Best Practice for Small Business. Marketing ideas for small business.

Following on from our initial post last week about the findings of the 2007 ESOMAR Prices Study, in this post we look in more detail at how online research methods, such as e-surveys and e-focus groups, have continued to exert a strong downward pressure upon research prices.

That online research tends to lower costs is amply demonstrated by the fact that while telephone interviewing was found, on average, to be roughly three-quarters of the cost of face-to-face research, online techniques were a further 33% cheaper than telephone-based methods.

The article then concludes by examining the key factors that determine market research price differentials between countries and regions:

How cheap will on line go?

In the current study, 19 countries were able to provide at least three bids for conducting a tracking study using online data collection, up from 10 countries in 2005. Prices fell, in US dollars, in five of the eight countries that were included in both the 2005 and 2007 studies. These falls were despite the fact that exchange rate movements alone should have made most of them more expensive. In Australia, Japan, and UK the absolute price reductions were particularly large. It appears that a major factor in these price cuts is the increased number of suppliers and fierce price competition.

However, there is an indication in the study that prices won’t continue to fall indefinitely. In the USA prices rose between 2005 and 2007, by about 13% per year.

The main drivers

The study suggests the key drivers of price are the cost of labour and the size of the research market where the work is done. The cost of labour, in turn, being driven by a combination of local wage rates and the shortage or abundance of talent (markets that feel the need to hire international talent certainly end up more expensive). Smaller research markets, in economically advanced countries, find it hard to create online access panels. Without a range of online access panels, these countries miss out on the cheapest options for research. This, in part, explains why Ireland was the most expensive country on the Global Index.

The cheapest countries tend to be those with the lowest cost bases, with the cheapest being Pakistan, followed by Bulgaria and Macedonia. Several of the recent EU accession countries, for example Bulgaria, Cyprus and Romania, are amongst the cheapest on the Global Index. This position may change markedly over the next few years, as these economies harmonise with the rest of the EU.

The above article orginally appeared in the October 2007 edition of Research World

from b2bsee * The Market Research Blog

“It is not the strongest species that survive….but the ones most responsive to change” Charles Darwin

Gone are the days where organizations employed ‘Market Research Managers’ to commission, manage and utilize market research carried out by external agencies; in fact it is very rare these days that a company has such a position. Originally the focus of market research was on marketing issues, and the main users of market research were the marketing departments of large companies. Over time its use has broadened to a wide range of business issues, and today market research is used by a broad spectrum of functions in a wide range of small as well as large organisations. In deed, in recent years, the use of market research has developed very healthily outside the traditional confines of the Marketing and Market Research departments, thanks to the relationships built and skills offered by independent consultants and small/medium research agencies.

Market research carried out by ‘Independent Consultants Group’ and Ciao! shows that independent market research consultants are viewed in a very positive light. Reflecting the individual nature of their service, their key characteristics are creativity (a more flexible approach to problem solving, free thinking) and a good working relationship (good listeners, stimulating to work with) – in addition to experience, actionability, insight, commitment and an understanding of business issues.

The key findings were as follows:

1. Market research is now a highly valued information source, which has become more useful in the past five years

2. Market research is being commissioned by a wide variety of client functions other than Marketing and Market Research. The client base has broadened considerably and this trend seems likely to continue, as market research becomes increasingly a mainstream rather than a specialist tool

3. Confidence appears to be growing in the usefulness of the Internet (presumably as a resource in its own right as well as a tool which makes market research easier to use and more widely accessible - http://www.b2binternational.com/aboutb2b/techniques/quantitative/esurveys.php ), and in technological developments which render market research ever more relevant to business issues eg online focus groups - http://www.b2binternational.com/library/whitepapers/whitepapers14.php

4. Smaller, independent market research consultants are widely used by research buyers because they have a broader skill set and can work with a more varied client base rather than just the conventional Market Research function

5. Independent consultants are valued for their creativity and problem-solving approach and the good working relationship that they build with clients – good listeners and stimulating to work with. These are important skills which need to be more widely developed in the market research industry.

6. The perception of large/global research agencies tends to be much more associated with offering standard off-the-shelf solutions rather than understanding the problem. They are seen to delegate to juniors and provide information rather than insight. This does not project the right image for the healthy future development of the industry

For more information on B2B International’s consultancy offering visit
http://www.b2binternational.com/services/consultancy_and_training/consultancy_services.php

This article can be viewed in its entirety at www.indepconsultants.org

from b2bsee * The Market Research Blog

This morning’s blog is interesting because it is a harbinger of things to come. We refer to an article in the Financial Times of Tuesday this week in which it talks of online research taking over other methods of data collection for Unilever. Since Unilever virtually invented market research in a commercial sense, we should take note of this.

In the US, 80% of Unilever’s research is now carried out online and the UK and Japan are likely to follow quickly in suit. There is an obvious reason for this. Online research is quicker and cheaper than the phone or face to face interviews. It is the reason for the stellar growth of companies such as YouGov, set up only 7 years ago and now worth £133 million on AIM.

