2011 CI & MR EXECUTIVE SURVEY
Responding to Changes in the
Economic Landscape
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By Holly Lyke-Ho-Gland
Research Lead
Growth Team Membership™
Frost & Sullivan
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Frost & Sullivan’s Growth Team Membership™
(GTM) recently completed its 2011 survey of
competitive intelligence and marketing research
executives. The respondents were asked to
identify their most pressing challenges for
2011.
Results Snapshot
- The primary external challenge for respondents is capitalizing on opportunities in emerging markets
- The key internal challenge for competitive intelligence executives is aligning Key Intelligence Insights (KITs) to the company’s strategic priorities
- The root causes of most of the internal challenges facing respondents range from insufficient support from senior management to lack of effective processes
- In comparison to 2010, budgets and staffing levels will remain unchanged in 2011
- CI respondents rank their function’s effectiveness as “Average” while MR respondents rank their function’s effectiveness as “Above Average”
- B-to-B CI departments tend to report directly to Marketing, while CI departments in Hybrid companies report to Marketing or Corporate Strategy equally.
- However, B-to-B Market Research professionals responded that their departments tend to report directly to Business Development, versus reporting to Marketing in B-to-C companies
- In comparison to 2010, market research respondents foresee no changes in resources allocated to vendors in 2011
- CI respondents primarily rely on keyword feed and tracking tools for competitive intelligence
Executive Summary: Competitive Intelligence
As companies emerge from the “wait and see” positions created by the economic downturn, there is a new flurry of activity on the horizon. This activity is hallmarked by emerging global markets and demands for new products and services. Additionally, the new landscape reflects changes in customer purchasing behavior. The post-recession environment requires competitive intelligence to provide new insights and data on the market, competitors and customers. However, competitive intelligence executives will be expected to meet the increasing demands for information with little to no increase in resources—budgets and staffing are expected to remain static in 2011.
Competitive intelligence executives are challenged in providing insights to support strategic decision-making which incorporates changes in the competitive landscape. Respondents cite specific issues with aligning research topics to corporate priorities and packaging research in an actionable and insightful manner. In addition to supporting strategy, CI is also tasked with using insights to support revenue-generating activities like sales. Respondents continue to struggle with capturing elusive information on clients and competitors held internally by employees. In response, CI executives report the use of informal networks and tools to capture and centralize this invaluable information.
The survey observed different types of challenges by company business model. In general, respondents are focused on:
- Creating actionable insights to drive strategic decision-making
- Evaluating ad hoc research requests based on their value.
However, B-to-B respondents cite concerns about venturing into the social media landscape to capture competitive intelligence. B-to-C respondents, on the other hand, are concerned with more traditional CI issues: developing strong competitive intelligence capabilities and identifying the “right” tools for their intelligence purposes.
This year’s survey asked respondents to identify the “root cause” of their top challenges—whether they stemmed from issues with staffing, process, technology/systems or strategic alignment. The causes for the challenges were highly variable and ranged from limited staffing, ineffective processes and inadequate technology to the lack of support by senior management.
Given the wide array of research topics and the need to support decision-making, there has been a concerted push for CI to report directly into corporate strategy or executive management. However, the survey results indicate that CI departments tend to report into marketing. The result of this relationship with marketing is a research portfolio dominated by market analysis with little to no resource allocation for activities such as customer insights, technology developments or Mergers & Acquisitions research.
Executive Summary: Market Research
The current economic climate influencing market researchers includes a surge of new markets globally, new investment in the development of products and services, and the consequential backlash from the economic downturn affecting customer buying behavior. Each of these changes requires new insights and data to support strategic decision-making on topics including new market entry, innovation-based consumer needs and consumer purchase behavior. However, market research executives will be expected to meet the increasing demands with little to no increase in resources—budgets and staffing are expected to remain static in 2011.
Given the wide array of information required by companies to support strategic decision-making, it is no surprise that respondents cite concerns in servicing internal clients that span from initial engagement to identifying needs through delivery of actionable insights. Additionally, due to limited resources respondents cite a need to reduce redundancy and improve knowledge management through the development of a centralized portal.
The survey observed differences in challenges by company business model. B-to-B market researchers struggle with integrating the effects of megatrends—like sustainability, the emergence of BRIC markets or social networking—into actionable suggestions for strategy. On the other hand, B-to-C market researchers are focusing on effectively managing the wide array of information requests by prioritizing their research pipeline and allocating resources based on value or impact of each request. Additionally, respondents in B-to-C companies are faced with reacting to the changes in customer buying behavior by developing new customer segments.
This year’s survey asked respondents to identify the “root cause” of their top challenges—whether they are derived from issues with staffing, process, technology/systems or strategic alignment. The predominant cause for market research practitioners was almost unanimously strategic in nature, specifically a lack of sufficient support by senior management.
Even though market research executives emphasize the need to support and influence strategic decision-making within their companies, most of the respondents indicate that their department continues to report directly to Marketing. The exception to this pattern is that market research in B-to-B companies tends to report to Business Development—supporting the more tactical, revenue-generating activities of sales. Consequently, market research portfolios tend to dictate which department they report into. In general, market size and structure assessments dominate the research portfolio, while remaining research needs are evenly dispersed. One exception to this scenario is the research portfolio of B-to-B market research departments, which prioritize business intelligence activities.
Respondent Demographics
- There were 206 respondents
- The respondents are almost evenly distributed between Public (50 percent) and Private (49 percent) companies
- The majority of the respondents (63 percent) work in a business-to-business environment
- Most of the respondents (34 percent) come from firms with between $1 to $11 billion dollars in revenue
GTM will focus its best practices research to address the prominent issues identified in this survey. If you have questions regarding the survey, or are interested in learning more about GTM’s competitive intelligence best practices, please contact us at:
GTMResearch@frost.com
or visit us at
www.gtm.frost.com
About the author:
Holly Lyke-Ho-Gland is the Research Lead for Frost & Sullivan’s Growth Team Membership™ (GTM), an annual subscription program that supports the individual members of a CEO’s executive team in achieving their company’s top-line growth objectives.
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GIL 2011: Europe
London, United Kingdom
May 17-18, 2011
GIL 2011: Japan
Tokyo, Japan
July 12, 2011
GIL 2011: Korea
Seoul, Korea
July 14, 2011
GIL 2011: Africa
Cape Town, Africa
August 25, 2011
GIL 2011: Silicon Valley
San Jose, CA
September 11-14, 2011
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