Comments on: Was I wrong about quallies?

By: Simon Riley

Simon Riley — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:42:52 +0000

Hmm, you say “… a company that infuses deep and rich qualitative understanding into a scale business … would be the ultimate research company. And it’s the ambition of a number of companies I know of. None of which do any significant level of traditional qual.”
Ipsos, where I work in the UK qual team Ipsos MORI Hothouse, has a huge global qual business and has done for a long time. A lot of this involves working collaboratively with quant colleagues and indeed other professionals like design agencies. And we have hybrid qual-quant techniques coming out of our ears.
My view is that there has been a paradigm shift within the wider culture towards recognition and use of qualitative ‘whole brain’ ways of thinking and away from pure reliance on ‘rational’, ‘left brain’ approaches. Why wouldn’t you take account of all available evidence before making a decision? Clients are more wise to this than some ‘traditional’ quant people (though hopefully there aren’t many of those in Ipsos these days!).
But I agree that qual people may lack ambition to build big companies. We’re just not those kind of people. Happy to discuss why if anyone’s interested!
Simon

By: Ray Poynter

Ray Poynter — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 18:04:59 +0000

Hi Surinder
I think one of the key points is about scale. Communities are beginning to show already they have scale, take a look at the revenues and the growth.

My definition of qual (something I am still working on) is roughly
a) if it is a process that when two trained practictioners use the same technique, with the same tools and assumptions produce the same answers, then it is quant – i.e. it derives its value from the data
b) If a is not true, but it is based on a proper methodology and approach, it is qual, the result is based on the data and the interpretation of the researcher
c) if it is not a) or b) it is meta physics and should be put to one side.

Quant can be scaled up, the people can be replaced with other trained individuals.

Qual is harder to scale because the best people can leave and form a new company. If you look at the history of great qual companies (The Research Business and Leapfrog for example) this is how they started.

The fact that there are no billion dollar qual companies is a function of qual, not of quallies.

By: ResearchTalk

ResearchTalk — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:55:01 +0000

Thanks, Dan

By: Dan O'Donoghue

Dan O'Donoghue — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:52:32 +0000

Hi Surinder,

I think that you are more than correct. Quallies are either entirely based on the central importance of their own brain or trying to build systems based on ‘client service’ which are essentially ‘client flattery’. Neither of these are going to lead to growth although the ‘client flattery’ model is growing fast.

Best,

Dan
(Worldwide Strategic Planning Director, Publicis)

By: ResearchTalk

ResearchTalk — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:40:09 +0000

Hey Steve,

Good points, as usual.

I haven’t really got my head around communities. And I say that because I haven’t seen evidence that they can scale through technology. And that’s what I’m keen on – using technology, rather than people, to scale these operations. Digital is on the fast track of evolution, not analogue.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the quant. industry has it right. In fact it’s because there’s so much scope for improvement, and increasing recognition of this, that folks there seem increasingly motivated to experiment. I don’t see the same compelling mindset among quallies. Spring/MESH are among the exceptions.

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:02:27 +0000

Not sure I agree at all. Surely communities are the big qual development, they are game changing, there is already a company (communispace) that is well on the way to being the very large company you are looking for.

Also in terms of quant changes I am not sure what these game changing innovations are. Sure there has been a movement to online panels but it wasn’t exactly the research industry driving the web! All we did is take our offline panel ideas and push them online and again it has taken 10 years or so to get any decent interactive surveys.

Finally I would say that a lot of the real innovations I have seen recently are quali / quant (for want of a better word) which would describe much of what Brainjuicer and MESH are doing (admit to bias here!).

Another friend of Surindas!

Cheers
Steve