By Aaron Field

Saturday Night Live really gets market research. Why else would they invent Einstein Express? “When it absolutely, positively, has to be there the day before yesterday.”

It is absolutely true that executives should think ahead of time so we can do quality research. It is also absolutely true that they do not. In fact the problem is even worse. Strategic decisions are much more likely to be urgent.

Worrying stat of the day: Important = Urgent

17% of relatively unimportant decisions are considered highly urgent. But a whopping 55% of important decisions are highly urgent in the eyes of executives.

So we need to be fast or strategic decisions will slip past. Two ways Research is beginning to cope:

Use existing information to quickly answer urgent requests. Motorola Mobility uses quick-fire teams to draw together existing information. How fast is it? They deliver fact-based information in as little as 24 – 48 hours.  Here is a really telling result. They’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of strategic requests. Because executives have the new confidence that Research runs at the pace of business.

Doing fast research: In the ideal world I would have a well-balanced, representative sample for all research. But pulse surveys, expert networks, and MROC’s are custom-made for directional information without the wait. And it’s not like executives aren’t doing it already. DIY research (aptly named SurveyMonkey) or even worse – chatting with random customers.

The classic research project is both more precise and reliable – in short more right. But today the absent of right isn’t wrong – it is irrelevance. It makes me very uncomfortable as a researcher but fast is as important as right. The most impactful research departments are learning to be a little bit of both.

MREB members, learn more about Motorola Mobility’s Quick-Fire teams here.

From à la mode To à la carte

Burgundy is apparently the new black this season. Or, as the luxury brand Salvatore Ferragamo calls it, “ox blood”, a less romantic shade but equally pricey. While the priests of high fashion tend to set the agenda, in research it’s the other way around with business partners dictating what is à la mode every season/quarter. Not infrequently, by the time market research scrambled to get a piece of research done as ordered, business partners’ interest has already shifted somewhere else.

Market research is certainly not blind to this constant lag in relevance and subsequent lack of influence.  Our survey of market researchers this year shows they are keenly aware of the gap between how many people in each function could benefit from MR’s insight and how many actually do. Without going into details in the graph below, let me direct your attention to one data point: MR estimates that 89% of sales people could benefit from MR’s insight yet is currently only able to influence 49%. This means 40 reps in 100 are deprived of some valuable MR information which could potentially help them cross-sell, up-sell or build better customer relationships, think of that in terms of lost revenue.

Our most progressive members bridge these knowledge gaps by following an “à la carte” approach instead – building a menu of foundational knowledge topics aimed at providing smart answers to non-strategic requests while deploying its best people to tackle strategic ad hoc items. The process of constructing such a platform could be simpler than you think:

• Select topics for long term, cross-functional/ cross-geographical relevance. It’s worth spending time finding overarching themes and identifying drivers for future growth. Alticor does it through a “top down + bottom up” approach while GM decides on topics based on whether it’s slotted for “Comprehensive Learnings” or the one-page “Customer Pulse”.
• Let business partners choose how much they want to read. Alticor’s strategic reports runs about 15-25 pages, yet allows skimming by highlighting key points and graphics. Alpha Company’s Foundational Knowledge Platform is in the style of a wiki, which is both broad and deep, but consists of bite-sized nuggets of info which makes it easy to use.
• Piggyback on existing channels for insight distribution. Since most of the work was done in choosing, reorganizing and repositioning content, little investment is needed on the distribution side. Intranets and newsletters are voted the most popular distribution channels, but secured drives are another option if access needs to be restricted. 

With the recession leading to businesses moving beyond the confines of the company headquarters, we see companies exploring new ways to retain and continue tapping into their pool of experts. A strategic decision gaining ground is to allow employees to work remotely. Increasingly, research teams too are moving from co-located (located in one office) teams to geographically dispersed teams.

Dispersed team structures can offer huge benefits — efficiency, cost savings, and the ability to choose team members with the best skills, regardless of their location. While this structure has its advantages, ask any manager (even the most experienced) and you’ll hear – “managing a dispersed research team presents huge challenges.” Think – distrust and lack of visibility, gap in knowledge-sharing and, the absence of a feeling of a “team”.

