What’s Up in MI? – Recent developments in the Field of Market Intelligence

GIA Group company Fusion Consulting voted Asia's best consulting firm to work for       

Fusion Consulting is Asia's best consulting firm to work for, according to the latest Vault.com survey of consulting company employees, beating out Bain, Monitor, McKinsey, BCG, LEK and 35 other companies surveyed.

The 2008 results are as follows (rank, company, score):
1. Fusion Consulting 8.314
2. Bain & Company 8.299
3. Oliver Wyman 7.952
4. Hay Group 7.714
5. Booz & Company 7.671
6. The Boston Consulting Group 7.619
7.  Monitor Group 7.325
8. NERA Economic Consulting 7.184
9. Opera Solutions 7.103
10. L.E.K. Consulting 7.095

Which are the best firms to work for? For some, this is a far more important consideration than prestige. To determine the Best 10 firms, 41 firms were analyzed using a formula that weighted the most relevant categories for an overall quality of life ranking. Each firm’s overall score was calculated using the following formula:

• 25 percent overall satisfaction
• 15 percent compensation
• 15 percent work/life balance
• 10 percent hours in the office
• 10 percent travel requirements
• 5 percent formal training
• 5 percent interaction with clients
• 5 percent relationship with supervisors
• 5 percent firm culture
• 5 percent overall diversity

According to insiders, reasonable hours and flexible work schedules keep work/life balance even. "Yes, I am able to balance work and life. My colleagues are hardworking, while at the same time playful; the atmosphere is cool, no stress. All this is based on the professional assumption that we will finish projects on time and successfully."

Insiders at Fusion rave about the firm's culture, which they describe as "relatively relaxed, and collaborative yet independent." One consultant explains, "People are nice to each other at all levels and we get our work done (yes, there's plenty of it) in a timely, yet relatively low-pressure, unhurried manner. People seem at ease working alone or as a team."

For more details on the survey, please follow the link http://asia.vault.com.  

Abstracted from Vault.com, Inc. 24 September 2008

Outsell forecasts 4.5 percent annual compound growth for the information industry 2008-2011       

E-Content Magazine reports that Outsell has released its 2008 “Information Industry Market Size, Share & Forecast Report”. Revenues for the worldwide information industry are said to be on track and expected to reach $466 billion by 2011.

Furthermore, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.5 percent is forecasted for the information industry from 2008 through 2011, with the market holding relatively steady in 2009 and beyond regardless of the challenging economy and a contracting news segment. Excluding the news segment, the CAGR is expected to rise to 8.4 percent with five leading industry segments: Search, Aggregation & Syndication (15.6 percent), HR Information (10.4 percent), Market Research, Reports & Services, and IT & Telecom Research, Reports and Services (9.4 percent combined), and Credit & Financial Information (8.5 percent).

Abstracted from E-Content Magazine, 26 September 2008

Study: CI drives more corporate decisions than ever before but delivery methods still lacking    

Outwards Insights has published its “Ostriches & Eagles" study, which gauges the effectiveness and use of CI among U.S. companies across industries, and compares results with a similar survey conducted in 2005. According to the results, more U.S. corporations now use CI to drive critical strategic and tactical decisions than ever before. However, the survey also found that 24% of the respondents still don't have a structured way to deliver intelligence to decision-makers in their organizations.

Other key findings included:

• More respondents (28%) integrate likely competitor reactions into their plans for launching new products than in 2005 (21%)
• The use of scenario planning nearly doubled from 30% in 2005 to 59% this year
• The percentage of respondents who believe CI is "an integral part of the strategic planning process" was at 85%, the same as in 2005
• Thirty-seven percent of respondents feel that CI does "not have sufficient stature" in their organizations to have a "significant impact." This number is almost unchanged from three years ago
• Roche and IBM tie as the top "eagles," the best corporate intelligence users, according to the respondents

Ken Sawka, Managing Partner of Outward Insights and author of the survey expressed concern about the obstacles that still impede corporations from realizing the full value of competitive intelligence, with shortages in CI programs’ funding and consequent threats of strategic CI applications being short-lived. The survey also found that almost one in five executives surveyed believe that senior managers do not value the competitive intelligence they receive. There were also some notable differences in the responses from the seven industry groups surveyed.

Outward Insights' survey was conducted in June and July 2008. The survey consisted of telephone interviews with 100 senior executives at U.S. corporations. More than two-thirds of the companies participating had revenues of $1 billion or greater.

Abstracted from Outward Insights press release, 1 October 2008

Study: Pharma companies find research ROI often difficult to measure        

Cutting Edge Information has released a new study, “Improve Market Research Impact”. According to the report, pharma companies are moving away from the idea of hard ROI measurement for their market research, with 74% of surveyed not attempting to calculate ROI for MR. The report also says these firms are instead concentrating on levels of satisfaction of internal clients for research. Of the 74%, 39% do not conduct any sort of performance measurement.

The view that hard measurement of ROI is not feasible stems from the fact that market research comes so early in the chain of events leading to a project launch and is therefore far removed from the end result. The report is based on surveys and interviews with top executives from 30+ companies, and provides strategies for maximizing market research's reach and impact and winning stakeholder support.

Abstracted from Daily Research News Online, 7 November 2008