Why B2B Research Has Become Too Slow And How to Fix It
In today’s fast-moving B2B world, most corporate teams are surrounded by questions that can’t easily be answered. Yet those answers are often incredibly valuable to know and understand. Not only is getting answers tricky, figuring out the right way(s) to get to those answers is one of the hardest parts!
Among other things, marketers want to know how prospects really go about buying solutions and which channels, tactics and technologies will give them the most leverage going forward. Sales wants to understand who’s involved, what they care about, and how do they buy. Product wants to know which features matter most to their users and which to build. Executives want to know what their customers (and target markets) really want now and what they'll need in the future.
These are fundamental questions and the kind that guide messaging, strategy, and innovation. Yet getting reliable answers often feels like navigating a maze. There are millions of other things being asked too, but these are a few trends we've noticed. Despite advances in data analytics, AI, and automation, B2B research remains one of the slowest and most opaque processes inside large organizations.
The Modern Research Bottleneck
Ask anyone who’s been tasked with answering key questions in B2B and they’ll tell you it takes too long, costs too much, requires a lot of work, and/or rarely produces clarity fast enough to act on it.
Procurement approvals, vendor coordination, project design, sample sourcing, and data cleaning, can stretch a simple study into a months-long project. By the time results arrive, the market has often already shifted or the question is outdated.
It’s not always that the questions are too complex, it’s that the system designed to answer them hasn’t evolved and it's hard to figure out the best way to get a question answered thoroughly.
Here are some of the main ways companies gather insight today with pros and cons of each:
1. Direct Primary Research
A. Custom Surveys
What it is: Structured surveys sent to specific professional audiences, such CISOs, CFOs, etc, to gauge perceptions of vendors, products, or brands.
Why it matters: Surveys create measurable benchmarks and quantify perceptions at scale, giving teams a clear snapshot of how their brand or product is viewed across key audiences.
Best for: Measuring brand perception, testing messaging, benchmarking competitors, and validating hypotheses across a broad audience.
Pros:
- High control over targeting and question design
- Ability to quantify perceptions and identify key trends
- No middleman markups on costs
- Faster than using agency
Cons:
- Little guidance: if you're not experienced at writing surveys, this can take more time and effort than expected.
- Data quality: everyone likes to think survey companies have everything under control... in reality, many are not winning the battle against sophisticated fraudsters
- If the promises or results smell fishy, trust your gut.
- Read more about bad actors here: Bad Actors In Research
- Limited context: responses show what people think, not why
- Confusing: how can one company price $29 for a 15-min survey with enterprise CEOs while another quotes $200?
- If you and your boss wouldn't take your survey for that amount, those CEO probably aren't either
B. In-Depth Interviews (IDIs) or Focus Groups
What it is: One-on-one interviews with ~10–20 decision-makers to explore perceptions, experiences, and brand associations.
Why it matters: Interviews reveal motivations and nuances surveys can’t — the why behind the data.
Best for: Exploring complex or emotionally charged topics like trust, innovation, or product differentiation.
Pros:
- Deep, narrative insights that clarify why perceptions exist
- Explore how someone answers a question - actions can speak louder than words
- Did they tense up when you asked a question?
- Did they change tone when discussing XYZ?
- Ability to adapt or pivot questions mid-conversation
- Being agile in research can be tough
- Generates stories and quotes that resonate with stakeholders
- Direct access to the exact people that evaluate and buy your solitions
Cons:
- Small sample size limits representativeness
- Time-intensive to schedule and moderate
- Requires skilled interviewers to avoid bias or misinterpretation
- Very expensive relative to surveys
- Can be tough to access the participants without 3rd party vendor help
2. Third-Party Market Intelligence
What it is: Independent research and advisory firms that publish vendor comparisons, market forecasts, and customer sentiment studies based on large-scale data collection.
Why it matters: These reports lend third-party credibility and provide executive-friendly benchmarks that influence major buying and strategy decisions.
Best for: Competitive positioning, executive presentations, and validating brand perception through trusted external sources.
Pros:
- Recognized benchmarks that resonate with executives
- Ready-made data for market comparisons
- Much cheaper than running a similar study internally
- Subject experts behind reports
Cons:
- High cost for access or customization
- Limited transparency into why certain ratings exist unless you commission a dedicated study
- Available to anyone willing to pay - including your competitors
- Research can be outdated by the time it’s published
- Analyst bias or pay-to-play models can skew perception
3. Third-Party Strategy, Insights, Research, and Consulting Firms
What it is: External research or advisory partners that manage the full research process, from study design and data collection to analysis and strategic recommendations.
Why it matters: They deliver depth, polish, and credibility, turning raw data into executive-ready insights that align closely with company strategy.
