World Wide Worx and CG Consulting: Bringing African data to the world for over a decade

Analyst house World Wide Worx’s regular research reports have become the mainstay of the ICT industry in South Africa and Africa, offering valuable insight into market shifts and technology usage. Because effective research results can only be achieved through effective data gathering and analysis, especially in Africa’s emerging markets where existing data is hard to come by, and even more so in the technology sector across the continent, World Wide Worx uses the services of CG Consulting in order to obtain the accurate, verified data on which many of its analyses and reports are based.

This partnership has been providing data to – and on – the African ICT sector for over a decade now. While World Wide Worx designs the research, compiles the questions and analyses the results, CG Consulting is responsible for the logistics of the data collection.

CG Consulting is a specialist lead generation and outsourced telemarketing service provider with extensive experience in Africa. The company owns comprehensive B2B databases of the Enterprise companies in all sectors with a focus on ICT designations across the African continent, and uses its current, up-to-date contact lists in order to obtain correct and verified responses.

According to Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx, this long-term relationship has been particularly effective because of CG Consulting’s understanding of the African economies surveyed, as well as its comprehensive databases. “Outsourcing the data collection and telemarketing portion of our research offers faster results and allows us to focus on our core areas of expertise: research design, interpretation and key conclusions. When it comes to research across African countries, where collecting data poses its own unique challenges, CG Consulting’s expertise has been invaluable,” he adds.

“We pride ourselves on quick turnaround times and accurate data, both of which are essential to the success of any research project. Speaking to the right people, obtaining the correct responses to the correct questions, and doing it within the timeframes needed for the research is essential,” says Louise Robinson, Sales Director of CG Consulting.

“While we are living in the age of instant messaging and digital communications, direct calling is still essential to the success of any research project. You can’t just send out an e-mail and expect to get a response with the requisite information. In fact, most people don’t respond to e-mailed questionnaires at all. You have to physically speak to the correct contact person in order to get the right quality and accuracy of response. This is especially important when there are deadlines to getting the data back.”

CG Consulting has partnered with World Wide Worx on surveys in 15 African countries covering respondents that include SMEs and corporate. In addition, the company has worked with World Wide Worx on specialised surveys such as Digital transformation, Mobility and SME surveys. Over the years, the two companies have partnered on research for the likes of Africa Com, Amadeus, Google, Syspro, Dell, Cisco and VMWare to name a few.

“Research in Africa requires specialist knowledge because of its unique conditions such as the multitude of languages, and time differences, as well as cultural differences,” says Goldstuck. “Getting hold of people can often be problematic, and knowing how to ask the questions is also vital. CG Consulting has the trained specialists, experience and knowledge of Africa that is required to make our research projects a success, and we have seen great benefit partnering with them.”

Robinson explains that CG Consulting employs the manual process of physically contacting each respondent and asking all of the questions because that provides faster results than gathering e-mail responses. In addition, because the surveys are conducted in emerging Africa, the data and information is constantly changing, so making the phone calls is not only essential to ensuring accurate and speedy results, but to keeping the company ahead of the pack.

“We continuously have to keep our fingers on the pulse, and direct contact is the only way to do this. We currently regularly survey 15 countries, but are able to reach the whole of Africa with the same effectiveness. The potential is endless, and we are looking forward to seeing the evolution of the African market place in future surveys,” she concludes.