In business-to-business research the devil is often in the details

The challenge of fieldwork

Editor’s note: Owen Jenkins is managing director of research firm Kadence Boston.

In the last 10 to 15 years, business-to-business (B2B) research has made a transition from  being centered on generating sales leads to becoming a marketing-focused tool. Even though many fundamentals of consumer research apply, B2B research requires a different execution in the field. Professional respondents are still people, and have similar motivations to consumers, however the environment in which they make decisions - and where research is fielded - is different.

B2B market researchers are faced with many challenges when undertaking fieldwork such as insufficient sample sizes, dubious data quality and a significantly higher cost for conducting the study. This article asks why B2B fieldwork is so demanding and how the issues faced can be overcome.

Greater emphasis

It seems that competition within the B2B marketplace has intensified recently, with greater emphasis placed on developing targeted B2B marketing strategies. As a result, clients have increased their requests for solid B2B research and specialized B2B market research companies have seen steady growth across industries as varied as agriculture, health care, IT and telecoms.

In the absence of extensive consumer-like panels, successful B2B research companies have responded to this demand by using a wide range of primary fieldwork methodologies.

What are the differences between B2B and consumer research? Many skills and methods are transferable between the two disciplines. However, it has been my experience that the challenge of interviewing the right respondents within relevant companies offers an interesting and sometimes exasperating barrier to successful research.

In B2B fieldwork, it takes longer to find and qualify respondents, it is harder to elicit cooperation and stronger incentives are often required to encourage participation. Business interviews require specialist interviewers who can connect with executives and who understand the challenges involved.

Good planning

Effective research requires good planning. This is true for both consumer and B2B. Table 1 illustrates an example plan linking business objectives to outcome. Good pre-fieldwork planning can have an enormous impact on the fieldwork phase, resulting in cost-effective research and solid data. The challenges of B2B fieldwork relate to two of those strategy questions illustrated in the table: “Who has that information?” and “Can we capture the information in a valid and reliable manner?”

Table 1: Research strategy planning

1. What decision do we need to make?

2. What information will help us make the right decision?

3. Who has that information?

4. Are they willing and able to give it to us?

5. Do we understand their point of reference?

6. Can we capture the information in a valid and reliable manner?

7. How will we analyze the information?

8. What is the cost and how long will it take?

Gathering information

B2B marketing strategies require an understanding not only of the external market dynamic and internal corporate structure but also the decision-making process of the organizations involved. A B2B market researcher is required to relate to their client and their business needs and at the same time understand the structures of the businesses in which the respondents work to ensure the correct person is spoken to.

A recent example observed by Kadence was that of decision-making in the golf course business. Golf courses have a superintendent who maintains the course and a manager who runs the business. The superintendent recognizes the need for a new piece of maintenance equipment (for example a greens mower) and submits the request in the annual budget. The manager approves the budget. Who has the greatest influence on the purchase decision?

As the example demonstrates, business decisions are often group efforts, with information gatherers working alongside end users of a product, managers of end users and vendor selectors. One popular option is to “follow the money,” which may lead you to the decision maker, but more likely the finance department. These respondents may be aware of the products and services being purchased, however they are often unfamiliar with the detailed attributes of the product/service being researched.

It is therefore essential that within B2B research a very clear description of the responsibilities of the respondent is established. It is vital that time is spent clarifying this with the client and ensuring that any research undertaken meets the information needs.

As a group is involved in making business decisions, this can also lead to other split decisions, an example of which is in the information technology sector. Technicians in the IT department are responsible for ensuring that new technology is compatible with the existing infrastructure and standards, but it is the business professionals using the equipment that drive the need, and they will be involved in the decision-making process to ensure that the technology helps to achieve business objectives. Clients that we have worked with have identified that the business mangers can find the money to invest in improved productivity while IT departments are viewed as an administrative cost and have limited spend.

Another important factor when discussing purchasing habits with a respondent is establishing if it operates a preferred vendor list. This is particularly true in undertaking government research where vendors are screened to meet a set of specifications. The purchaser then picks between vendors.

For example, Kadence was asked to undertake a relatively simple project to understand why nursing homes purchased a certain housekeeping product. Research initially started by asking for the person responsible for the purchase of housekeeping products. While it was apparent that the initial respondents knew all about the product and its uses, they only renewed orders from  a pre-agreed vendor list but were not involved in choosing the vendors that would qualify.

