Editor's note: Larry A. Constantineau is principal of Marketing Viewpoints, Inc., a Minneapolis research and consulting firm.
As many corporate-side research practitioners know from personal experience, the marketing research profession is one of evolving roles, enhanced responsibilities and significant challenges. Increased marketplace competitiveness, scanner-based market data and "single-source" information systems, higher-order analytics coupled with rapidly advancing computer hardware and software technologies have all dramatically changed the nature of the field in the last 10 to 15 years. In fact, the only constant today appears to be one of accelerating change.
How can corporate marketing researchers cope with this scenario? Obviously, the traditional management practices of restructuring, realigning or redeploying internal resources and capabilities are not sufficient for today's business issues and demanding, action-oriented managers. Witness the continued "downsizing," "right-sizing," "outsourcing," and/or "rationalization" of the marketing research functions in many companies. One might correctly assert that many of these internal research practitioners are out of touch with the reality of the situation. More dramatic actions are needed for these times; reengineering may very well provide the means to cope with the changing landscape.
Reengineering, according to author Michael Hammer, involves the "fundamental rethinking and radical redesign" of strategic processes that cut across the fabric of the business enterprise. Recent experience has shown that by adapting and adopting many of the established principles of reengineering, corporate research practitioners can lead the redesign process and benefit from the resulting actions, rather than being unwilling recipients of imposed changes.
Generally speaking, marketing research is the process of acquiring, synthesizing and disseminating relevant market data, information and insights to decision makers in ways that mobilize the organization to take appropriate actions that, in turn, maximize business performance. Reengineering the marketing research function has the potential to affect virtually every aspect of the company. Few other processes in the organization influence so many other areas of the company as does a properly positioned and executed research and information function.
With this in mind, the company's marketing research function can (and should) act as a catalyst for business process redesign. After all, research and information is the fuel for the organization - it's high octane stuff. Who better to fill the company's tank than the resident research function?
To date, few marketing research departments are publicly known to have truly reengineered their basic processes. While a few innovative organizations have taken steps in the direction of radically redesigning what they do and how they do it, the great majority (if they have done anything at all) have employed the more traditional methods of simply restructuring and/or realigning existing resources to help satisfy the increased demands placed upon their functions. At best, this has served as a band-aid approach; more dramatic structural changes are required for lasting impact and enhancing the vitality of the internal marketing research capability.
Reengineering the marketing research function is hard work. Process redesign in this area is a blending of art and science, and the potential for failure is high. While there is a logical flow of events, arriving at a viable organizational solution is more of an iterative process of discovery, learning, testing and modification. While experience has shown that there are about a dozen potential patterns that can be tested for fit, a fair amount of informed judgment is required to optimize the outcome.
What should you keep in mind if you decide to embark upon this reengineering journey? What's it going to take for you to be successful as a researcher in the corporate setting in the next five years? The opinions and views of over two dozen leading-edge researchers were solicited to develop a top 10 list of the factors deemed critical for success - those trends that are reshaping the in-house marketing research function, and the resulting impact on how our industry is likely to change in the next few years. They also provide ample food for thought as one redesigns the process of research. While they apply primarily to the corporate marketing research environment, they obviously have importance and relevance to the suppliers who support those organizations as well.
10. A "back to basics" movement - There needs to be a refocusing on what is researched and the impact it will have on decision-making. In the last decade, some feel we have lost our way, becoming overly enamored of esoteric research techniques that have had minimal incremental impact on business success. There must be a reexamination of how research is designed and how it is actually conducted, and the resulting influence it will have on reducing risk in decision-making. Net, there will be an increased need for clear thinking and planning of research, mindful of the resulting actions to be taken once the research is completed.
9. More emphasis on market intelligence - There needs to be a more focused and concerted effort by researchers to stay in touch with customers, consumers and competitors; simply to pay more attention to what is going on in the marketplace. To that end, customer satisfaction measurement efforts will continue to grow, mature and impact business direction. Effective market intelligence requires a full-time professional effort, proactive in nature, and most importantly, provocative to the decision makers within the organization.
8. Acceleration of the research process - Faster is better; speed represents leverage for marketers. This will likely bring into play a new, more aggressive definition of "just in time" research. Technology, especially in the areas of more advanced computers and telecommunications, will further accelerate the research process. Research suppliers as well as corporate-side researchers should readily embrace these new technologies to gain competitive advantage.
