Leaping the barriers of time and distance

If you have to conduct an international research project, it's certainly helpful if your company is already accustomed to the intricacies of global business. Management will be used to conference calls at odd hours, language barriers and the other hurdles you face when trying to communicate with people half a world away.

One company that would seem ideally set up for global research is VeriFone Inc., a Redwood City, Calif., maker of transaction automation products. VeriFone bills itself as a "virtual company," one that "operates continuously through traditional barriers of time and distance," according to compay literature. About half of its 2,400 employees work outside the U.S., at the sales offices and development, manufacturing and distribution centers it operates in 16 countries on five continents.

The company's products, which include electronic payment processing systems found in gas stations, restaurants and grocery and other retailers, are used all over the world. Each of its administrative and technical employees is equipped with a PC or computer terminal, allowing them to "communicate around the clock via electronic mail and other information systems and tools."

Last year, during the development of a new product - a portable transaction terminal that facilitates payment by credit card, debit/ATM card or smart card - the company conducted a two-phase international research project to assess the viability of the concept.

The first phase consisted of a series of one-on-one interviews with merchants (whose customers would use the product), banks and financial institutions (who would provide the terminals to merchants), and competitors. The second phase was a quantitative survey, which was designed using findings from the qualitative research.

Interviews were conducted in the U.S., Canada, Germany, Taiwan, Singapore, China and Hong Kong, which were chosen by VeriFone managers to represent each of the company's sales regions: U.S., the Americas (South America and North America not including the U.S.), Europe/Middle East/Africa, and Asia-Pacific.
Preliminary conversations about the product's potential features with VeriFone sales people around the world were helpful but the company also wanted to talk to customers in each of the regions. "The sales people were able to give us some feedback but it was important to get some customer input to help distinguish features that are nice-to-have versus must-have, and determine the price/feature ratio and the various markets' hot buttons," says Ida Wu, former group manager of product marketing, VeriFone Inc.

"The first phase was designed to be an open-ended, exploratory type of project, which would allow us to distill a set of information, including the economic climate of the region, perceptions of the technology, and perceptions of market trends five years ahead. We also wanted to present them with a very rough outline of what the product does and what the key benefits are for them," Wu says.

Tailored to each market

For help with the research, VeriFone tapped Integrated Strategic Information Services (I.S.I.S.), Belmont, Calif. In most cases, the research was conducted by I.S.I.S. representatives in branch offices in the respective countries. Some of the work was subcontracted to research providers in the local areas.

"We picked I.S.I.S. because it's a virtual company not unlike VeriFone," Wu says. "They have branches in various parts of the world and local contacts with merchants and banks in these regions, which helped facilitate the process. We liked the fact that their market researchers are local, because with a project like this it's important to have the local contact work with the local respondents and understand the cultural nuances and the different research approaches they demand."

In the U.S. and Canada, for example, where businesses are much more accustomed to being recruited for research projects, the interviews were conducted by telephone. But in many cases in Asia, the interviews had to be conducted face to face, in the respondent's office, to establish the necessary rapport and credibility. "In the U.S., a telephone survey is quite an acceptable approach. Whereas in Asia-Pacific that isn't considered acceptable. They want to have a face-to-face conversation. You have to make an appointment. It's just the way business is handled over there," Wu says.

Accessing top management is also easier here, Wu says. "In the U.S. and Canada, you can usually talk to the higher-level executives. One of the challenges is to get to the right people, those who have to most experience and expertise and oftentimes that isn't easy in the Asia-Pacific region."

"When doing international research you have to account for cultural differences," says Marc Limacher, managing director, I.S.I.S., "not just in terms of how you conduct the interview but in terms of how you phrase the question and how you build rapport, because that varies so much from country to country.
"Here it's much more ingrained in the business culture to conduct these kinds of studies, so you could straightforwardly do phone surveys, versus, for example, Germany, where people are suspicious and they wonder why you're even asking such questions. For the VeriFone project we sometimes had to pre-fax a list of questions so the respondents could get permission from their superiors or simply prepare before they spoke to us," Limacher says.