Despite tackling these challenges with tried-and-tested solutions which involve senior leadership support, increased managerial time and org-wide investments (e.g., technology and training), managers still struggle to get the manager-team member equation right in a dispersed set-up.

Why is it that companies fail in spite of their best efforts? MREB’s study on Managing Dispersed Research Teams shows that there are hidden “softer” pitfalls that are overlooked by most managers. The secret lies in knowing what signs to watch out for and working consistently to getting to the bottom of them.

Take a closer look at what effective managers of dispersed research teams do differently, and how they realign their management approach on three key areas:

1. Improve Employee Engagement
2. Provide Career Support
3. Foster Knowledge Sharing

In their upcoming book The Challenger Sale, our colleagues at the Sales Executive Council upend traditional sales wisdom.  Surveying over 6,000 sales reps across geographies and industries, they identified 5 rep profiles:

1. The Hard Worker
2. The Problem Solver
3. The Challenger
4. The Relationship Builder
5. The Lone Wolf

And they found that reps in only one of these profiles consistently outperforms the others—the Challenger.  Challengers use their deep understanding their customers’ business to push their thinking and control the sales conversation.  And how do they gain this deep understanding?  Cue Research!

In a recent HBR blog, my colleagues Matt Dixon and Brent Adamson outlined how reps at W.W, Grainger changed their sales approach, going from asking the customer what’s keeping them up at night to focusing on a series of proprietary insights that Grainger has developed about the customers that prompt them to think differently about how to manage spending.  All of the sudden, the sales reps are able to show customers what SHOULD be keeping them up at night (and how Grainger can help them solve the problem).

Research is a great partner to help embed insight into the sales process, and many of you may see an uptick in interest from your sales team once The Challenger Sale is released on November 10.  So, where to start? 

MREB members, check out our essay on A New Research-Sales Partnership to read how progressive research departments drive revenue performance.  Then see how Condé Nast’s research team designed a comprehensive program that delivers consistent and effective sales support.

We all know that the business questions are best answered when we examine multiple data sources.  As researchers, we have always worked to improve our knowledge management so that we can use existing information to help inform strategic decisions.  Over the years, we accumulate more and more information, making our existing knowledge more and more valuable to our companies, if only we had a systematic way of truly knowing what we have already learned.

To capitalize on your existing knowledge, you need to capture it and dedicate specific resources to synthesize it:

• Capture Existing Knowledge-you must acquire access to and organize information available throughout the organization (not just the information that Research manages) so that it can be integrated with research sources as these are applied to business needs.
• Synthesize Data-unlock the latent potential of past studies and organizational knowledge by implementing a formal synthesis process and integrating synthesis into researcher responsibilities.

For additional information on the synthesis process, take a look at these resources:

• Don’t Be Right, Be Interesting
• Knowing What we Know: 4 Steps to Begin a Synthesis Project
• Connecting the Dots—Using Kindergarten Tools to Build Narrative Synthesis
• 4 Steps to Selling Synthesis Insights

And tune back in soon for more information on communicating and embedding your knowledge throughout the organization.

In Moneyball Brad Pitt turns a tiny little team into a huge success. How so? The power of analysis! Too good to be true? We think not.

We know that companies that understand their market will outperform competitors, and for our companies we are the voice of superior customer understanding.

A recent Market Research Executive Board survey asked 291 senior and junior level business line partners whether they believe that “Customer Focus is Critical to My Company’s success”. The answer was overwhelmingly yes, with 95% of both Senior- and Junior-level decision makers strongly agreeing or agreeing with the statement. 

So we are all on the same page in thinking that customer focus is important. But is it empirically?

A stream of research on Market Orientation has sought to examine a linkage between a focus on markets and customers and company performance (See The Capabilities of Market-Driven Organizations, George Day, The Journal of Marketing, October 1994; The Effect of a Market Orientation on Business Profitability, Naver and Slater, 1990). General consensus amongst these academic articles is yes, “Market orientation positively affects various measures of performance, such as overall business performance, profits, sales, and market share” (Market Orientation: A Meta-Analytic Review and Assessment of Its Antecedents and Impact on Performance, Kirca, Jayachandran, & Bearden, Journal of Marketing, April 2005).

Great. So it does matter, but can we show that the Market Research Department is pivotal in this relationship?

