Business & Money | Sunday 19 April, 2015 6:51 am |

Noura Balsharaf started out small at the Balsharaf Group with newly qualified graduates to manage research and marketing, but has now set up her own independent company called Golden Research.
The company is now a member of the European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research.
In the beginning, the team included young women who graduated in 2009, who received training from Tal’at Abdulhamid. “We started with five employees, aside from my older sister and I. Each person and their laptops were the company’s capital,” she said.
From a hall in their house, the sisters and their employees learned for six weeks how to understand the needs of clients. “The team then formed the Balsharaf Center for Research and Marketing.”
A year and nine months later, the team decided that there was a good opportunity to set up a limited liability company, which they called Golden Research. The company specializes in research including feasibility studies, marketing plans and training in the field. The company’s partnership with the INCOM Marketing consulting company has given it regional and international status.
Balsharaf is a business administration graduate and has practical experience in producing studies and research papers. She has also worked under the supervision of market experts in the field.
After gaining years of experience, she said the time was right for an independent research bureau. “It’s not an easy profession, but it’s good and has a promising future for professionals in general.”
Her journey was not easy. One of her main challenges was a lack of experienced employees. “This is a new field, especially in Riyadh. It was difficult to find and train employees in research, planning, analysis and reporting.” The shyness of the women workers was also an obstacle in the early stages. “We faced some difficulties in terms of communication between women and the external environment,” she told Arab News.
With time and effort, Balsharaf said that she was able to overcome the obstacles and now the company has an integrated team of field researchers and experts.
It has special technical programs for clients. “We became specialists because we established a link between businesses and women. This is because women are usually the ones making purchasing decisions, and are also the consumers,” she said