The DIY vs. Do-It-For-Me Framework for Outsourcing Market Research

Well, I guess we can go on and get started. Uh, for those of you who are already on and joining, good afternoon. My name is Christa Reid. I'm one of the senior project managers at Accelerant Research and I'm thrilled to introduce our speaker today and super excited that we all have the opportunity to connect in this virtual setting. Uh, before we begin, there are a few things that I just want to cover. Um, of course we all know that this is a time of uncertainty. As Susan mentioned earlier while we were talking, we have to be flexible. We're doing our best to navigate all of this uncertainty at this time. So, we just ask that you be patient. Patience is a virtue and be considerate of the fact that we're kind of all at the mercy of technology right now. We're our own self um taught technology experts. So just keep that in mind as we continue along with the virtual conference this week. Second, please be respectful of all of the participants, all of our presenters. Uh we're very happy to take your questions and your comments, but just keep that in mind if you will. And then finally, take advantage of this time to network, to engage, to connect. Um although the in-person option might not be available for us, we know through in particular this virtual conference, that connection is always there. Um so it's a great time for us to share our experiences, share our expertise, our insights. I know our presenters are happy to share and even talk with you outside of this forum. Of course, we at Accelerant are always happy to do the same. So reach out to us, let us know how we can help you and feel free to reach out to the presenters as well if you want to further discuss their topics today, throughout the week or another time. So today our uh our speaker is Susan Lawson. She's on the market research and insights team at All State. Her topic will focus on the do-it-yourself, do it for me framework for outsourcing market research. I know all of you will enjoy her presentation. I'm really excited to introduce her. I know she's going to have a great conversation with you today. So, with that, Susan, thanks for your time and the floor is all yours. Thanks, Christa. Let's see if I can get my screen up. So, as I was saying to Christa, as we're all being flexible, um I had a delivery inform me arriving right at 1:00 as I was about to take the floor to speak with you all. So, um, we are all practicing flexibility and apologize for any background dog noise you may hear as I had to scramble to move my workstation to accommodate the delivery. So, thanks for having me. Um, I chose this topic when Bill reached out to ask me if I would present because it's on my mind and on the minds of a lot of other market researchers that I talk to. It's um there more and more tools available to us to uh reach out to customers or consumers directly and I think it becomes more and more critical that we evaluate how we make decisions for um how we conduct our research to get our business partners the best answers possible. So there are a few things that I typically like to assess when a project comes across my desk. Um, I highlighted budget and time here in bold because it seems to me the answer is always we have no money, we have no time. So, um, I sort of put those at the top, but I'm going to take those out of the discussion today because I feel like really what should be driving the decision to do something yourself or to outsource it is the business decision that you need to make. And the business decision then drives the methodology to use and then the tools and how you recruit participants for your study. So business decision is um one of the biggest questions as I said that drives how to decide whether to outsource or whether to do something yourself. So the questions I typically ask myself are how are the results get used in the environment we're in? A lot of research we're doing is quick turn answer the question about CO 19 and requires us to be really really um flexible and perhaps scrappy with how we get answers compared to a long-term segmentation study that's going to impact how you go to market for years to come. Um and then how big is the knowledge gap you're filling. So if the work you're doing is really going to be required to help change minds or inspire business results then uh the way you do the work may be different. Um and then what's the scale of decision you need to make. So how um how broad or how farreaching could it be? How much revenue is at stake if you do one thing versus another? So, those are really the topics that I like to consider um when I'm thinking about the business decision that needs to be made and whether or not I can do the research myself or whether I want to reach out to some partners to get their feedback. Next, the methodology. Um when you think about quantitative results, a lot of times your only tool may be Excel. I've worked in teams where I was a research team of one and I've worked in teams where I had vast resources and co-workers to bounce ideas off of. Um, so you your recruiting uh and your analysis tools are may be limited. They may or they may be vast, but you knowing what you have available to you. If it's just Excel and you're trying to run a max diff, that may not be the right way to go. Um and then do you have the time to program and do the analysis on your own? So part of um why we have vendor partners is to take the load off of us so that we can do six projects at once rather than one at a time at 3 months each. And then on the qualitative side, do you have time to moderate yourself? Moderating takes a lot of time and a lot of training and it may not be something that is necessarily feasible for you to do day in and day out for your job. And again, technology, if it's easy enough to just do it on the phone, that may be one thing. But if you require um specific tools to do diary studies or something like this, it may not be as easy for you to just use the