Recommendation: Business decision–making is often a complicated team effort. Asking a field team to interview the “key decision maker” is asking for unreliable data. The market researcher must understand the decision process and target the specific roles within this process.

Replicating the interview

The task now moves to replicating the interview on a quantitative scale. Our firm often receives requests for proposals to interview high-level respondents in well-known companies of the Fortune 500. Respondents in such a survey would hypothetically include individuals who you may know by name such as Michael Dell, Larry Ellison and Steve Ballmer. Such a request is financially prohibitive and practically impossible to complete. Additionally, the data quality may be uncertain. For although the respondent has a comprehensive, macro view of the company, their understanding of ground-level processes is limited, and often, this is the data required.

It is also difficult to extrapolate data from  such large companies as their internal processes are so unique that they cannot be combined to create generic recommendations from the study. In such circumstances, where a particular company does need to be included in a survey, we recommend conducting an in-depth, independent investigation of their purchasing procedures.

Many B2B market studies do not center on the Fortune 500, and valid, reliable data can be obtained from  a robust sampling frame. This requires an accurate estimate of the sample universe. Below are some hints to help this process:

• Companies can be hard to define

Most business researchers start with a definition of industries under investigation using Standard Industry Classifications (SICs) or the more recent North American Industry Classification System. As with any standard of classification, these can be clunky: Companies are classified under more than one SIC or definitions can be too broad. It is also important to realize that classifications are not transferable across countries - for example, U.K.  and U.S. SICs are not the same.

SICS are also based on company output - that is, the product they manufacture or the service they offer. Your research is more likely to be linked to a business process which will take further defining. We have conducted IT surveys investigating companies with large data processing requirements. We worked with the client to focus on industries such as media, entertainment and financial services but still needed to qualify by phone.

• Most companies are small

According to a government census, 73 percent of businesses have under 10 employees¹. The actual figure may be even higher as the government census does not include companies with no paid employees, such as the self-employed. A study based on a random database sample will result in the majority of interviews taking place with smaller companies. It is essential that you inform your client of this before undertaking the project.

• Business databases date quickly

One of the strengths of the U.S.  economy is that it creates a large number of jobs each year. It also loses jobs through increased productivity, outsourcing and other attrition. Eighty percent of businesses do not survive five years. The majority of lost companies are small businesses but large companies are sold, merged or acquired. The roles and responsibilities of employees also change at a high pace - just look in your address book. Assuming the data on your sample was correct at the beginning, it will not be for long. Therefore, B2B researchers need to not only check information before commencing an interview but also ensure its viability throughout the study.

• Client databases

A B2B market researcher may sigh with relief when they hear that the client is supplying a database. However, our firm has noticed that these can be more difficult to obtain than originally promised - in other words, extremely slow to arrive. As client databases are not held for commercial purposes, they may need to be de-duped and formatted. This can result in a B2B researcher’s IT department requesting a week to prepare an unknown client database compared to one hour for commercial data from  a provider such as Dun & Bradstreet.

• Incidences

Two B2B projects with the same incidence can have widely different fieldwork costs - depending on how easy it is to discover the qualifying attribute. Qualifying questions that can only be answered by the potential respondent will involve an expensive screen-out process as three levels of respondents will need to be spoken to: receptionist, departmental (gatekeeper) and target respondent. Using qualifying questions that can be answered by the receptionist is much cheaper but is less accurate.

We recommend - where screen-outs are costly - to interview non-users of the product or service being researched, allowing the study to build a competitive map.

Understand the market

Valid and reliable data is achievable in business research by choosing partners who understand the market and the needs of the fieldwork phase and by investing time and resources into the selection and preparation of databases.

To achieve a good outcome for a B2B client it is important to ensure that the fieldwork is executed in a professional manner and that the respondents involved are relevant to the study. Our firm has been surprised by client experiences in this area caused by consumer research practices being replicated in the business environment. Although the techniques are the same, the complexity of the sample and the number of individuals involved changes the fieldwork activity dramatically. 

Footnote

1 County Business Patterns / Release Date: 12/31/2006
Sector 00: 2004 County Business Patterns: Geography Area Series: County Business Patterns by Employment Size Class: 2004.