Discovering what clients and potential customers want and need in any specific market segment is essential for successful product development. Market research sets out to achieve these goals by collecting and analyzing data, thus helping institutions better understand and serve potential and existing markets.

Research may be both quantitative and qualitative—investigating either the supply or demand side of a particular market. While the empirical data central to quantitative research provide a useful basic understanding of market characteristics, it is often the narrative aspects of qualitative research that provide deeper insights into client behavior and add important perspective and detail to the overall picture.

The more an institution knows its clients and understands its market, the better it will be in producing products and services to meet demand. Client research and product development are crucial investments that can be managed in-house if expertise and capacity are available, or in coordination with consulting companies that specialize in these areas.

What can you find in this Topic Hub?

Curated by FinDev editors, this Topic Hub offers you access to key resources contributed by organizations around the world who work on the topic of client research and product development for microfinance and financial inclusion. Our latest blogs and publications on this topic are featured here (in the Resources Tab above), and you can find a collection of papers, case studies and guides to explore further. When there are upcoming webinars, events and recent news on this topic, they will be featured in the Topic Hub as well, so make sure to come back regularly for the latest on this topic. Finally, we’ve selected some key additional resources, which are listed on the right here, where you can learn even more about this topic.

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