technology um that's available to you. And then, as I mentioned, tools go right along with methodology. So, do you have access to the tools you need? And then one thing that comes up um in my work a lot is there's so many tools out there that you could subscribe to that you could onboard to help you do your work, but is the utility of the tool broad enough to justify the cost? So, can you get enough mileage out of it to have it make sense for you to bring that um on board for your team? And then the last factor that I assess is the recruit. So if it's really broad or really narrow, it may be easy enough to do it yourself because you can just go grab 10 folks from a panel to interview. Or if it's really narrow and it's your store associates or your um your you know top 10 customers who have already agreed to give you feedback. Then those two extreme scenarios may be really easy to do yourself versus a target of um you know 35 to 45 year olds who just had a baby who just moved that you may need a little bit more skill um and precision to be able to reach out to them. And then another thing that continues to evolve in our space is can you do you have access to their contact information and can you legally contact them? Um especially in highly regulated industries, it's really important to make sure you're following the rules and respecting people's um do not call, do not contact requests. So making sure that that aligns is really important so that you don't make anybody mad while you're trying to get answers for your business partners. So the framework, one of the ways I typically start is looking at those four factors that we just went through and I go through and understand how simple or how complex they are and I kind of go through this check checklist to understand if the decision's simple but the recruit may not be how does that change my decision versus I need a specific analysis tool versus um uh the decision I need to make it may not be available to me so I need to reach out to someone to help me um conduct the research. But the way it ends up looking in my mind is this 2x two um which what presentation isn't complete without a 2x two matrix. Um so on the horizontal axis you have the decision that you need to make. Is it a simple answer you require or is it more complex? And then on the vertical you have the methodology used. So if it's a really simple decision and a simple methodology, it's very easy answer to DIY to do it yourself. You can send the survey in whatever tool you have available to you. You can do on you can do phone IDI simple. Um and then if it's a more complex decision but a somewhat simple methodology, then that's a place that you might do some yourself, reach out to others for help on another part of it. And then same if it's a simple decision but a perhaps a complex methodology. And then in the top right corner when things get really complicated is typically when I like to call in for help. And to think that through I've brought up some examples for how you might think about which situation warrants which um which box on the matrix. So we'll start in the simple column or the simple box. um IDI where you have an optedin customer panel or employees that you want to talk to that you can schedule and moderate yourself. They're happy to talk to you. You don't require any any incentive to get them to answer your questions. That's a place where I would consider doing something myself. And then a follow-up survey after an event or a presentation or a meeting where there's a really defined audience. So, it's only folks who showed up to this meeting or it's only folks who showed up to this virtual insights conference and you have all their contact information and you just need a few quick responses to say yes, this meeting went well. No, it didn't. Those are places where I would consider uh doing things myself. And then in the bottom right box where you perhaps have a more complex decision to make, but a methodology might be pretty straightforward. So you have a diary study where you're comparing is it this option or this option where for some creative comparisons or a survey where you just want to gauge in interest in a new concept to inform more rigorous design going forward. You know the audience is pretty easy to reach them. And then in the top left box where you have a simple decision but the methodology might be complex. So if you're conducting a focus group to inform positioning um where you feel comfortable moderating but you still need help outsourcing recruiting in a facility um that's a great place to hybrid uh save yourself time on the recruit in the facility. And then um on the quant side, if you have a survey where you want to assess a small set of metrics for a test or for just some quick consumer feedback um and you can program and analyze the results, but you still need the survey tool to help you do it. Um and then of course in the complex top right box, these are things like a diary study that's going to take place over the course of several days where you're targeting different segments. you could have upwards of 60 responses in the diary study um and you need help to manage that to get all the feedback that you need or um on the quantitative side, new product introduction where you really need feature optimization or you really need to understand how the consumer is making tradeoffs. So you're getting into more complex methodology that you may not have the tools at your disposal to do the analysis on the back end or to get an opted panel of over a thousand customers to get responses to. So those are just some examples that um I've come across in my experience and kind of how I made the decision and how they stack up. But in reality, the work we're dealing with, the matrix for me ends up looking like this. Over the course of my career, it's been um very few DIY and those are pretty easy and pretty um quick to be able to recognize. And then a lot of do it for me as you're making complex new product introduction decisions