Recent research carried out by McKinsey Quarterly with 2,135 executives showed that most companies’ strategies are flawed and not ‘future-proofed’ to make sure that they are adaptable to changing market conditions. With 2012 ahead of us (and no doubt some globally challenging times ahead), we have detailed the main checklist that you should review to see where gaps lie in your company’s strategy and develop a future process for improving your strategy over the next 12 months:

1. Commit to following your strategy (but with some flexibility!)
2. Make sure you do something different
3. Understand whether your strategy taps into a true source of competitive advantage (and if it doesn’t, try and develop one)
4. Evaluate whether your strategy is granular enough about where to compete so you can make a difference to actions and the bottom line
5. Don’t rely on the past to plan future strategy (and also don’t rely too heavily on internal bias as this may give a blinkered view)
6. Ensure your strategy includes different scenario planning to take account of uncertainty
7. MOST IMPORTANT: Make sure you transfer your strategy from paper into an action plan

As documented by Porter and his 5 forces, all companies operate in markets surrounded by customers, suppliers, competitors, substitutes, and potential entrants and all are seeking to advance their own positions. The problem is that most companies continue to do what they have always done and not think about diversifying to beat the market. Remember, if you always do what you have always done then you will always get what you have always got…if you are lucky!

Make sure that you do something different in 2012 to create value and improve your strategy development process.

For a full reading of the article by McKinsey please visit www.mckinseyquarterly.com ‘Have you tested your strategy lately?’

For further reading on strategy development and competitive intelligence click on the links below:

B2B International White Paper – Competitor Intelligence
B2B International White Paper – Strategic Decisions Planning

Every company needs to innovate to survive. This means constantly enhancing existing products and services, and developing new ones – all to drive revenue and profits, to illustrate a market leadership position, and to stay ahead of the competition.

A new white paper by Julia Cupman can be viewed on this subject at http://www.b2binternational.com/publications/white-papers/product-development-research/

Three key takeaways that are drawn from this paper include the following:

Market research can unleash new ideas and opportunities for product development. It has been said that 80% of industrial innovations have come from customers themselves. Companies that do not actively listen to the market could, therefore, be ignoring unmet needs and closing their ears to new product opportunities.

Market research can help you maximize revenues of a product or service. Market research need not cover only product enhancements or new product development. Market research can provide answers on the size of the market, its growth prospects, the distribution channels, optimum pricing, and factors influencing the purchasing decision.

Market research provides insurance, reducing business risk. After apparently not having conducted market research, FedEx lost $340 million on a new Zap mail offering, and DuPont lost an estimated $100 million on a new synthetic leather product, Corfam. In order to avoid embarrassing and costly mistakes such as these, it’s understandable why so many companies turn to disciplined market research to test and validate concepts and prototypes prior to new product launch.

After a week of globetrotting, Nick Hague reflects on his experiences to explain how a good questionnaire can be the first step in achieving satisfied – or, even better, delighted – customers.

As I sat at Heathrow Airport on Monday evening waiting for a connecting flight to Athens, I was confronted by a lady wanting to ask me a few quick questions about my experience of T5. My flight had been delayed but the gate was about to been called. However, since it was a ‘short survey’ I said I would help. She asked me the usual questions about shops, eateries, toilets and spaces to sit and relax, but since I wasn’t looking to shop, I had already eaten a sandwich on the previous flight and was on a quick turnaround on my connection, none of the questions were relevant to me. It would have been good if I had chance to freely say that I am always deeply frustrated with the lack of plug sockets near seating areas in airports to allow business travelers to charge their ever-depleting laptop batteries for the forthcoming flights, but this highly structured questionnaire didn’t allow such feedback. I was now being called to the gate and so it won’t surprise you that I rattled my answers off without much thought.

