Professional Development – you don’t know what you don’t know!

Having recently assumed the chair of the AMSRS’s Professional Development Program, the first thing that struck me was the enormous range and diversity of subject matter one has to command these days to be a truly effective market researcher. The extent of knowledge required makes it even more important to encourage continuous learning if we are to retain the value of MR as a profession in both the commercial and social sphere.

At the risk of over-simplifying, there wasn’t that much to learn in the late 70s to early 80s. If you were capable of questionnaire design, understood stats and a bit of sampling, could analyse data, and maybe present with some coherence you could work in a research company.

Watching and Listening – An Alternative to Direct Questioning?

In the early 90′s, the ‘tagline’ of a leading Japanese agency’s brochure was ‘the key to understanding was to read between the lines of what was not said’. Two decades later, Shobha Prasad re-visited the issue focusing on the layering and subtleties of Asian languages in ‘Listening to the Sounds of Silence’ at ESOMAR’s APAC Conference.

As Asia grows more healthy, wealthy, and wired, superficially its consumers resemble their Western counterparts. Sometimes even, having leapfrogged technological lifecycles, they appear more advanced. Nevertheless, although these new trappings bring an almost ‘stateless’ vocabulary to the world’s languages, the fundamental challenges of interpreting local cultural nuance and international comparisons remain.

Direct questioning methods is felt to be (even) less effective in Asia due to language structure, cultural norms, and social convention. Asian consumers are often not so forthcoming with opinions than Western ones – although researchers in Mumbai or Manila may well disagree. The real issue, though, is the huge variety of expression, both verbally and visually. As well as vocabulary and sentence structure, different expressions also support communication. Cultures displaying emotion less conservatively usually have the mouth as the main focus; a culture that masks its feelings focuses more subtly on the eyes when determining emotion. So, visual cues can be equally important to gauge underlying sentiments.

The Fine Line between Passion and Pride

I spoke recently, on separate occasions, to a couple of colleagues now at major research buyers. Interestingly, both commented on what they saw as a ‘decline in passion’ from all but their most specialised (i.e. smaller or niche) suppliers.

Both felt that, as well as the harder times in the market economies generally bringing everyone down, the organisational changes arising from consolidation in the industry may also be playing a part in this emotional change. In particular, the increased prevalence of personnel policies, necessitated by organisational complexity, was thought to be a key factor. The structures imposed by such were driving the ‘star players’ upwards (to staff roles) or outwards at many of the larger companies in favour of safe but not necessarily inspiring performers.

The Self-Healing Powers of The Organisation – don’t take yourself too seriously!

What is it that links F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Dame Margot Fonteyn? All, I’m sure amongst others, have been accredited with a quote to the effect of “Take your job seriously, not yourself”. In other words, at the workplace, it’s what you do not who you are that impacts and influences your colleagues.

When you move on from an organisation do it with grace regardless of circumstances. Over the years I have seen some many people leaving organizations in states of the highest dudgeon or under the lowest cloud, convinced to the core that the company will rue the day it let them go. And, the company never, ever does.

The Talent Gap in Asia-Pac….The Noose Tightens.

It wasn’t just the rapid economic growth in Asia-Pacific’s research industry’s first 20 years which caused demand to outstrip the supply of trained researchers. Three other key elements interacted to keep downward pressure on the depth of expertise available, namely:-

1. Rationalisation and polarisation due to successive waves of merger and acquisition, where 6-7 companies now cover half the industry’s revenue.
2. The increasing complexity of the services from agencies and the skills needed to deliver them
3. The trend within the client (researcher buyer) community over the past 15-20 years to move from local, to regional, to global decision-making in the marketing function.
   

   Plenty of Consumers, but where's the Market Researchers? (c) A.Gordon 2007.

The implications of these “big-picture” structural changes are not as obvious as the “demand/supply” issue, but they have had an equally dramatic effect, so it’s worth looking at each of these in turn:-

Nowadays, those who work for large research agencies rarely work with a director early in their career but more likely with a manager who will not be as experienced or expert. By contrast, many of the leading researchers in Europe learnt their skills when companies were smaller so received good training from directors directly. At the other end of the spectrum in Asia today, those working with the smaller, usually more specialist or ‘niche’ agencies, will work direct with a senior, even the proprietor. They get the higher level of mentoring but often over a spectrum too narrow on which to build a long term career.

Post-recession, a new world order for MR

Seems everybody is making their predictions about 2010 and Market Research, so I thought I’d add some of my own.  Despite many forecasts of turmoil and revolution in the industry,  I actually think that on a worldwide basis we will see a short-term burst of fairly conventional research (old-style surveys, FGD’s etc.).

Is The Writing on The Wall For Market Research?
(c) 2009, A. Gordon.

There is simply a lot of catch-up to be done, and much information that needs up-dating. However, as  mentioned in an earlier post, this bump in conventional activity is likely to mask some fundamental threats to research firms who see the upturn as a return to “business as usual”. So for what it is worth, here is what I think will be the “big 3″ trends over the next year or two:

1. New industry structures and refocus on thriving Asia. Not simply consolidation, but completely new types of owners. Many mid-level companies in developed markets may falter – survival is likely to be determined by flexibility in adapting products and ability to expand outside the home base. Simultaneously, lesser known Asian companies will grow rapidly based on the support of local, cash-rich, clients.
2. Rise of “triangulation” – we will start to see exciting combinations of methodologies/analytic approaches creating better insights.  This in turn drives intelligent software and demand for researchers possessing either in-depth expertise, or a wide appreciation of diverse methods (e.g. panel + qualitative).  No middle ground.
3. MR Cost focus now on executive productivity as severe talent shortages grip research. This is driven by cut-backs in the recession, emerging markets growth, and demand for new skill sets, ‘Fast-Tracking’ staff and enhancing productivity becomes increasingly paramount.  Most MR companies have got their back-office operation lean already – now comes the harder (but ultimately more important) work to relook at total research processes and the “human elements”.

So, as you (I hope) get busier in the next year with all the catch-up business that comes in, don’t get so caught up in the day-to-day of pushing projects out the door that you overlook some of the significant changes in the air!

New: Extras Tab

We’ve added an “Extras” page to the blog (click on tab above),  as a place to put items that may interst, but perhaps don’t quite fit into the main themes of our blog. First up are some “wordles” and fun analysis we did of the home pages of the major MR company’s websites.  Check it out to see what is the number one word is across the sites, and which sites use the most similar language!