Editor's note: Michael Mitrano is a principal at Transition Strategies Corporation, a management consulting and mergers and acquisitions advisory firm serving the research industry.
I had a chance to participate in the CASRO 2002 Technology Conference in New York City in June. If technology is important to the operation of your research company, you should send someone senior to this annual meeting. There is no better way to see all the major vendors, hear what other companies are doing, and learn about new technologies that are in the works. For those of you who are unaware of the conference or couldn't attend, I would like to use this month's column to fill you in on the highlights.
Web interviewing is routine
Sometimes, what's not touched on in a meeting tells as much as what is. I participated in a panel discussion early in the conference, and noted that the ability to recruit respondents via e-mail to a Web-based interview had become routine. By this I meant that most quantitative companies now have this capability - either by using software and staff they have in place or by using a Web interviewing subcontractor. This is not to say that every company is really doing Internet surveys, or doing a lot of it. It is to say that this capability is no longer something special - it is expected.
I didn't really anticipate that anyone in the audience would jump up and disagree with me. Who would stand up in front of this group and confess that they lacked the capability to do a basic Web interview? However, I did note that not one conference session was devoted to standard Web interviewing software or methods. In past conferences, there were typically several presentations on different Web interviewing technologies. By now, these technologies have become part of the woodwork.
If you do quantitative work and they aren't part of your woodwork, you should think about whether you are keeping up with changes in the industry.
A focus on business continuity
The September 11 attack has focused a lot of people's attention on the risks to businesses of an unexpected catastrophe. We all anticipate certain kinds of business interruptions - power failures, computer breakdowns, perhaps even a fire or flood. With the right combination of backup equipment, service agreements, business practices, and insurance, we all try to minimize the impact of an adverse event or mitigate the financial damage that results from that impact.
September 11 showed us that inconceivable disasters are indeed possible. Given the location and extent of the damage resulting from the New York attack, it's really amazing that the country's financial systems were able to resume operation so quickly and with so little data loss. There's nothing lucky about this, though - it's due to huge investments that the Wall Street firms have made in redundant data centers, backup systems, and contingency plans. If there were a business center of market research that had been similarly targeted, I doubt you would see our industry bounce back so creditably.
In fact, most disasters affecting individual businesses are much more mundane. At the 2001 CASRO Technology Conference, coincidentally, I heard of two organizations that had just experienced such disasters. One was CASRO itself, whose offices had been destroyed by fire. Through good planning, they had off-site electronic data backups and were able to restore their office systems and operation within the timeframe required by their members. Another was a full-service client of mine, whose professional offices and main phone center were obliterated by a thunderstorm-caused flash flood. The flood was so severe that it washed several BMWs from a dealer's lot, which in turn clogged up a huge culvert and put an entire business district under six feet of water in a few hours. This company survived because its backups also worked - and because (by luck) it was able to move back into a call center that it had just vacated recently. The revenue and expense impacts, however, were still substantial.
What lessons can you take from the misfortunes of others? First, data system backups need to be done, be complete, be off-site, and be tested frequently. Your IT and operations people need to be in regular communication, to make sure that critical information is not being stored on non-backed-up hard drives or other at-risk locations. Second, you need to plan for an alternate location at which your systems can be reestablished. If your main office is a smoldering ruin, how will your researchers (perhaps then working from home) gain access to the almost-completed tables and reports on your backup tapes? Even more problematically: if your CATI, tab, or accounting software is highly customized or uniquely patched, where will you find an alternative operating location at which you can restore your data? If you will need to reinstall software, are all the software files and instructions current and off-site? For companies with multiple locations connected by a wide area network, a lot of protection can be obtained at very low cost by making sure that software and data are copied around from one location to another. If top management makes business continuity a priority, it will happen. If you are always pushing production or R&D to the exclusion of more basic activities, you may be in for an ugly surprise when adverse circumstances knock on your door.
The growing overlap between CRM and research
I have a hard time truly understanding the meaning of "customer relationship management" (CRM). The term seems to mean very different things to different solution providers. The CRM label is applied to everything from mainframe software systems to call centers to consulting programs. At its core, though, CRM means integrating all sources of customer information and all customer interaction opportunities in a way intended to maximize profitability.
An excellent session at the Technology Conference focused on CRM and its overlap with research. CRM providers see research as just one part of the whole CRM process. To them, the ability to ask questions of customers and use their responses to target specific offerings is very basic. Given CRM's emphasis on integrating information sources and acting on that data, the logic of doing so is obvious.
From the research tradition, however, the idea of surveying customers and then using the information gained to target offerings to those specific customers is anathema. On its face, it seems to violate industry ethical codes, including CASRO's own Code of Standards. Researchers feel that respondent cooperation will drop even further from its already low levels if respondents think that the survey process is really a means to target them with more accurate direct mail or telemarketing. CRM practitioners respond with the assertion that there is already no expectation of privacy - that consumers expect companies to act on the information they give them. These perspectives are at odds in part because most commercial survey research is carried out by research agencies that are independent of their clients, and is often done without naming the client. CRM often represents the acts of the corporate client itself, so its identity is disclosed at the outset.
The new privacy laws that affect a number of industries - most notably financial services - represent a convergence of thinking. Their focus is on disclosing to consumers how information will be used.
What's in this debate for research companies? First, we need to realize that the broad term CRM means many different things, and that research companies are particularly good at some of those things. The conference session distinguished between operational CRM - which the client usually carries out directly - and analytic CRM - where many research companies have strong capability. If the client collects the data, it has responsibility for disclosure and permission concerning its use.
Second, we should realize that research has a place in the CRM process. If we gain respondents' consent to sharing the information we collect with clients, then that information can be integrated and used to everyone's benefit. The most common example of this is when a respondent reports a bad service experience in a survey, and we get their permission to notify the client company so that someone can follow up with the respondent to resolve the problem.
Finally, we need to remember that CRM's focus on the customer is a limitation as well as a strength. Many corporate activities - and thus the research that supports them - must take into account the needs of the people who are not yet customers! To develop new products, enter new markets, and replace inevitable attrition within any customer base, a healthy company must look outward to its non-customers while at the same time tending to the needs of existing customers. Traditional market research is essential to keeping this balanced focus.
The CASRO Technology Conference is held every June in New York. If you want to learn more about CASRO events, check its Web site at www.casro.org or send an e-mail to casro@casro.org and ask to be put on the events mailing list.