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News
Room > Handhelds - ROI
Handhelds
Improve ROI of Market Research
By Michael Bhur, Senior Director of Business and Enterprise Marketing
For Palm Solutions Group, Palm Inc.
The speed, accuracy and affordability of today’s handhelds are helping companies and institutions get more of
every market research dollar.
From multinational corporations to the smallest college campuses those that fail to incorporate this technology into their market research risk being left behind. The example below illustrates how handhelds are setting new standards in speed, accuracy and ROI for market research and how important it is for market research firms to evaluate the role of handhelds in their service offering.
State Governments Save Tax Dollars with Handhelds
The pharmaceutical industry isn’t the only one making use of Palm handhelds for market research. State and local governments are turning to handhelds to save taxpayer dollars – and lives.
Every state by federal law must provide information to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration about their seat belt usage. The information is used to improve seat belt usage across the country. Federal highway fund grants are dependent upon the performance of seat belt usage, making the studies important and valuable for the states.
Communication Software Inc., CSI, designed and developed a handheld application called Ganga that is used to conduct annual seat belt use surveys for Arizona, North Dakota, Nevada and Maine. Surveyors take their Palm handhelds to intersections where they record data about the number of drivers complying with driver, passenger and child seat belt laws.
The benefits of using handhelds for these studies are significant. For example, a study involving 160 intersections across 10 counties in Maine took CSI one month to complete using 10 Palm handhelds. Using paper, a similar study would have taken months and 500 data entry operators many hours. Saving state money and producing a more accurate report in less time means the state can apply more
of the grant money toward its intended use.
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