Last week YouGov reported on four surveys in the national press and they were all broad consumer subjects - family breakdowns (Daily Mail), DIY shopping (Daily Express), web surfing (The Guardian/The Sun) and Gordon Brown’s suitability as prime minister (Sunday Times).

The question we business to business researchers must ask ourselves is “can it happen to us?” The problem here is getting the appropriate samples. YouGov has a panel of 150,000 respondents in the UK and they are all consumers. Of course, many consumers are like you and me – they have jobs – and so they could also answer a question in the capacity of their employment. However, that is not going to help a business to business company that wants to look at aircraft deicing fluids because we can be virtually certain that no one (unless we are very lucky) on the panel will be occupied in a job at an airport buying deicing fluids.

At the present, it seems that business to business market researchers will confine their research to customer surveys, using the customer lists (and potential customer lists) that have been built up within the company. Or they will use the panels to carry out surveys of SMEs where the large consumer panels can supply sufficient numbers of proprietors and managers in small businesses. However, what we do know is that most ideas that change the world begin as small dots on the radar screen and one day they can loom large. This online research dot is one that merits a constant watch and report. Enjoy the read and we would be interested in your opinions on this interesting subject.

Unilever to cash in on benefits of web research
By Carlos Grande,Marketing Correspondent Finanical Times April 17 2007

Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch food and personal products group, plans to increase the use of the internet as a market research tool, following the success of its web re-search in the US.
The percentage of Unilever’s US research conducted online has more than doubled to 80 per cent in five years. This is part of a long-term policy by the company to exploit the speed and low cost of the web to research customers’ behaviour.

While the US is its most advanced market, Unilever envisages similar trends in countries where internet access is widely available, such as the UK and Japan. The shift to internet pro-jects by Unilever, which spends an estimated €400m (£272.2m) a year on research, reflects the web’s accelerating impact on the global market research industry. Internet research advocates believe it produces results more quickly and cheaply than phone or face-to-face interviews and focus groups.

Chet Henderson, vice-president of Unilever Insight, the group’s research division, said the catalyst for putting projects online in any country was the point at which half the population had internet access -a figure the UK achieved in 2003. Mr Henderson said: “As soon as we get to that, we can get the benefits of the speed of internet research.”

Mr Henderson said that according to Unilever’s internal data testing, internet responses also tended to be more honest than those gained by traditional methods. “In some countries, people are far more honest on the internet,” he said.

The move to web research by big consumer groups underlines the business opportunity for internet-only research companies trying to grab business from established research networks.
Market research was worth about $16bn (£8bn) in the world’s five biggest territories in 2005, including $7.7bn in the US and $2.4bn in the UK.

Web researchers typically recruit a big panel of res-pondents via the internet and ask them to complete rapid response online questionnaires.

Webcams and online chatrooms are sometimes used to create virtual focus groups.

In Unilever’s case, it believes the web could be 10-20 per cent cheaper than traditional methods. Senior Unilever brand executives think that greater use of technology has gone hand in hand with a broader change in research approaches. Mr Henderson said: “Where you lose is in not being able to have a conversation. People type in a lot less than they say and online you miss the non-verbal way people signal their reactions.”

Nevertheless, Unilever believes it can exploit the web to conduct increasingly sophisticated research.

Gerardo Rozanksi, global brand vice-president of Rexona - the deodorant brand known as Sure in the UK - said: “We are shifting the focus into more strategic work. So we ask people less often, ‘What do you think about this specific product?’ and more about their lives and opinions in generic terms to give us the under-lying insights to come up with solutions.”

from b2bsee * B2B Blog

Whilst there is an increasing awareness in the corporate world of the need to manage global risk and security, the fact that limited budgets are allocated to security consultancy & advice means that interest in counter terrorism is very much event driven

Hazard Management Solutions Ltd (HMS) are specialists in advising commercial and government clients about the threat of terrorism and the risk management of that threat. Their clients include UK and foreign governments as well as corporate companies in the insurance, media, oil and pharmaceutical sectors. With increasing threats from terrorism becoming more prevalent in the last five years and in the foreseeable future, security has certainly risen up the corporate agenda. HMS commissioned B2B International to research the corporate market to find out what the opportunity was for counter terrorism consultancy in the corporate market and how they should enter the market.

Nick Hague, Director at B2B International and co-author of the report, feels that companies are now very aware of the threat of risks of all kinds. “Business is taking risk management seriously and addressing it with risk registers and risk management programmes. We certainly found that the terrorist threat is moving up the list of risk threats to join IT, fraud, and reputation. However, research shows that corporate businesses are not, as yet, spending lots of money or allocating annual budgets for security advice.”

The market research showed that corporate companies see risk as coming from a wide and diverse range of groups or specific people ranging from religious extremists, animal activists, Provisional IRA, Al Qaeda and loners through to the disenfranchised in society i.e. the young, the poor and the unemployed.