I then boarded the plane for the usual humdrum flight experience in cramped surroundings with little space to stretch out, never mind get some work done! However, on this occasion I was wrong to think this way as one of the air stewards must have seen my discomfort and, once airborne, I was offered the chance to move to one of the exit seats where I would have more room. That was very perceptive I thought! It was now a few hours since I had eaten and I was getting hungry. I predicted that the usual dried out meal would be as exciting as ever and would be washed down by the accustomed cheap wine – nonetheless, it would at least curb the onset of my hunger. Then the second thing that I wasn’t expecting happened – I was given a palatable meal but with the usual cheap plonk. I didn’t complain (it isn’t in the English nature) but my face must have spoken a thousand words. The air steward fittingly came back with a very nice Argentinean red – wow I thought! Now I know in-flight entertainment isn’t anything new but I had flown to Athens before and never had a movie, but as I tucked into my meal it came across the speakers that tonight’s movie would be ‘The Blind Side’. I had just read some good reviews on this movie and so sat back and relaxed to watch it. After 3½ hours I arrived in Athens at 1am and realized that even though I was a little bleary eyed, I had in fact enjoyed my flight!

The next morning when I vacated my hotel and was waiting for my taxi, I was given a feedback form that asked me about my satisfaction with the courteousness of the staff, the speed of check-in, my bed, the temperature of the room, the amenities (pool, bar etc) and breakfast. I noticed that there wasn’t a question about being kept up all night by the traffic outside my window or for the fact that I didn’t have an iron in my room to iron my creased shirt and trousers for my impending meeting. Like at Heathrow, I had to dash off a response as my taxi was waiting – however, I did point out to the receptionist that there was no scope for me to add comment to the form outside of the tick box questions.

That same evening I then boarded my plane home. With vivid memories of my inbound flight I quietly looked forward to my flight back to the UK. However, I should have known better. We boarded with the usual German efficiency (row numbers at a time) and we even set off on time (unlike my flight the previous day), but yes, you guessed it. I had a cramped seat, the meal was a dried sandwich, the wine was like vinegar and there was no movie!

Since there was no movie, it did at least give me time to pen my looming Thursday Night Insight piece. Thinking back over the last couple of days’ events, it hit home to me what the difference was between customer satisfaction, delighting customers and customer loyalty. Was I satisfied with my flight back from Athens; yes, it got me back without crashing and on time. However, was I delighted; no, and if I ever have a choice again I will definitely choose a different airline. My reflective time also allowed me to think back to the surveys I took part in at the airport and the hotel and emphasized the importance of not only asking the right questions but also picking the right time so respondents are in the right frame of mind to answer them properly.

The market research industry is probably its own worst enemy at times and latest thoughts often swing from one extreme to another. Either questionnaires are designed so detailed to get to the heart of what customers think that you run the risk of not surveying the busy but important customer; or with the desire for simplicity becoming worldwide, does a CSI (Customer Satisfaction Index) or NPS (Net Promoter Score) oversimplify things and not actually mean anything other than a number used for internal benchmarking?

All researchers like their lists and so here are my 5 top tips from this week’s experience to take into account when designing a customer satisfaction or customer loyalty project:

• Tip number 1: Make sure you allow scope to get feedback on what really matters. Therefore always try and build in a qualitative stage upfront so you can design your quantitative questionnaire with confidence. If budget and timings don’t allow for a qualitative stage, make sure you allow for scope within the questionnaire for open-ended answers so respondents aren’t infuriated in not being able to give their fullest answers.
• Tip number 2: Don’t use fancy vocabulary or at least use layman’s language (qualitative research can also help to validate how customers think and speak in this area). By way of example, the questionnaire from my hotel in Athens asked about housekeeping. Should they not have asked about cleanliness and comfort in the room to make it more understandable to a wider audience?
• Tip number 3: Don’t just look to understand what satisfies customers. Design your questionnaire to look at what delights customers as this will drive loyalty and therefore drive upwards profitability.
• Tip number 4: Use a research design that allows for a range of customers to be interviewed; not just the extremes of customers who are either highly satisfied or have an axe to grind, and make sure you don’t just analyse stated answers. Using statistical tools can help you infer what is really important to customers and therefore driving customer satisfaction.
• Tip number 5: Make sure the survey design is fitting to the marketplace you are looking to get information from. If you only have a couple of minutes, ask the really important questions only. If the respondent will have more time, design a wider ranging survey that looks to get to the crux of the matter (and make sure it is at a convenient time to collect the most thorough information you are looking for).

