In the current economic climate many companies in-source research and analyses. Which means that they move from having consultants plan and coordinate their collection of market data (or citizen data in the public sector) to doing more themselves. This means high growth potential for tools and systems that enable DIY-analyses and for consultancies that help enable clients and train them to take the lead themselves. It also means that research can become more deeply embedded in the organisation. This is an advantage in terms of making sure that data is put to use and made available in the organisation and also that the organisation regains ownership of their own market information.
However, these benefits will not happen by themselves. They require a deliberate effort going beyond resource management. The people inside an organisation must be able to communicate the data they collect in order for the data to develop into insights and organisational knowledge. Internal marketing is important in this respect, a company should advertise its knowledge internally in order to create employee interest and thus more market oriented behaviour.
I have come across several sub-optimal examples of in-sourcing through my work. One example is a large production company, that stopped having customer surveys done by a consultancy and instead bought an online survey-tool and hired a parttime project-employee to handle the survey. This could have been an opportunity to embed the knowledge. But what happened in this case was that after the part-time employee left, the organisation was back to square one. What was the benefit of that customer survey? Was it just measuring for measuring's sake? That company could take this experience as an opportunity to learn and have an internal strategy for using the information they collect. The more every employee know about the market a company serves the more market orientated it will become with higher employee satisfaction and higher overall profitability as a result.
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Hi Louise
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely resonates with me. We've recently embarked on project to improve brand experience and were looking for a consultancy firm to work with us on it. But due to budget constraints, we would now do it ourselves.
What most people in the organisation don't understand though is that doing a project on this scale in-house is easier said than done. People from board-level down still believe that it could be completed by "a couple of guys from marketing"!
Good article by the way!
Cheers!
AD
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Louise
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the blog world. Had to delete the earlier comment bcos of bad formatting. Reposting again.
Interesting thoughts you post here. The thing that you might have missed is about the budget constraints the company might be having. It would also be interesting to know if the decision was top driven or by a middle management as it mostly happens.
If it is a top driven, then not aligning the action with the overall vision of future is a strategic mistake and the company should work to rectify it and if it is middle management driven then I think it might be more of a one time issue and I doubt if such companies will learn and plan longer term.
Isn't it also a case of overall vision and goals alignment at the organization level or am I reading too much into the case.
-Amit