For its Product of the Year 2026 study, German research institute Interrogare needed to produce around 1,300 slides across 36 product categories in a large-scale consumer survey. By combining E-Tabs’ DIY automation tool with their Bureau Service, the team cut reporting costs by up to 75% and built a scalable, repeatable workflow it can reuse wave after wave, doubling its weekly delivery volume.
About Interrogare
Interrogare is a full-service market research institute with offices in Germany. The team supports companies with robust insights for strategic and operational decision-making — from continuous tracking studies to tailored ad hoc research projects. Key areas of expertise include brand and communication research, pricing, product and innovation research, as well as advanced methodological approaches such as conjoint analysis and market simulations. In addition, Interrogare has extensive expertise in target group research, segmentation and persona development, as well as in measuring mental availability. This is complemented by implicit methods such as reaction time-based measurement approaches, which provide a deeper understanding of perceptions, associations and emotional brand impact.
The Challenge
Interrogare had already experimented with several approaches to report automation, including in-house VBA programming and custom-built software.
As Julia Fischinger, Consultant at Interrogare, explained, while these solutions offered some benefits, they also created challenges. Custom software was expensive to maintain, difficult to adapt, and often relied on specialist knowledge held by a small number of individuals. Even with automation in place, many reporting tasks still required manual work.
For a large-scale Product of the Year 2026 study, these limitations became increasingly difficult to manage.
The project included:
- 36 product categories
- 4 reports per category
- 20-40 slides per report
- Approximately 1,300 slides in total
Producing these reports manually would have required more than 400 hours of reporting effort.
The Solution
Interrogare adopted E-Tabs’ reporting automation platform, giving the team flexibility to choose the approach that best suited each project.
Using the DIY tool, trained team members could build and manage reporting automation internally. When capacity was limited, E-Tabs’ Bureau Service could step in to handle implementation and setup work, allowing projects to move forward without placing additional pressure on the team.
For the Product of the Year study, E-Tabs automated the reporting process across hundreds of charts and slides, including reaction time measurement results, winner comparisons, and product-level analyses.
This gave Interrogare the efficiency of automation without sacrificing control over their reporting workflows.
The Results
The impact was felt across cost, speed and quality.
Lower Costs: Compared with a fully manual process, Interrogare reduced reporting costs by up to 75%, enabling more competitive pricing while maintaining profitability.
Faster Delivery: Automation approximately doubled the team’s weekly delivery volume, helping reports reach clients faster and improving the overall customer experience.
Reduced Quality Control Effort: Rather than reviewing every report in detail, the team could focus on validating initial outputs and conducting targeted spot checks, nearly halving checking time.
Built for Reuse: Once automation was established, follow-up waves became substantially faster. The team simply updated the data, regenerated reports, and completed a final review.
E-Tabs: A Flexible Reporting Partnership
For Interrogare, the value of E-Tabs went beyond automation alone.
Unlike previous custom development projects, E-Tabs combined reporting software with automation knowledge, deep PowerPoint expertise and 24/7 service. The team benefited from ongoing training, responsive support, and the flexibility to decide whether projects were managed internally or supported by the E-Tabs Bureau team.
This collaborative approach meant Interrogare could scale reporting efficiently while retaining control of its processes and adapting workflows as project requirements evolved.
Here for you
At E-Tabs, we are committed to delivering exceptional products and services that grow with your reporting needs. To ensure our partners get the most out of our solutions, we provide ongoing support and in-depth training, helping teams build scalable reporting workflows that are easy to manage, adapt and expand over time.