or um really uh critical segmentation or positioning analysis to help drive a new strategy or drive the business forward. Um and that's really all I had today. I kept it really short because if you're at all like me, your attention span in quarantine is perhaps shorter than it is when you're working from a desk in an office. So I will pause there and see if there are any questions. I'm looking at the chat. Um and one question is how does cost factor into the equation and um cost is always top of mind. I think the in an ideal world the business decision would drive the methodology and the decision to outsource or not. But I also think that knowing you have um budget tools available for quick answers or for quick turnaround feedback is really helpful. Um you know there's never enough budget, there's never enough time. So that is particularly um a hot topic almost every role I've had compared to um infinite budget. So cost is always a factor in the equation, but for the purposes of this discussion, I I took that off the table simply because it's very easy for a business partner to say, "I need a survey monkey to answer this question." When really that may not be what they need at all. Um, but they think they can get an answer really quickly and really fast if they use a tool that's sort of free on the web compared to um a proper proper assessment of their business need. Um, another question asked is how much do you consider the advantage or disadvantage of having someone um from the outside delivering the message? I think this is really important to consider and a great place to use external resources because a lot of times you really need an unbiased moderator specifically on a qualitative side. If you're presenting something unbranded or if you're presenting something that is branded, you need to understand um how that respondent feels about it without any sort of possibility of bias or respondent leading. So I think especially on a market research basis more so than a user experience research um side of things it's really important to have the benefit of an unbiased moderator. Um, and then next Renee said, "On uh more strategic business questions, positioning messages, what are some of the characteristics you look for in a research partner?" I think for things like positioning or segmentation or um more complex uh questions, typically I look for a partner who is very transparent. They let me know what they can do um and what they're comfortable with or what may be an unreasonable expectation. I look for someone who um typically if it's going to be complex or long-term can help support with qualitative and quantitative. So maybe not just um on the hybrid side of things where they may moderate but you can handle recruiting on your own or something like this. Um really look for somebody who can offer the full service rather than um picking and choosing certain capabilities. Especially to your question, Renee, on the strategic business questions that are going to drive big decisions or drive a large amount of spend or drive a complete um you know rebrand or something like this. And then last question I'm seeing so far is from Doug. Um, he asked, "I joined at the end, so I may have missed, but as a vendor, how do you figure out how a client decided to outsource versus insource? How can a vendor still play a role?" And Doug, I think that's a great question. I think um knowing as from I've always been on the client side of the business. So um I have never experienced this from how do you navigate it from a supplier side. But I think one of the um things that I would look for is where there are those hybrid cases. What is the role you have to play? So, is it if it's only recruiting um to get to a very specific audience, hey, I can help with that. Or if it's um specific to um paying incentives, I can help support that way. But I also think knowing the scale of the business decision that your um client partner is having to make will help you understand um how to influence or how important it is to help um create that insource versus outsource uh decision and where you can re make recommendations and have a role to play. Um, uh, Renee says, "What can a strategic research strategy partner do to get your attention?" And, um, the Sorry, my delivery people still here helping me out. Yes. No, but I'll get one. They know. Thank you. Thanks everybody. This real life pausing to answer questions in quarantine. Um, so Renee said, "What can a strategic research strategy partner do to get your attention as a potential client?" I have to say I think this must be so challenging because I probably get a LinkedIn request to connect weekly for somebody who has the exact perfect right solution for me. Um, but I think events like this understanding who peers in your industry or not even in your industry who peers um and other brands use and why they trust or rely on someone. And I think always having a pipeline for new vendors who could potentially come in and help you, but now may not be the right time because you never know when things may change. You never know when your workload may triple based on, you know, some business decision where you may need different resources. You may need different skill set um to support you. So I think um getting attention in the right way by um partnering and things like this and learning from each other is actually more effective than just the um the cold cold LinkedIn message or email. Hey Susan, it's Bill. Hi, how are you? So I have kind of a a piggyback question on on on the last um so you say you've worked at you know several you know varying size organizations on on the side um when you're dealing with this sort of DIY versus DFM mix um and there's maybe not the budget and more desire to go the the DIY Y route or to hire a vendor partner for for certain elements. Um you know how do you reconcile that with uh procurement supply chain management? Um you know it seems like taking on that sort of mixed bag approach requires more partners