Florence de Bigault, former Director of Ipsos for French-speaking Africa, recently took over as CEO of Opinionway Sub-Saharan Africa and shares her goals and vision with us.
Can you tell us about OPINIONWAY's activities?
Founded in 2000, OPINIONWAY is a marketing research and opinion polling institute, a pioneer in qualitative and quantitative online research, online panels, and more. Chaired by Hugues Cazenave, OPINIONWAY has, since its inception, focused on technological solutions and translating research results into action plans for its clients.
A recent example is that OpinionWAy was chosen to analyze the Grand Debat National (Great National Debate) led by Emmanuel Macron. The institute was able to analyze millions of contributions in record time, using artificial intelligence, and present a summary of this citizen-led work.
In markets where everything changes so quickly, OPINIONWAY's mission is to stay closely connected to the lives of consumers and citizens, to be able to detect weak signals, identify real insights, and ultimately enable brands to make a difference and grow their business
. You have just taken over the management of OPINIONWAY's new subsidiary, recently established in Abidjan. How do you plan to develop this company in Africa?
For several years now, the company has had strong international ambitions. To better support its clients, it began its internationalization in Europe and North Africa and is clearly targeting African markets. Over the past three years, several agencies have been opened in Casablanca, Tunis, and Algiers. Today, OPINIONWAY is turning its attention to West Africa and setting up in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, with the aim of making the country's economic capital a true regional hub.
What are your ambitions and how do you plan to achieve them?
With this new subsidiary in Abidjan, we want to provide both more innovative research solutions and more consulting services. This is a new business model in which data collection costs are reduced, allowing us to allocate the necessary time to support our clients.
We want to capitalize on a more urban, more modern Africa, where smartphone ownership exceeds 50%.
First, we offer digital tools that enable us to survey consumers and interact with them wherever they are: via their mobile phones, on the internet, and on social media. As on other continents, we are paving the way for research using telephone panels and online panels. By the end of the year, we will be able to offer representative panels in eight African countries.
Secondly, we are betting that the research market is reaching maturity. When I was Director of Ipsos for French-speaking Africa, I noticed that decision-makers were looking for much more support and advice to grow their businesses, not just descriptive reports. OPINIONWAY makes a real difference in this regard, as we deploy methods that make the results of the studies entrusted to us by our clients truly actionable.
Finally, we are betting on innovation. Today in Africa, one of the best ways to gain market share and grow your business is to innovate. Our co-creation and design thinking solutions will enable us to go much further and much faster in the innovation process.
Innovation is also part of our business, with the arrival of studies based on data hybridization and big data. Whether in telecoms, e-commerce, banking, and soon retail, modern public transport, or public services, African consumers are producing more and more data that will be a goldmine of information for institutes equipped with the technological solutions to make it speak. At Opinionway, we are betting on the future, aware that in Africa, the future is very quickly tomorrow.
Will there
be synergies with other international entities?
There will obviously be synergies with other entities, particularly the experts in Paris and Casablanca. We will work hand in hand with specialists in innovation solutions, design thinking, online panels, and data mining.
What is your added value compared to the competition?
Despite the COVID-19 crisis, we still decided to start our activities in March, at a time when our competitors chose to scale back or even leave Côte d'Ivoire. This symbolizes the passing of the torch from the large generalist institutes to a new generation of more agile, more accessible institutes that are resolutely focused on technology.
All of this motivated my commitment to OPINIONWAY, which is much better suited to the demands of our clients and the reality of African markets, where decision-makers need these approaches based on hyper-knowledge of consumers.
You conducted your first survey during the pandemic. Can you tell us more about it?
In collaboration with Deloitte and the agency 35°Nord, we presented the results of the first survey conducted in eight African countries on perceptions of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was entitled "African public opinion on the COVID-19 crisis." We also conducted telephone surveys via our call center in Abidjan and online surveys during the pandemic, when face-to-face fieldwork was at a standstill.
COVID-19 has proven to be a real accelerator for the digitization of research. Of course, not all research will be conducted online. Opinionway also conducts face-to-face surveys. But the movement is underway, and our clients will have a wider choice of studies to capture reality, depending on their budgetary, methodological, or time constraints. Africa is changing rapidly, and we want to contribute to changing research in Africa.
Discover the study: African public opinion on the Covid-19 crisis