Change terminology

The local I.S.I.S. representatives are bilingual, so they translated the questionnaires from the English version into each region's corresponding language and also translated the responses back into English. "The context was the same but they had to alter the phrasing of the question to come up with the same kind of response," Limacher says.

Translation is more than just converting words from one language into another. Sometimes you have change terminology to adapt to local preferences. VeriFone found, for example, that some regions had different definitions of portability - which is critical information because portability is one of the main potential selling points of the product.

The best answers in the world won't compensate for the wrong questions or the right questions asked in the wrong way, Limacher says. That's why it's crucial to put in the extra time translating and adapting the questionnaire to cultural norms.

Coordinating input

Faced with a limited budget, funds went to conference calling rather than travel, including calls to review the questionnaires and the progress of the research.

A lot of time was spent coordinating the input of the VeriFone regional managers on the questionnaire design and content. Each region had its own set of reasons why its needs should be met by the survey. "Since VeriFone is a highly decentralized company, we had to accommodate a lot of different input from different people, all of whom wanted to be sure their part of the world was included in the questionnaire," Limacher says. "Just for the U.S. alone we were dealing with six or seven middle managers."

It was a delicate balance, Wu says. "We wanted to answer their questions - it would be defeating the purpose to conduct research when sales regions can't use the data we gather - but we can't add and add questions.

"When you send the list of questions to the various sales regions they might say, 'Well, we don't care about questions 9 through 12, however, we care about something else,' so we tried to add that in. But then you take the questionnaire to another region, where questions 9 through 12 are important but 1 through 5 aren't and they also want to add their own questions."

The solution? After developing a set of 25 core questions on product features, functionality and appearance that would be included in all versions of the survey, each region was given the opportunity to include five questions of its own.

Set objectives

Wu has some advice for companies facing a global research project. First, she says, it's important to set specific objectives. Every survey can't please every part of the company. The various branches or departments that will be using the information have to acknowledge this fact ahead of time and determine what is most needed from the research.

Second, if a department or group within a company appoints a person to represent that group's interests during the research process, make sure that person has true authority to speak for the group. "That group better pick someone they think can represent them," Wu says. "We had a situation where a group said 'I know our team leader said that but that's not how we feel.' In some companies there are hundreds of employees at all levels, so there's no way that you can ask them well, do you agree with this?"

And, for projects involving several groups of people, timely communication is key. Internal clients expect the research process to move along smoothly but if they don't return phone calls or E-mail seeking their input it's difficult for that to happen, Wu says.

After you've chosen a research supplier for your international project, if budgets allow, try to meet with the local research firms who will be working on your behalf. If your company has offices in the overseas markets, have company representatives meet with the research firm in your stead. "Have as much hands-on contact as you can," Wu says. "Ultimately your project manager at the research firm is responsible for that but it's good to know as much as you can about the local research firms."

It's helpful if your research vendor has prequalified industry contacts in the countries in which you'll be researching. Ties with local government officials can also help facilitate the research process.
If possible, try to watch the local research firm at work, either on your project or a previous one. "If you can't watch the actual interviews of the project, try to get ahold of a tape of some of the work they have done before, to see their style and their approach, to make sure they aren't in conflict with your corporate philosophy," she says.

Under development

The product is still under development but Limacher is confident the research provided VeriFone engineers and marketers valuable insights. "We gave the engineers very specific recommendations on how to design the product, and the marketers information on how to position the product, including the benefits they should emphasize. They walked away from the study with a good idea of what each region demands and at what price. We were able to prioritize the importance of the features so the engineers knew which ones to focus on and what the trade-offs are."

"We want to build a product for the year 2000," Wu says, "one that anticipates trends and usage so that we aren't in a catch-up mode in terms of market requirements. We want to make sure that whatever we build has both flexibility and applicability to those different markets. The research helped us do that."