to to come into the mix. It's a really good point. I think that like part of my assessment of the tools is I've worked in organizations where my only tool was Excel uh and or my telephone, right? Like that was it. That's all I had. So, I had to rely on uh more partnership to drive the business results. But I also think that every organization I've worked in has had a different level of um sourcing and procurement um involvement. So sometimes it's just a here's what we want to do, that's all there is. Other times it's a lot of scrutiny to justify the partnership or the security of it. Um, and I think that's part of the one of the questions I try to do the math on is is the cost of the tool that we may purchase to do things ourselves. Um, is the utility of it broad enough to make my life easier and make me efficient to do things myself or is it just another um online interview platform that if I had to I could use Skype for or if I had to I could just use a phone for. Um so that's one way I think about it, but I do think it becomes really complex and why I like to have a framework in mind for how I make that decision so that the tools available to me aren't driving my decision. So, we have A, B, and C tools. So, and we've paid for them, so we need to use them. um is a trap that's really easy to get caught into rather than here's a decision we need to make and here's the best way to go get that answer. Then I'll go find the partner or the tool to help me answer the question. Are there other other questions coming through a different way that I can't see? No, I think you've been keeping a good good track on the the chatter. Um, and correct me if I'm wrong, Susan, but you did say that uh you will be available for uh sitting in on on additional sessions and and you know to the extent possible join joining the conversation. Yes absolutely. Outstanding. Um, okay. Well, Susan, I thank you very much. I'm going to just give my own sort of Uncle Bill says context to to go along with this. um you know the topics being discussed in this presentation um especially folks on the corporate side if you weren't you know in this sort of realm where you're having to to decide on you know what am I going to do myself what am I going to farm out um you know chances are especially when we come out of the current environment uh there's going to be some of that uh pressure obviously there's going to be, you know, cost cost implications. We saw a huge movement after the great recession for this, you know, pushing to platforms and and, you know, the ability to do certain elements um yourself. Uh, a lot of corporate research teams are are swinging the pendulum in that direction. So, you know, my advice is to not be scared of that per se because, you know, you you get in, you you you learn, you know, as researchers, we're we're always students, right? We're we're always, you know, learning and some of that learning can include, you know, taking on skills that you hadn't anticipated. Um, but what I will say on the flip side is, you know, try to always be able to recognize when you're being spread too thin. So, you know, there's that balancing act of if you're doing it, you're not, you know, you're doing versus consulting internally, right? Um, and that's, you know, that can be difficult. And when you find yourself, you know, taking on certain elements that are, you know, too cumbersome or that you just aren't able to master, you know, you have to ask the question of, okay, is there further peacemealing that that has to happen. Maybe I don't have to, you know, farm out an entire project, but maybe it can be, you know, component parts. Um, you know, on the flip side, I'd also encourage suppliers to to think about it in terms of flexibility as well. you know, how can we sort of meet each other halfway in terms of get in where you fit in? Um, be there as a resource, but but you know, not a rigid, you know, we can only operate in this capacity. So, that's it. That's my soap box. I like it. Thanks, Bill. All right. So, we've got a few minutes before the next presentation. Um, we're going to hang out, take a break, grab some lunch. Um, I am going to see Susan has Oops. Past control to me. I'm going to try to Yeah, there we go. So, Susan's screen is disabled. Um, you're sorry, you're just seeing me right now. Um, so, you know, fun little activity for us to be doing, trying to think of ways to engage. Um, so we invited you to to talk talk pets during the first presentation trying to, you know, think about ways that we can, you know, engage with one another and network as it were. Um, and you know, the big drawback that we see of a virtual conference like this is the fact that there's no swag. You got no exhibit hall. There's nowhere to go and and you know, visit the vendors, pick up the, you know, year supply of pens and flash drives. Um, and you know, that's a shortcoming that we have, right? Uh, so instead, what I'm going to encourage everybody to do is, you know, get on get on Twitter, get on LinkedIn, um, hash QVIC2020, and I want you to go digging and especially if you're remote, you know, what are your what what are the pieces of swag that you've actually kept from from conferences over the years? What do what do you have? What can you share? Um, I'm going to do one that just, you know, completely dates me. And this is going to be circa early 2000s. Um, this is from ARF conference in New York. This is my handy dandy uh wheel calculator. On one side, I've got significance testing and on the other side, I've got my sample size calculator. Uh this is from TNS referring to themselves at the time as Taylor Nelson Software is Interarch. Don't even know if they're still in existence. Um yeah, I'm old. Um but I still actually have this sitting in my office and I use it from time to time. So goodness gracious. Uh so get online, you guys share. Let's let's see if you guys have any any as well. Um so we're going to say goodbye. Y'all grab some lunch. Um, and we'll see you at the top of the hour.