To conclude, in designing customer satisfaction and loyalty surveys I think we should all remind ourselves of the words of Albert Einstein “Things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler” – but remember; it can be the simple things in life that can actually delight your customer.

Find out more about some of the subjects touched in today’s Thursday Night Insight. Read our:

• Free e-book: Questionnaire Design
• Article: Good and Bad in Questionnaire Design
• White Paper: Customer Satisfaction Surveys
• White Paper: Beyond Customer Satisfaction
• White Paper: Loyalty – How To Win Devotion From Your Customers

With worldwide expenditure on online research predicted to almost treble over the next three years, market research specialist B2B International believes the future is rosy for most online techniques, especially focus groups.

The technological revolution of the past 15 years has led to the rapid development of online data collection methodologies. Of these, the online survey is the most established but, more recently, online focus groups have emerged, making it possible to obtain qualitative information online.

Following similar principles to Internet message boards, the online focus group differs from online surveys in that it allows every participant to see the responses of all of the other respondents and encourages them to respond to these views as well as to the initial question posed by the researcher. In addition, the researcher inserts questions as the discussion develops, in order to probe areas of particular interest, or to gain further information on new topics that participants introduce to the discussion. In this way, online focus groups enable a real-time, dynamic discussion to develop between the researcher and the respondents, just as would be the case with a face-to-face focus group.

Business-to-business market research specialist B2B International has been firmly established in the online research industry since the company’s inception in 1998 and remains one of the forerunners in e-enabled research. B2B International has recently published a comprehensive White Paper – Using Online Focus Groups As A Business-To-Business Research Technique – which gives a balanced assessment of the rationale behind using the online focus group as a research methodology.

The White Paper outlines 13 key reasons to conduct online focus groups:

• Volume of information
• Depth and quality of information
• Reflection time
• Accuracy and granularity
• Inclusiveness
• Honesty of respondents
• Better spread of respondents
• Incorporating different geographies and time zones
• Researching senior respondents
• Participation rates
• Introducing stimulae to the conversation
• Everyone has an equal say
• Client participation

In addition to highlighting the undisputed benefits, B2B International Director Matthew Harrison, author of the White Paper, shares some of the insights that B2B International has learned through the large number of online focus groups it has conducted over the last several years. According to Harrison: “Online focus groups can take place for a defined period of, say, 90 minutes, as with a face-to-face focus group but our experience shows us that online groups are more effective when spread over a period of 2 days, with respondents entering the discussion at different times to suit their convenience. This way, groups generate more considered opinion and a greater volume of information, adding real value to the research.”

However, internet focus groups are not suited to every research project and B2B International is quick to recognise the limitations. These include the fact that certain target audiences – particularly the less web-savvy – are less suited to online groups than others; respondent recruitment can be labour-intensive and expensive; and certain limitations exist with presenting physical stimulae for respondents to touch, feel or smell.

In spite of this, Harrison is optimistic about the future for online focus groups: “There are many reasons why we believe the prominence and effectiveness of online focus groups will increase, but key among them would be convenience and technology. Increasingly busy schedules coupled with the need to speak to respondents all across the world make online focus groups an ever more viable option. Secondly, there will continue to be huge advancements in the capabilities of and familiarity with technology, enabling greater numbers of respondents from all across the world to take part with increasing ease and improved effectiveness.”

To read the white paper in full, please click here.