GEOStrategy

Insights

Classical Research
The age of the internet has made information more accessible, insight more immediate, and most news less newsworthy. The Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 has made corporate American more accountable and its financials more transparent. One would think the age of classical B2B/industrial market research had passed… but nothing is further from the truth. Companies have made the decision to move from public to privately-held to give decision-makers more control and less scrutiny. Competitors hold strategic information more closely and shield management more carefully. Multinational corporations routinely use technology or hire gatekeepers to prevent intrusion. In many ways, primary market research has become more difficult and secondary market research means wading through mounds of irrelevant information to find answers.

We find that identification of the right person within the target company, organization, agency, etc. makes collection of information simpler- even with better gatekeepers. Our firm recently completed a project involving casings for consumer electronic devices. We were given a short list of 110 companies to interview with a quota of 400 completes. We made the assumption early in the project that there were multiple people within each firm who touched the casing material and casing supplier decision matrix. We quickly learned that was not the case. Many times, an original design manufacturer, electronics manufacturing service or industrial design firm was given the task of material engineering and liaised with select persons in the OEM on raw material choices. Once we learned that, finding the people who could respond to our study was easier; once those people were identified, we found them ready to help us understand their material and supplier decisions.

The success of this project hinged on our iterative and exploratory approach that we apply even to identifying respondents. There is no substitute for knowing your subject matter, zeroing in on your target, and engaging in a two-way executive dialogue with decision-makers. Geo Strategy Partners excels at difficult, customized research assignments. We find the people and the answers for you.