20f e a t u r e Consumer Insight | Winter 2004| Case Study—Blurring the Boundaries: Moving from Market Research to Consultancy MasterCard International has a global membership that includes over two thousand financial institutions around the world. To track this farflung organization’s success, all members submit a questionnaire each quarter that summarizes their credit card results. MasterCard uses these quarterly summaries internally to assess performance and externally to prepare press releases and annual reports. So getting high-quality, consistent data is important. Yet MasterCard was dissatisfied with the completeness and correctness of their data. They also noted that members were not embracing a new quarterly reporting tool that MasterCard had implemented, a fact that was also affecting report quality. They realized any factors could be at work: language issues, lack of training, different business models and more. So how might they untangle a concern that had so many possible facets, stretching across thousands of different financial institutions around the globe? On the one hand, it made sense to engage a traditional consulting firm. On the other, a market research company could also provide informationbased consulting. ACNielsen International Research, working with MasterCard, developed a synergistic approach that combined the strengths of both companies. In so doing, MasterCard ended up with a holistic solution that resolved present-day reporting concerns and elevated the process to a new level. Building a Blended Approach ACNielsen began by defining the core questions the study would address, namely: • How trustworthy are the data in the quarterly reports from members? John Tullo, Vice President MasterCard International, United States Sonali Desai, Director ACNielsen International Research, United States Travyn Rhall, Managing Director ACNielsen International Research, Australia Continued on page 23.23 | Consumer Ins ight | Winter 2004 f e a t u r e • Where are the quality gaps in the reports? How can these gaps be filled? • What needs and requirements do members have as they use the reporting tools? • What are the likes, dislikes and areas of improvement for the current reporting tool and the current reporting process? • Why haven’t members embraced the new reporting tool? To tackle these questions, we borrowed a construct from the information based consulting world—disaggregate component mapping—to whittle down each core question into its individual parts, such as process, systems, skills, and so on. Then we looked at the array of skills available across both market research and consulting disciplines to pick the methodology that seemed to apply. In some cases, such as qualitative interviewing of members, a market research approach was the clear choice. When it came to auditing data integrity, traditional consulting practices made more sense. In still other areas, such as industry benchmarking, an approach that blended market research and consulting offered the best solution. We then needed to decide which members to interview. In this, we followed our traditional marketing research rules for building a representative sample. We identified member institutions that contributed high, medium and low levels of volume and chose interviewees from each level. At the same time, we looked for organizations that would represent each of MasterCard’s key geographies. This sort ultimately yielded 15 financial institutions located in eight different countries as best candidates for in-depth interviews—a group that represents 25% of MasterCard global volume. Collaboration at a New Level With the structure of the study established, we were nearly ready to begin the field interviews. We realized, though, that this effort would benefit from close collaboration between client and consultant. Collaboration became a theme—as well as a methodology—for the entire project. In that spirit, ACNielsen spent nearly five days at MasterCard International corporate offices interviewing employees about the reporting cycle before heading out to Business Tools for Decision Support Anytime, Anywhere Access to ACNielsen Content through the Internet Levering the power of the Internet, it is easy to locate and update your business-issue focused reports. No more emailing files. No proprietary software to deploy on the web user’s desktop. Answers Interactive harnesses your current skills and tool set allowing you to simply create and manage an analytical framework throughout your organization—and with no new programming language to learn. Answers Interactive features three key components to meet your individual configuration needs: Publish through a NITRO-based publishing wizard. Web Repository to store and access your reports online. Administration of your web site is controlled locally. Answers Interactive helps you to: • Gain anytime, anywhere single point of access to ACNielsen content through the Internet. • Streamline “clicks to content” with simple navigation and report management capabilities. • Control transition costs leveraging existing skill set and technology investment. To learn more about Answers Interactive, please contact your ACNielsen Client Service or Retail Services representative or visit our web site at http://acnielsen.com. http://acnielsen.com/ci or call 1.800.988.4ACN the field. In this intensive training phase, we learned exactly how the reporting system was administered to members from start to end. We learned what each of the numbers and terms in the report meant, how they were constructed and the inter-relationships between different line items. Then we studied where each number came from in the financial institution’s transaction and card information database. Once we’d built this intellectual foundation, we constructed an interview guide to direct our data-gathering about members’ likes, dislikes, reporting needs and suggestions for improving the current reporting tool. We went through a comparable process with the MasterCard employees who own the new reporting tool—again, in order to understand its capabilities and mechanics and analyze why more members weren’t using it as intended. Continued on page 24. Blurring the Boundaries continued from page 22.24f e a t u r e Consumer Insight | Winter 2004| As a result, we gained a deep understanding of MasterCard’s existing processes and developed a close working partnership with this client. Coupled with our own knowledge of the payment card industry