A global consensus

Editor’s note: Shaan Rotolo is principal partner, and Kerry Cole is global research manager, with Behavioral Insights, a New York research firm.

Deciding to expand into new markets is easy. It’s deciding how to get there successfully that can be problematic. One of the world’s largest providers of IT services was ready to strengthen its presence among small and medium businesses, but needed to understand how the needs of those businesses differed from those of the larger corporations with which the IT provider was more closely identified. Which communication channels would be most effective? What mix of base features would the markets prefer? What portfolio of services would encourage small and medium businesses to reconsider how they were currently addressing their IT needs? Which delivery models would provide the greatest value - both real and perceived - to customers?

The answers to those and a host of other questions would be critical to success in launching a suite of services in a highly competitive market, and the IT provider enlisted the help of our firm, Behavioral Insights, in answering them. The research team recognized that the real measure of value for the IT firm’s research investment would be not only the quality of the information collected but also how well the information was used across the organization to achieve desired outcomes.

Acceptance and utilization

One challenge that sometimes arises in doing international studies with large corporations is that of facilitating the acceptance and utilization of results between corporate headquarters and local client teams in diverse cultures. With that in mind, the team used a collaborative approach that often helps organizations to strengthen teamwork and productivity. In essence this process sought input and feedback from local as well as corporate representatives of the IT firm throughout the entire research process. The approach was the research team’s solution to ensuring that local markets accepted and integrated the eventual findings.

Behavioral Insights conducted 456 in-depth, face-to-face interviews, targeting a hard-to-reach but important audience of CEOs, CFOs, IT executives and business executives across eight countries. The markets included New York, San Francisco, Toronto, London, Munich, Berlin, Milan, Singapore, Tokyo and Sydney .

In keeping with the strategic plan for global acceptance of the research results, local staff were included at every step, from formulating questions and discussion guides to assessing responses. Bridging the gap between corporate staff and local managers not only increased internal communication and knowledge but also was important in eliminating the U.S.-centered approach that too often results when U.S.-based companies commission important international research.

Local teams, who ultimately are responsible for implementing the actions that grow out of the research findings, add essential cultural and market-specific perspectives that are available only through those who are intimately familiar with them. The IT company was careful, however, to pull together people who could make decisions without additional approval, and who would raise important considerations without being sidetracked by less valuable conversations.

Additionally, the collaborative effort increases buy-in of the research across the organization, and decreases the likelihood that local teams will claim global research doesn’t fit their markets. Instead, collaboration leads to actionable results that the entire organization can use to meet corporate requirements without sacrificing essential cultural nuances.

Streaming video

Another integral component of collaboration was streaming digital video recordings of the in-depth interviews that corporate and local team members could access 24 hours a day, regardless of which time zone was involved. This offered a number of advantages, not least of which was that it allowed more people to participate without incurring onerous additional travel expenses. Those who agreed to view at least three videos online and complete short questionnaires to help process what they’d seen were later invited to participate in online focus groups.

Attendance at traditional focus groups usually is skewed toward middle managers, in part because senior executives don’t have time to travel to attend. More junior personnel may have the time, but not the budget or the authority, to participate. With video technology, personnel at all levels and all locations could get a sense of the atmosphere in which the research was conducted, as well as seeing and hearing firsthand what their colleagues and customers were thinking.

Throughout the video process, the research team was careful to maintain security and confidentiality. Sessions were never transmitted over a third-party network, and Behavioral Insights team members kept abreast of rapidly changing legislation in the countries in which the videos were used. As an example, under Japanese law, respondents’ faces could not be shown in streamed video sessions.

Valuable though videoconferencing has become, however, the research team recognized that it could not and should not be used to replace well-conducted focus groups or interviews in the qualitative research process. Instead, video technology was an adjunct to the interviews.

Online workshops

Three weeks after the fieldwork for this project was complete, the research team had prepared preliminary reports. A week later, they began inviting team members from across the IT company’s global locations to online workshops to discuss the videos they had seen and the preliminary findings. Researchers gained top management support to encourage participation, but limited invitations to those who had seen the minimum number of videos and completed questionnaires.

In interactive sessions, the corporate team shared local knowledge that prompted discussions of regional differences and how the global findings could be customized to accommodate those nuances. These discussions also led to higher-order action about how these differences could be leveraged company-wide.

The videos became the catalyst for putting ideas on the table, where they could be assessed from varying viewpoints. The research team was careful to caution participants against making broad generalizations from the relatively few videos they had seen, but also recognized that when such generalizations occurred they could be used to good advantage.