7. More strategic, less tactical - Today, the typical marketing research department spends a lot of its time and resources on urgent, small and insignificant questions, versus bigger, more important issues. Consequently, it's no surprise that researchers continue to be the focus of downsizing efforts and are underappreciated by senior management - they are spending too much time working on the tactical marketing agenda, taking daily direction from the assistant product managers. The need is to refocus on the corporate strategy issues and agenda, and to reengineer how tactical issues are researched so as to free up the resources to tackle the strategic things. In sum, research professionals need to find ways to realize a greater return on the total research investment. Senior management will continue to demand innovative ways to get a bigger bang for the bucks.
6. Technology abounds - New information technologies usually are what makes innovation possible. In the world of our future, everybody will need to be computer-proficient, not just computer-literate. Laptops will be the standard for everyone, e-mail will be universal as will be wireless communications, surfing the Net, real user-friendly decision support systems, functional marketing workbenches, integrated databases, LANs, WANs, etc. Most research and information will be delivered via electronic means; paper reports will be impractical and obsolete. Electronic linkages between clients and suppliers will be commonplace, fluid and seamless. Note that all of these predictions will probably require a stronger partnership with the IS communities within client companies, as they often manage the technology. Researchers would be wise to build stronger bridges with their internal IS counterparts.
5. Strategic alliances with suppliers - Informal and sporadic working relationships with suppliers and consultants will give way to more continuous "preferred partnerships" and even formalized contractual arrangements. This will be true not only for the syndicated research suppliers (e.g., IRI and Nielsen) but also among survey research firms and specialized consultants. These relationships will be far more full-service in nature, involving on-site resources for three or more days a week, operating effectively as supplemental staff members and trusted confidants and advisors. These arrangements will initially be necessary due to decreased permanent staff and increased workloads, but in time will be due to demonstrated specialized competence on the part of the providers.
4. The virtual department - The research and information department of the future will be very non-traditional, more of an extended family of sorts. Organizationally, it will be flat, non-pyramidal, non-hierarchical and a hybrid of both centralized and decentralized alignments. Importantly, it will be constantly changing in size and shape to accommodate the needs and priorities of the company. As mentioned above, on-site supplier personnel will be common, as will staff members in remote, distant locations to be in proximity to their key information customers. Technology will enable this concept, with laptop computers, E-mail, wireless communications, cellular phones, voice mail, video conferencing, pagers, and distributed computing capabilities the standard of operation. The nature of work will change as the technology allows researchers to be effective in ways never before possible.
3. Not MRD, but IMD - In the department of the future, traditional marketing research will be but a small portion of the work that is done. No longer will the function be focused almost exclusively on the marketing people; rather, researchers will support many other constituencies, perform many other functions, and contribute in many different ways. Information management might be a more accurate name for what the enhanced function provides, implying a more integrative role and a partnership with the IS function. What the department is called will have everything to do with how it will be perceived - after all, "perception is reality."
2. The chief information officer - The research and information organization of the future will ideally be headed a CIO, an officer-level position and member of the senior management group. The CIO would, in effect, serve as the "functional evangelist" for the information management group throughout the company. Of necessity, both the traditional marketing research and IS functions would be merged in this new organization to one extent or another, thereby increasing the overall potential for synergy. Similarly, many other research- and information-like functions (libraries, consumer services, information desks, etc.) previously operating independently in diverse areas would be combined in this new organization.
1. The information generalist - Perhaps most critical to the successful information management department of the future will be a new position, the information generalist. As the name implies, this individual will serve as a strategic partner to the information customer, possessing an intimate knowledge of the customer's information needs and priorities, with the ability and capability to deliver on any and all of them. The IG will be a fully-equipped information professional, ideally with a minimum of seven to 10 years of diverse experiences in all aspects of the company's research and information systems. They will be computer proficient, technologically innovative and easily adaptable to any number of customer situations.
The IG will play the role of an information synthesizer, weaving together an insightful and compelling story for their customer using all sorts of relevant information and research. The IG will effectively operate as a member of the customer's management team, supporting their needs for information, while guiding them in its appropriate use. Think of the IG as the manager of the information management process, primarily responsible for optimizing the application of marketplace, customer and consumer information in addressing business issues. Their focus is on educating and empowering the team to make intelligent, informed decisions.
There you have them - 10 predictions of what the corporate research world of the future might require to be successful. Some ideas are more radical than others, some are more likely than others, while some are more practical than others. What is certain is that the role of and for research has changed dramatically in the past decade, and will continue to change in the future. A reengineered research and information function will be required to be successful -- old models won't suffice for the added demands that will be placed on traditional marketing research departments.
Reengineering the marketing research function will likely result in a radically new process that must be supported by new positions and jobs, organizational structures, management systems as well as new value systems. The principles of reengineering, properly employed on this process, offer substantial promise as a means to maximize the benefits while minimizing the problems inherent in any change effort.