In the same survey of business decision makers, we asked whether they believed that their “MR Department Is a Thought Partner”. Answers were fairly dispersed:

Market Research is a Thought Partner

We took this information from survey contributors, and matched it against data showing the performance of their companies relative to other companies in their industries (S&P 1500 Industry Indexes, ratio of 5 year total shareholder return for company to industry average, n=85 companies), and the results were in the best possible way unsurprising:

Ratio of company to industry performance, separated by “Market Research is a Thought Partner” responses:

Those companies where company decision makers believe that market research is a thought partner have been performing better relative to others in their industries. Everyone can quibble with the data but the point is – lots of different studies agree. Customer focus drives business success.

So how can Market Research achieve valuable thought partner status, and achieve shareholder returns for their company?

In the Analysis and Insight topic center on the Market Research Executive Board website, we lay out several ways to create an environment conducive to insight generation, get beyond conventional wisdom, and Increase researchers’ ability to convert insights into compelling recommendations for business partners.

All right, Netflix has apologized to me, not just once, three times. Reed Hastings told me he “messed up” in an email last week, he also repeated himself in long form on the Netflix blog, then went on to deliver it face-to-face with colleague Andy Rendich on YouTube with a trashcan and service entrance in the background.

Being a customer, I wasn’t impressed, not because I believe Netflix has its strategy all wrong, but because they’ve missed a great opportunity. People pay attention to contrarian messages, but instead of delivering a brave statement about the future of media Netflix made many confusing statements. Saying something confusing in three different places won’t make it clearer.

If only this is a Netflix problem.

While you may not be communicating strategy and insights to the layman like Netflix, it is the same lesson for dialogues within the company.  Channel, again, is the easiest thing to change when communication turns ineffective (You didn’t read my email? Try this powerpoint presentation), but this effort is largely wasted. So what does get us listened to?  Our analysis on information consumption reveals two lessons:

• Relevance is Key: Other members of your company pay attention to relevant information that is targeted, accessible and field-tested. Sending irrelevant information in any channel is useless.
• Give them Value: People pay attention to valuable information that is targeted, gives clear recommendation, and stays unbiased and accessible. Sending low-value information in any channel is equally useless.

Knowing this, I’d start by making sure that the information I communicate is targeted and accessible. You say that different people have different definitions of relevance and value? Here’re two things you can do to solve that problem:

• Reach the right people. Don’t try to be all things to all people. Instead Market researchers at Nokia maximize their communication impact using a “power/attitude matrix” to map the power structure which allows them to identify and target company leaders.
• Work with instead of against human nature, take them through your thought process and show how your vision/insight benefits them. Wellpoint’s Internal Knowledge Marketing Plan path business partners by showing them the gap between current and desired understanding of customers and links research insight to strategic direction.  Finding it hard for employees to selflessly help each other on a regular basis, Sabre Holdings built “Sabre Town”, a knowledge transfer network which increases relevance to each individual by allowing self-grouping based on common interest.

For Netflix, this teddy bear version of events is sadly accurate:

Customer intercepted by Reed Hastings: Have you interacted with an actual human being before?

Reed Hastings: 010001011101011…………

I guess that’s a no.

What does the word empower mean to you? As an individual it might conjure up feelings of freedom, control, authority, ownership. When each of us feels a sense of autonomy, mastery, and purpose at work, we bring our best selves everyday and thrive.

But, as a manager, the word empower can conjure something very different—chaos. It means losing control, taking on risk, exposing the ego, relying on others but being accountable for results. Leaders and managers don’t publicly fear empowerment; they often advocate for the right and authority for employees to make decisions and feel ownership, but then find it difficult to act on.

This summer my colleagues in the Communications Executive Council shared 20 tips for empowerment from GlaxoSmithKline, and they have allowed us to share some of their research with you.

