sales.
Looking at the future
“I’m an ambitious person, yes,” he says. “I want to keep learning, keep on growing, that’s very important to me. Preferably at one company, on the condition that there are opportunities for growth within that company. I don’t think jobhopping is very good for your career. My goal is to learn all different facets within a company and climb up the career ladder to become Commercial Director. My first step on that ladder is the management traineeship sales and marketing that I’m starting with soon,” Roy concludes.