Best for: Large-scale, high-stakes projects where rigor, stakeholder alignment, and storytelling are more important than speed.
Pros:
- Deep expertise and trusted outputs
- High-quality analysis and synthesis
- Strategic alignment with broader business goals
- Can do "basic" things that are often much more difficult than anticipated
- Writing surveys
- Writing screeners
- Bringing on the right technology partners for your project
Cons:
- Long lead times and heavy administrative overhead
- High cost (especially for top-tier firms)
- Bottlenecks for smaller, fast-turnaround projects
- Agile methodologies don't always fit into their standard engagement models
4. Indirect Listening Channels
A. Peer Review Platforms
What it is: Online platforms like Gartner Peer Insights, G2, and Capterra where users share product reviews and rate vendors based on personal experience.
Why it matters: They offer a quick, accessible view of customer sentiment and competitor perception straight from end users.
Best for: Spotting recurring praise or pain points, understanding relative volume, and gathering anecdotal feedback to guide deeper research.
Pros:
- Fast access to qualitative feedback
- Free or low-cost compared to formal studies
- Great for identifying recurring themes or pain points
Cons:
- Rife with fraud and fake reviews, from vendor-driven 5-star campaigns to competitors leaving anonymous negative feedback
- Hard to verify whether reviewers are real users or incentivized participants
- Lack of representativeness - vocal minority bias dominates
B. Social and Community Monitoring
What it is: Tracking real conversations across LinkedIn, Reddit, Slack or Discord communities, and industry podcasts to understand how professionals talk about specific vendors, products, or trends.
Why it matters: These unfiltered discussions reveal emerging narratives, authentic language, and emotional drivers that rarely show up in structured research.
Best for: Early signal detection, message testing, and understanding how audiences discuss your category in their own words.
Pros:
- Real-time access to organic discussions
- Free or low-cost compared to formal studies
- Useful for discovering emerging topics or language customers actually use
- Adds qualitative “color” to formal research
Cons:
- Difficult to separate genuine insight from noise or trolling
- Artificial praise of one company or negativity towards another
- Social chatter reflects passion, not proportion
- High potential for bias, manipulation, and misinformation
- Difficult to attribute comments to verified professionals
5. AI-Powered Research Tools
The rise of generative AI including tools like ChatGPT (Deep Research), Claude, and Perplexity is reshaping how teams gather, interpret, and summarize insights.
What it is: AI platforms that analyze text, synthesize large datasets, and generate summaries or insights from existing information sources such as reports, reviews, and transcripts.
Why it matters: They dramatically speed up analysis, helping teams surface patterns, sentiment, and key themes in minutes rather than weeks.
Best for: Rapid synthesis, hypothesis generation, and summarizing qualitative data at scale.
Pros:
- Fast, inexpensive, and easy to experiment with
- Can process and summarize large amounts of unstructured data
- Useful for brainstorming, outlining, or identifying recurring themes
- Generated content feels professional and convincing
Cons:
- Lacks access to verified participants or proprietary data
- Dependent on the quality and truthfulness of the source material
- Sources used (ex. Reddit, articles, reviews, etc) can incorporate biases that make Indirect Listening Channels vulnerable
- Can produce confident but incorrect summaries without human oversight
The Common Thread: Speed and Transparency Are Missing
Across all these methods, one theme emerges: corporate teams have to make at least one sacrifice of speed, quality, or price when doing B2B research.
Marketers shouldn’t need to wait 90 days to understand what their ICP thinks of their brand. Product shouldn’t have to guess what competitors’ customers actually think. Researchers shouldn't have to worry 50% of their survey responses were from bots, fraudulent respondents, or people not remotely qualified to partake in their research. Yet these things are still happening. Stacking Swiss cheese fills holes but questions are still going unanswered because at the end of the day: it is really hard to find a solution when none of them match your timeline, budget, or quality standards.
Rethinking the Research Loop
At ThinkEasy, we believe research should move at the speed of curiosity. Questions don’t wait, and neither should answers. We built a platform for teams who need insights now, not next quarter.
What sets ThinkEasy apart is speed, quality, and agility. Our platform is backed by real, verifiable decision-makers, executives, and specialists who don’t waste time joining generic panels. Every participant is multi-step verified including phone and corporate email, and has participated in calls with Zintro before, so you’re always connecting with credible professionals. By respecting every participant’s time, we build loyalty and trust, which translates into faster turnaround and higher-quality results. It's a win-win for everyone.
Researchers always pay per response, can scale projects instantly, and trust results backed by a 5x money-back guarantee on any fraudulent data. You can move seamlessly between quant and qual, run a survey to find patterns, then follow up with interviews to understand the “why”, all with the same verified audience.
It’s research that’s faster, cleaner, smarter, and built for real decisions, real professionals, and real progress.