10 Ways to Empower Your Team

Open up Decision-Making

1. Clarify extent of decision-making authority without manager approval.

2. When leading a meeting, get everyone else’s opinion before expressing your own.

Build Confidence

3. Reward and recognize employees who act in an empowered way.

4. Paint an exciting vision of the future to help employees develop their own plans to achieve the vision.

Clearly Define Expectations

5. Spend more time at the beginning of a project to determine its scope and goals.

6. Ensure that each individual on your team understands what they are accountable for.

Support Risk Taking

7. Do not penalize mistakes; create opportunities for individuals to share what they’ve learned.

8. Share problems and challenges transparently to create a sense of team unity and support.

Encourage Communication

9. Encourage your team to take a dialogue or personality assessment, and then share results with the team.

10. Embed time in project planning for idea sharing and feedback from the team (not just the manager).

Empowerment may sound wishy-washy, but it can carry huge weight when backed up by the actions of leaders at your company. And for research, fostering an empowered team doesn’t just mean a happier, more effective group—it means better Insights. An environment that supports risk taking and builds confidence for the team  will improve team dynamics and Research’s impact on corporate strategy.

Visit the CEC site to get the full 20 Ways to Empower Your Team, inspired by GlaxoSmithKline’s CPSE group.

Related resources:

• The Key Drivers of Insight
• Diageo’s Judgment-Focused Research Guidelines
• Corning’s Hypothesis-Based Research Process
• Kimberly-Clark’s Strategy Internalization Process

You’re on a road and have lost your way. What’s the best thing to do? Simple! Ask for directions. Well, it’s not as simple as it sounds. You need to find a person who knows the way, and also need to ask the right question. Otherwise, you’ll end up going down the wrong road again.

The open innovation scenario is somewhat similar. Many companies have jumped on the open innovation bandwagon but find their efforts going down the wrong track—reaping only incremental innovations at best. Ever wonder why your efforts don’t generate breakthroughs?

Well, the Board has the answer. Here are 2 things Research needs to implement to generate truly breakthrough ideas from open innovation:

• Recruit exceptional talent: Some people believe that including a large number of participants would increase their chances of generating breakthrough ideas. However, innovation is not a numbers game. It doesn’t matter how many participants you reach out to, rather it’s the quality of talent that matters. You should restrict the range of participants to select few individuals/firms, such as lead users and subject matter experts, who have the potential to see beyond the average.
• Ask specific questions: Presenting broad topics and expecting pointed ideas is like asking for the moon. Participants feel directionless when they are asked open-ended questions and therefore end up giving average inputs. You need to give them specific topics/questions to focus on in order to generate valuable responses.

MREB members, learn more about this targeted open innovation for generating breakthroughs and how you can facilitate internal stakeholders and external participants to work together.

As someone who wants to Google my keys if I can’t find them, a big, thick book is not where I usually go looking for information – especially when I’m in a hurry.

Unfortunately market research often reads like a “big, thick book” – chock full of information but impossible to use. Faced with a ream of information can you really blame business partners for asking Google? I do it all the time.

Turns out that big, thick tomes of information do serve a purpose – making people feel good. In a recent survey, business executives were most confident in a decision being “well thought out” when the supporting research was “comprehensive” and “accurate.”

But when asked if the supporting research made a difference in the business decision (not feeling good but having impact). A very different picture emerged. “Making a difference” requires market research to do at least one of two things: say something new or say something contrarian.

Now you may want to argue that one can drive business impact by making people feel good, we looked into that possibility too and found that the correlation between those two concepts is nearly zero — 0.006 to be exact. What it means is that while comprehensive and accurate information (the kind Research tends to provide) makes a decision appear “well thought out”, it does not “make a difference” in the decision process. If it is up to me, I’d stop massaging people’s ego and start sharing some news worthy information.

The first and most important step towards achieving that is knowing what’s news. What do people know already? What would be newsworthy to them?

• Proactively ask and help business partners articulate their needs and visions. This involves getting them to think at a level beyond silos and short term objectives. Johnson & Johnson avoided overlapping, low impact projects by getting research to work with business partners on identifying and prioritizing unknowns through a “Strategy-Driven Learning Agenda”. Similarly, Eli Lilly launched a “I Wish I Knew” process for business partners aimed at finding game changing questions that can improve understanding across the board.
• Find out what they know, then tell them what they don’t.  Instead of blindly throwing darts at the wall hoping to hit a pain point, asking business partners probing questions before and during the research process help eliminate much of the uncertainty regarding what and how to present. Members, see how one company discovered this through their “problem diagnosis and scoping process”.