When participants’ conclusions were at odds with those of the research team, the team took care to support their claims with evidence from the research. They also encouraged dissent and discussion, while consistently looking for the reasons that data didn’t reflect the company’s expectations. The process ensured that the research remained as objective as possible and that it accurately reflected the IT firm’s needs and desires. At the same time, it established an atmosphere of trust and understanding among all those involved.

Cross-pollination

The end result of the workshops was a cross-pollination of knowledge that brought greater corporate-wide understanding of the challenges each market would face in presenting the new service portfolio to its customers. At the same time, participants came away with heightened motivation to succeed and some workshop-stimulated ideas on how to proceed.

The success of any cross-cultural global qualitative research project depends on the extent to which everyone involved feels the process is one of internal dialogue and discovery, rather than external diagnosis and prescription. By uniting the diverse, yet complementary, views of marketing and organization science, the research team realigned varying IT company managers’ styles and organizational policies into a cohesive entity capable of looking objectively at the data collected.

Removing cross-cultural barriers also helped remove any internal organizational barriers - barriers that too often hinder how research insight is disseminated and applied across the organization. Qualitative research is, by definition, about people. The complex human systems involved in any undertaking or organization can be difficult to comprehend, but they are the key to the successful launch of an enduring, productive implementation.

The final component of the project was a senior executive workshop that tied the previous weeks’ work into implications that were examined from a broader strategic level. That workshop, conducted a week after the corporate team workshops had been completed, led to a final report that provided the insights the company needed to translate research findings into actions that could impact the bottom line.

In the process, the researchers also learned some lessons. Their advice for future efforts includes:

  • Understand the benefits and disadvantages of technology in research, and recognize that no one technology is appropriate for every organization.
  • Before showing recorded qualitative sessions, caution viewers about jumping to hasty conclusions. Encourage viewers to consider attributes such as atmosphere, question order and types of respondents rather than making generalizations about the research before data collection and analysis is complete.
  • In international research, seek feedback from local as well as corporate markets throughout the scope of the research project, and adopt a culturally sensitive methodology to increase acceptance and implementation.
  • Encourage internal dialogue in the client organization and use workshops to help facilitate it. Work to bridge the gap between local and corporate teams, and build open communication that will ultimately increase the likelihood of success.
  • Maintain security and confidentiality when broadcasting anything over the Internet, and stay abreast of the laws regarding data security in each country the research is conducted in.
  • Trust the data. Encourage dissent and look for reasons the data isn’t what the client expected, but understand that it is often easier for clients to dismiss solid research findings than to examine and accept what the data indicates.

Rich process

Working with Behavioral Insights researchers, the IT firm discovered how to position its portfolio for maximum effect in multiple markets. At the same time, it discovered the rich process of internal creativity and communication that gives any research undertaking its fullest value.

ARTICLE SIDEBAR

Pricing models on a budget

When one of the world’s largest providers of IT services was ready to expand its market share it knew pricing could make or break the launch. But a conjoint study across eight countries (Canada, Germany, Italy, Singapore, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States) would be prohibitive in terms of both cost and time-to-market considerations. The approach used in this instance allowed the study to be completed much more quickly than would be possible with a conjoint study, without compromising the integrity of the data collected. Time was critical, and recruiting and fieldwork were completed in 13 short weeks.

To solve the logistical problems attendant with an international undertaking and still arrive at valid pricing conclusions, the research team used the Van Westendorp method on a carefully selected group of respondents. Properly administered, the Van Westendorp technique evaluates respondents’ price expectations for a given product or service without asking directly what they would pay (an approach that has been shown to be unreliable).

Instead, respondents were asked four questions:

1. At what price would you consider this service to be a bargain (great value for money)?

2. At what price would it start to get expensive (but still worth considering)?

3. At what price would it be so cheap that quality would be doubted?

4. At what price is it so expensive that it would not be considered at all?

This technique was used to provide a broad sense of customers’ expectations relating to pricing across diverse markets.

To control for drawbacks that have been associated with this approach, the team recruited respondents who had current knowledge of competitive pricing in the market. Only those who indicated high degrees of familiarity with pricing were selected for analysis.

Before beginning the Van Westendorp battery in interview sessions, researchers provided each respondent with a detailed service description based on product/service features and functionality. This allowed respondents not only to make meaningful pricing assessments but also to more easily compare the new offerings to those of competitors.

Finally, because perceptually-based pricing techniques such as Van Westendorp often assume no barriers to switching service providers, the research team explored in significant qualitative detail the barriers and facilitators related to switching.

The result of this approach? A valid assessment of what pricing the market would bear.