Five things I learned as a Fortune 100 research consultant
1. Big swings require risk mitigation
Developing new drugs requires an investment of upwards of half a billion dollars. Investing in a new indication launch or planning commercialization of a new pipeline agent is obviously expensive. For clients soliciting the research, their careers, reputation, and likely next promotion were on the line.
One thing I will always be impressed by—these companies spent money on research and well-designed qualitative research, at that. Internally they understood their target audience down to the “prescribing decile.” Now whether or not claims data should be productized in the way it is, I’m not sure. But they invested heavily in gathering rich, detailed feedback from patients and doctors
2. More research is not always better
At that same time, I got the sense that sometimes studies were done that didn’t need to be. They had done the same survey with physicians in another sector of the organization, or by the person previously in the marketing director’s role. As in many orgs, research was as stand-in for battles over influence and power.
Additionally, secondary literature was all but ignored, at least from my perspective of a primary research partner. There are metanalyses likely on many of the questions big scientific-medical companies need to ask of any launch or product development. What are the best practices for health communications? Resources exist.
I first ran into the concept of interview saturation or data saturation working at a supplier to federal government contracts. In my time consulting for Fortune 500 clients, data saturation was not a thing. 60 interviews when 20 might suffice? No problem, they’ve got the money. But large direct-to-consumer marketing and advertising budgets contribute to a business model that drives up health costs.
When I have a bit more time, I’d love to develop a compendium of secondary literature and sources/annotations that can get clients some of the way to their goal using publicly available data.
3. Suprises are not a good thing
I remember how exciting it was, in the library scrolling through microfilm, to come upon a new discovery in the pages of Variety while writing my dissertation. In the Fortune 500 research consulting world, surprises in the research were potential landmines to keep an eye on and closely manage with clients. Because clients had a compendium of first-party data sources including claims data, sales data, analytics, surveys on surveys that told them one thing, qualitative research that surfaced something different was a red flag. And it was our job as the research team to account for the discrepancy—a sometimes-impossible task (and one that wouldn’t hold up to methodological scrutiny}.
4. Beauty is Truth
The beautifully designed PowerPoints—intricate coordination of brand colors and fonts—they really are a work of design-art to behold. I’m not entirely sure why, but the Fortune 500 clients I worked with loved these 50-100 slide decks of highly detailed analysis that was also beautifully arranged and polished to the nth.
I can’t hate on this honestly—it forced me to move from a mindset of “making the report pretty” to letting the insights dictate the formal design of a slide and slide-deck. Clients loved new slide designs and were highly attuned to economical, engaging storytelling designed to get the maximum juice for minimal cognitive load.
5. The research team is the vendor
I don’t have a problem with this, though I know others do. These Fortune 500 companies have so much leverage in the market, and the research firms so little, that the relationship inevitably reflects this differential. Part of this, I think, is that research firms are seen as a dime-a-dozen—they are largely undifferentiated, use the same methods, and have the some ‘proprietary’ tools. This dynamic entirely dictates the project experience. Findings as delivered to the client don’t always remain that way, “softened” to make their uptake easier and to avoid any conflicts with other data sources.
Now that I help a wider array of clients, I bring these lessons with me. The experience strengthens what I can draw on when designing a study and informs the type of relational experience I hope to have with clients—one of long-term collaboration.