Risk management in the corporate market appears to be very event-driven – reactive rather than proactive. Risk does vary considerably over time, from company to company and according to their geography and industry sector. Corporate organisations face threats in a variety of scenarios from threats to their sites (buildings, offices, factories), their people (staff, customers, third parties), their IT infrastructure, goods and people in transit/logistics, and suppliers in the supply chain.

The research showed that respondents felt there are more pressures than ever before to mitigate risks; especially in high profile companies. Security is becoming a priority now and even a Board issue. However, whilst all companies interviewed believe that mitigating risk is vital to the running of their business, they believe they have dealt with the situation by taking on a security advisor.

Andy Cooper, business director at HMS, says they are a number of factors contributing to companies requiring solutions to the problems of security and risk. “Saturation of traditional markets is taking markets to more risky places, globalization has changed the structure and pace of modern life, there is more religious extremism and fanaticism than ever before. Many of the threats such as terrorism, organized crime and information security are asymmetric and networked, making them difficult to manage. There is also greater appreciation of the interdependence between a company’s risk portfolio and the way it does business as certain types of behaviour can enhance or undermine an organisation’s license to operate. New forms of accountability such as corporate governance and corporate social responsibility put added pressure on companies. Experienced and specialist firms such as HMS can manage and minimize the risk.”

An obstacle to the burgeoning of corporate top-level security firms may be the level of suspicion surrounding suppliers in the security arena. Many respondents expressed little faith in the security knowledge or expertise of security firms. The market appears to be very reputation-led with a high proportion of respondents saying that personal recommendation was the only way to choose and that trust was vital for a good working relationship.

The market research report concludes that the corporate security market must take its lead from business drivers rather than specific threats and security departments must expand their work far beyond the traditional security portfolio to include issues such as business continuity, reputation, risk management and corporate responsibility. The research also reinforced the fact that security firms who are delivering commercial security have to major on business, management and communications experience as much as actual security experience.

The market for anti-terrorist services amongst corporates at the moment is small but growing. The majority of businesses seem interested in ad hoc assignments costing a few thousand pounds, to advise them and work out a strategy, yet they would pay much more if in the middle of a crisis, hence being an event-driven market.

Methodology:
B2B International carried out interviews and online focus groups with Global Security Directors for multi-national companies in the power, transport, telecommunication, finance, hotel, tourism and petro-chemical industries.

About HMS - www.hazmansol.com
Hazard Management Solutions Ltd (HMS) is a leading player advising commercial and government clients about the terrorist threat, and the risk management of that threat. Its clients include government agencies, insurance companies, media, oil and the pharmaceutical industries.

from b2bsee * B2B Blog

In the B2B sector, market research tends to be viewed as an option rather than as a commercial imperative, particularly for smaller companies. However, knowledge is power and understanding the attitudes, preferences and/or perceptions of customers and potential customers towards a product, service or brand proposition is essential for any organisation seeking to expand its business.

When carried out well, market research cuts the risk out of marketing and enables more effective targeting, allowing companies to make the best use of opportunities and to reach new audiences. It takes perception and guesswork out of the equation and highlights problem areas; it also provides actionable recommendations in the face of internal disagreements.

Four useful tips to consider when planning research are:

Don’t do it for its own sake: It is important that companies consider whether or not they would benefit from conducting research every year. I don’t advocate doing research if they don’t need or use it but it is important to consider it seriously.

Set achievable objectives: Try not to do everything at once. Focus on areas of biggest impact and make a point of measuring the impact so that you can see ROI. This will act as an incentive to make a habit of it.

Don’t duplicate: Before you commission research, check that it has not already been done by someone else within your company.

Get advice if required: The bigger the project, the more sense it makes to use an agency. An agency will be able to advise you on what to do, guarantee to deliver findings and help you understand the implications for your business.

Remember, the cost of research may sometimes feel daunting but if you cost out your own time, you will realise it is an expensive occupation. The cost is hidden if you do it yourself because you don’t see the money going out of the door.

CASE STUDY – HAZARD MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS:

B2B International recently helped HMS to enter the corporate market for counter terrorism services. Its clients are predominantly government, law enforcement and military. “We saw we could expand into supporting civilian business and commerce but we were not sure how to go about it,” says Andy Cooper, business director of HMS, who approached B2B International. They jointly compiled a list of potential prospects, such as hotel groups, banks and petro-chemical companies and put together a telephone questionnaire regarding their needs. “When we got the data, we invited respondents to a two-day forum to look at products and a mock-up website that gave them an idea of the support we could give online. We got some very good guidance as to what we should and should not be doing and that helped us tailor the way we approach businesses,” he says. B2B international also conducted a branding workshop as part of the forum.

“I was very impressed with the way B2B International carried out the research and presented us with the results”, says Cooper. “We spent £16,000 on the campaign and I’d like to think we will make around 10-times that, if not more, in the first year.”

“An excellent service with some surprising results. The quality of delivery was excellent and the final deliverables second to none. I would highly recommend B2B to other companies” - Business Director HMS Ltd

from b2bsee * B2B Blog