You’re familiar with this scenario: a business organization runs into a problem they can’t solve in-house, so they turn to your consulting firm to help figure out the solution.  The problem turns out to be more complicated than anyone could imagine but thanks to your experience and expertise, you were able to come up with a strategy to solve it for good.  Here’s the twist: given the complexity of the problem, the business wants you to back up your solution with something other than your experience and expertise, something that would help them understand what caused the issue and why your strategy is effective in solving it.  This way, they can replicate the solution in-house, while also leaving the door open to work with your consulting firm again in the future on another problem.

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Why Use Market Research For A Consultancy Project?

If you haven’t yet, this would be the perfect opportunity to partner with a market research company.  Your strategies and solutions are mostly born from your experience and expertise, but market research provides you with the data and insights to back up your advice.  Sure, you can simply explain that your recommendations work because you’ve seen this happen before with the solutions you provided in the past and therefore it should work this time as well; market research achieves the same effect, except that it does the job with nuanced or layered explanations formed from case studies, working hypotheses, documented observations, referential works, and more.

In some cases where experience and expertise fall short, market research can serve as the foundation from which you develop your strategies and solutions by gaining a deeper understanding of not only the issue at hand but also other relevant factors such as the company, the competition, the customer base, trends, as well as the industry and the market itself, through quantitative and qualitative analysis.  Market research goes beyond helping solve company problems; it can also help consulting firms guide their clients’ growth and business, increase brand awareness, and reach sales goals by resonating with their target audience through a data-driven and context-based approach.

Market research can also be key in helping you compete with or stand out from other firms.  It can help determine key points in your competitors’ strategies to help differentiate your marketing approach or discover and tap into marketing space or niche audiences that they haven’t targeted.  Sure, your competitors can utilize market research just as well,  but if they’re only using it to support their existing business solutions and strategies while you leverage it to uncover new answers or innovate specific or contextual tactics for your clients, that can help get you a leg up over them.

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How To Conduct Market Research for a Consulting Project

The process for conducting market research for a consulting project can be broken down into a few steps, starting with determining the focus of the research by defining the problem we want to solve or the goal we plan to achieve.  In most cases, the focus may already be informed by the client and the project theme itself.  From there we’ll shape the primary question we’re looking to answer, then form secondary and tertiary questions out of it, deriving the data types and sources we’re going to need along with the criteria and metrics from which we’ll measure the progress and success of our research. 

Next, we’ll pick the research method we’ll be employing, which will be based on the type and sources of data we need and will use.  Are you doing primary market research to gather firsthand data from your target audience or the market itself?  Are you planning to complement your primary research findings with existing data from external sources through secondary market research? 

Interviews, focus groups, and surveys are commonly used when gathering data directly ourselves, but if they fit our needs we can also utilize the top-down or bottom-up approaches.  The former approach sees our research start with smaller elements to gain data for insights leading to a larger picture, while the latter has us researching first on a broader level with the resulting data used to learn specifics.  We can also refer to previous but similar projects which can help save time and resources, but bear in mind that we might need data specific to the present context to arrive at the ideal solution for that project.

We’ll next proceed to data collection and analysis wherein we’ll observe and record the research process, taking note of any difficulties and divergences, while checking the quality and validity of our data through testing, cross-validation, and the like.  We’ll be looking out for patterns, trends, correlations, and even differences, along with their implications and insights.  We’ll also use statistical tests, confidence intervals, or error margins to evaluate the reliability and significance of our results.

When presenting our findings, it’s best to deliver what we discovered in a clear and concise yet engaging manner using language and visuals appropriate for our audience.  For example, a somber, businesslike tone and straightforward visuals used when presenting to a room of executives and higher-ups might not work as well with a group of creatives.  Perhaps communicating your findings in a story-like fashion to the latter might inspire their interest more and get your points across better by stirring their imagination.  Visual tools can include reports, presentations, dashboards, or infographics, with highlights focusing not only on key takeaways and recommendations but also on any limitations we encountered or assumptions we made.    

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How To Find The Right Market Research Group For Your Consulting Firm

Not all market research companies are the same, of course.  You’ll find large MR firms that employ different teams for every phase of your consulting project as well as smaller groups with one unit dedicated to overseeing the entire process from start to finish.  You would want to go with a market research group that not only has some experience working with consulting firms but also does a regular volume of business with consultancies in the current day.  Their experience would most likely translate to a higher understanding of the nature and challenges of your consultancy business in addition to adapting and aligning more easily with your goals and the way you do consulting work. 

When interviewing market research teams you’re considering working with, you might want to ask them for any instance or past case history they can share wherein despite limited time, resources, and funds, they were still able to deliver outstanding insights and results.  This will indicate how they perform under pressure as well as gauge their competitive drive. 

But just because they rose above past difficulties and limitations doesn’t mean you’ll be short with them.  On the contrary, you need to ensure your chosen market research team not only has the proper tools and resources but also enough time, room, and funding to help them perform their job well.  Their success is, after all, your success.  Allow them the freedom to use their discretion to take risks, experiment, or innovate, since the breakthroughs they find can make the difference in the quality and ingenuity of your business strategies compared to that of your competitors. 

Let your consulting firm stand out from the rest of the competition with data-driven strategies and insights-based solutions for your clients that high-quality and high-level market research can achieve.  Partner with Cascade Strategies and back up your consultancy with groundbreaking methodologies and over three decades of market research experience that other leading US and international companies have benefited from.  Contact Cascade Strategies today and find out how we can help your consulting firm solve problems and achieve your goals.

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