Bureau of Market Research

The Bureau of Market Research (Pty) Limited (BMR) is a research entity at the University of South Africa and operates as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Unisa Enterprise (Pty) Ltd. The BMR undertakes commissioned market research with a specific focus on Household Wealth, Behavioural and Communication, Economic and Demographic research.  The BMR also hosts a:

  • Consumer Neuroscience Laboratory that aims to find psychophysiological explanations for human behaviour and continuously focus on current and future uses of neuroscience in business.
  • Youth Research Unit (YRU) that conducts research on youth behaviour with a specific focus on new media usage, social networking, cyber bullying, drug and alcohol abuse  and safety with a specific focus on the sexual exploitation of children.
  • Business Research Unit that conducts research on estimates of greatest likelihood with respect to the number of South African business entities by province, turnover group, industry, gross operating surplus, employment, entrepreneurial activities and business formation, legal status of businesses, etc.

Over the years, the BMR has conducted commissioned market research for a wide range of public and private business entities.  More recent clients include: ABSA Group; ACNielsen Marketing & Media (Pty) Ltd; British American Tobacco SA (Pty) Ltd; Fincor Leasing (Pty) Ltd; First National Bank (FNB); IHS Information & Insight (Pty) Ltd; Industrial Development Corp of SA; IPSOS; Mpumalanga Provincial Government; Multichoice; Nedbank Ltd; Nestle (SA) (Pty) Ltd; Old Mutual; SA Reserve Bank; Standard Bank of SA Ltd; Sanlam; Santam; University of the Witwatersrand; Wholesale & Retail SETA (W&R Seta); Woolworths (Pty) Ltd; Department of Social Development: Mpumalanga; Metropolitan Municipality of the City of Johannesburg; Metropolitan Municipality of the City of Tshwane; Momentum Group Limited (MMI Group Limited); Finmark Trust; Liberty Holdings Limited (Liberty); National Lottery Commission; Milk South Africa; SA Milk Processors' Organisation (SAMPRO), Department of Planning Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME), Gauteng Provincial Legislature (GPL), South African Local Government Association (SALGA), National Council of and for Persons with Disabilities (NCPD) and the World Bank.

Furthermore the BMR:

  • Conducts national and regional interviewer-administrated personal in-house and business surveys in urban and rural residential areas as well as at formal and informal businesses.
  • Conducts landline telephone and computer-aided telephone (CATI) interviews with households and businesses.
  • Manages and administrates self-administrated e-mail and Web-based surveys and conducts focus group discussions.
  • Edits, captures, codes, cleans and verifies data in accordance with its quality standards
  • Analyses/interprets data as part of its reporting responsibilities towards research users.
  • Presents research findings in hardcopy, electronic and/or PowerPoint presentation format.

Overall, the BMR conducts qualitative and quantitative research, observation research, longitudinal and cross-sectional research, neuroscience biometrics, macroeconomic modeling, diagnostic analyses, structural equation modelling and SQL database programming.

Last modified: Mon Aug 07 18:02:03 SAST 2023