The History of BIG

The BIG name, if slightly odd, has a long heritage. The Business & Industrial Group as it was known up until 2001, began as a consortium of those who had a common interest in the Business-to-Business market research sector. This is a relatively small and discrete group – relative to fast moving consumer goods researchers B2B practitioners are a fairly small number. So, all the more important that they had a focus, somewhere to meet, somewhere to discuss issues relating to business to business research that would be just for them. Business-to-Business research encompasses many areas but often relates to the industrial sector, the financial, the agricultural, IT and telecommunications amongst others.

The BIG name was retained in 2002 even though the acronym now stands for ‘Business Intelligence Group’, reflecting the move away from being just a conglomeration of industrial researchers and marketers and reflecting more its current make-up of those representing a wider swathe of industry. The BIG Conference itself has been a feature on the calendar for nine years, starting as a smallish conference and gradually building up in terms of size and importance year on year. The Conference provides an opportunity for all those who are members of BIG or have other affiliations with the B2B industry to come together for a few days and focus their attentions on subjects which are not featured so widely in other research conferences such as the ESOMAR or Market Research Society conferences.