Part of the answer seems to be about “proving the value of MR.” We see this clearly in Ian Lewis’ piece in Quirk’s this month and also a piece titled “Show Them and Tell Them” in the same issue.

I think the industry as a whole needs to develop more case studies. I also think we need to take “victory laps” where we can in order to drive home the value.

One question I keep asking myself is whether we as an industry are listening to our buyer?

Sure, we survey and focus group and segment our target consumers, but do we survey our clients themselves after each project? I would REALLY like to see that data in an industry survey. I think we need this kind of candid feedback and data I’ve seen suggests that the simple act of soliciting this feedback would improve perceptions of the end product.

The challenge is that while we can clearly see that our value prop must change in order to earn a seat at the table, our clients are fighting a similar battle for visibility and in many cases are losing. Since we are a service industry, we have to meet the needs of our clients, and our clients are being held back often by limits within their corporate culture. Quite a conundrum, eh?

Of course, this is not true for all client-side researchers, and we’ve been lucky ourselves to have a great group of clients who’s value is unquestioned within their organizations and receive an immense amount of respect. That said, I think they are a minority overall, and it will take the leadership of key organizations to help shift the rest. We need someone like a Jack Welch to do for client side research practice what Jack did for business management.

Lacking a visionary leader on the client side, it will fall upon suppliers to develop the needed resources and culture to help prove the point to clients that research is far more than tactical surveys and focus groups, and is instead a vital strategic tool that can be used to map the past, present, and future in order to maximize the probability of success for our clients.