Who we are
Independent market research, built on evidence you can prove
We measure brand choice on the ground, not from a desk.
SMRC (Systematic Market Research Consultancy) is an independent, full-service market research house in Dubai, serving the UAE, Oman and the wider Gulf since 2017. We run our own field operation end to end, so the data you act on is collected, checked and owned by people we recruit and train, not bought from a syndicated feed.
Retail audits · Universe census · Ad-hoc research · Customer experience
What we are
We pair the rigour and reliability of a large firm with the responsiveness of a small, senior team.
SMRC was founded in Dubai in 2017 by researchers who built and ran retail measurement at MEMRB and GfK. We are independent by design: every study is shaped around your questions, not resold from a panel we license to everyone else. That independence, and a field force that is entirely our own, is why our clients trust the numbers enough to act on them.
What we do
Full-service research, one accountable team
- Retail audits, including a live 1,000-store UAE panel visited and reported every month
- Full-country universe census, our specialism across the Gulf
- Mystery shopping across branches, stores and call centres
- Quantitative and qualitative research, from surveys to focus groups
- Customer experience, CSAT and NPS programmes
- Technology and analytics, turning scores into decisions in-house
How we work
Our own field force, and the discipline behind it
Our field team is 100% our own: recruited, trained, certified in-house and GPS-tracked, with mandatory geo-tagged, timestamped photo capture before any visit is submitted. Every dataset passes a three-tier validation process, and every project keeps a documented audit trail of every discrepancy, correction and exclusion.
Our principles are plain: do not torture the data, be truthful, and always have proof. Your data is yours, held on a secured project server under UAE PDPL, never resold or reused.
The proof
Numbers our clients stand behind
| Signal | What it means |
|---|---|
| NPS 94 and CSAT 97 | Client-reported satisfaction across 43 projects. |
| 50+ projects in nearly a decade | Across automotive, FMCG, telecom, electronics and fashion. |
| 7 full-country census programmes | UAE and Oman since 2019, covering 49,100 outlets. |
| 1,000-store UAE retail panel | Visited and reported every month, continuously since 2019. |
| Multi-language fieldwork | Matched to your customer profile across the region. |
Trusted by
Brands and institutions we work with
In nearly a decade we have delivered retail audits, census and research for leading brands and institutions across the UAE and Gulf, including GfK, NIQ (NielsenIQ, Nielsen), NIQ GfK, QuestionPro, PMI, Ferrero, Maserati, Mal Bank, Al Khayyat Investments, DHL, Shell, Standard Chartered, Al-Futtaim, Ounass, Himalaya, Kikkoman, Genesis, Wahl, Dubai Economy, Keforma, Nutripharma, Oronamin C, Conread.
Coverage
Across the UAE and the Gulf
Our own auditors cover all seven Emirates. Census and audit programmes run across the UAE and Oman, with census coverage extending into Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain. We work in Arabic and English as standard, and in the languages your customers actually speak.
Our people
Led by researchers, not administrators
Our senior team includes former MEMRB and GfK researchers with decades in Gulf retail measurement, supported by an in-house analytics function and a trained field force. Meet the team.
See what independent, evidence-led research looks like
Tell us the decision you need to make. We will design the study around it and bring you evidence you can act on, and prove, across the UAE and Gulf.