and market research expertise, this step prepared us well for gathering data. The Good, The Bad and the Incomplete To set a friendly, positive context for face-to-face interviews with MasterCard employees who complete the quarterly questionnaire, each member was sent a letter in advance explaining that his or her institution had been chosen for study as part of a “best practices” documentation. And in fact, after the project was completed, a best practices document was developed for and distributed to the member banks. ACNielsen completed the interviews over a period of two months; each interview lasted between two-and-a-half and six hours. These sessions generated a wealth of quality information about MasterCard’s quarterly reporting issues. Study results showed that: • Data integrity at the primary level was high. • Data integrity at the secondary level was lower. • Gaps in reporting quality at the secondary level were due to differences in interpretation and definitions, missing data and estimations. Client’s ability to share information LOW HIGH LOW HIGH Supplier’s ability to build knowledge Poor Assimilation Win-Win Non-Starter Under Leveraged Resource Chart 1: Johari’s Window Illustration Others Unknown Known Known Unknown Self Open/Public Arena Blind Spot Hidden Area/Facade Unknown/Question Mark Chart 2: Modified Johari’s Window Illustration Continued on page 27. • On the process side, members were basically following sound processes and using good systems. • In the area of skills and content, most people responsible for completing the reports had the necessary skills but a number lacked adequate training to do a good job. • Slow adoption of the new reporting tool was due to format and training issues rather than the tool itself. In fact, members tended to prefer the new tool over the prior system once they were comfortable with it. • Industry benchmarking revealed that some competitors used checks and balances to refine data quality in the reporting process—a step MasterCard International was willing to refine and adopt to their situation. These conclusions, and the associated root causes, were exactly what MasterCard International’s senior management sought. ACNielsen made a series of strategic-and tactical-level recommendations to improve MasterCard’s data-gathering process. At the same time, the broader review we provided by benchmarking best practices across the payment card industry gave MasterCard a useful competitive assessment. The success of this project resulted in two additional projects on which MasterCard International and ACNielsen International Research also collaborated effectively. Blurring the Boundaries continued from page 23.27 | Consumer Ins ight | Winter 2004 c o n t i n u e d Blurring the Boundaries continued from page 24. Business Tools for Consumer Behavior The Latest Shopping Insights… Faster, Easier, Better…and now Online! Keep a pulse on the latest retail and consumer trends. Homescan Consumer Insights makes it faster, easier and better than ever for you to make strategic business decisions using shopping behavior and consumer dynamics across all major categories and channels of trade. With Homescan Consumer Insights you have web access to the latest shopping insights available, presented in an issue-oriented menu for simple navigation to your most pressing business issue. Get right to the subject. With Homescan Consumer Insights, you won’t waste time wading through unnecessary data. Interested in a regional comparison report of your brands? Want to know which retailers drive category spending? Need to target the best demographic match? Simply choose the business application to fit your needs and view the results immediately. Faster Immediate access to the most current shopping insights enables more informed business decisions. Easier Simple navigation to the right information improves productivity and allows you to focus on important business issues. Better Quick views of the latest changes in shopping behavior and category activity across traditional and alternative channels allow you to identify opportunities. To learn more about Homescan Consumer Insights, please contact your ACNielsen Client Service or Retail Services representative or visit our web site at http://acnielsen.com. http://acnielsen.com/ci or call 1.800.988.4ACN A “Window” of Opportunity The success of this project could not have been accomplished with separate initiatives and methods. Drawing upon the strengths of traditional marketing research and traditional consulting disciplines in a non-traditional way created a more nuanced, comprehensive outcome that led to sounder decision-making. To replicate the success of this project in future client-supplier relationships, we see a model in “Johari’s Window,” an old but elegant concept explaining interpersonal relationships and communications [See chart 1 on page 24]. Johari’s Window divides perception into four quadrants: open, hidden, blind and unknown. There are things readily apparent to others and ourselves (open); things we perceive but others don’t (hidden); things that others perceive but we don’t (blind spot); and finally areas where neither we nor others see clearly (unknown). The goal in interpersonal relationships is to increase the area of the open quadrant to enhance stronger relationships and communications [See chart 2 on page 24]. Here we have modified Johari’s Window to illustrate optimum client-supplier relationships. Instead of “self” and “others,” the two axes of relationship are 1. Client’s ability to share information on their business/industry, and 2. Supplier’s ability to build knowledge based on information provided by the client. In this modified Johari’s Window, greater ability on the client’s part (to share information) and on the supplier’s part (to build knowledge) minimizes blind spots and areas of the unknown. Our experience of this win-win environment came first from the highly collaborative tone set on this project. Then, by blending practices and skill sets from different disciplines, we experienced an enhanced ability to build knowledge that contributed significantly to our client’s satisfaction and overall success. To borrow from our client: Yes, maybe some of the best projects in business have clear skill boundaries. But for everything else, there’s creative collaboration. This article is an excerpted version of the paper presented at the 57th ESOMAR Congress and Exhibition, Lisbon, Portugal, September 19–22, 2004.