Pulse Group launches big-data firm Pulsate across APAC

Headquartered in Malaysia, Pulsate will be launching offices in Hong Kong and Singapore "soon", Pulse Group CEO Bob Chua told Campaign Asia-Pacific. A purpose-built data centre is currently being built in Malaysia to handle the volume of data Pulsate expects to process. 

 

"Our investment in this is significant," Chua said. "Besides the data centre, we expect to grow our headcount to 300 within the next three years." 

 

The service is an evolution of Pulse's current analytics services. "The consumer insights business and market research industry is pretty mature and is worth around US$32 billion globally," Chua said. "Big data is expected, by research firms such as Frost & Sullivan, to top that at $52 billion."

 

While markets like the US and Europe have established big-data offerings, Asia, said Chua, is lagging behind. "The more data they accumulate, both structured and unstructured, the less companies here know what to do with it," he said. "We aim to mine that data to identity new target segments, areas of interest for brand building and to enable clients to push sales."

 

Services offered by Pulsate include predictive analysis, organising and processing data, storing data and making sense of output data. 

As an example, Chua outlined the potential for a soft drinks company to factor the weather into predicting where sales will be strongest throughout the year. "This insight can be used to optimise media spend and adjust distribution channels," he said.

 

While the likes of IBM, Oracle and Cisco have big-data services in the region, the focus is mainly on technology, not market research. "Based on Pulse's history of brand-related insights, sentiment analysis and data collection, we will bring that focus."

 

Chua has been testing Pulsate prior to its launch for about six months with select clients, which he declined to name. Its services will be made available to current clients of Pulse Group. 

 

"As a group, we believe we are well positioned to combine our expertise in the structured-analytics world with the complex unstructured world of big data," he said. "Pulsate will be at the core of our clients needs into the future."