Back in November the UK MRS published its highly respected annual league tables. The tables are very much a product of their time, they reflect a very difficult 2009 and the last full year of a Labour Government committed to spending large amounts of tax-payer’s money on market research (amongst other things).
The table below illustrates companies that showed a good level of growth from 2007 to 2008 AND good growth from 2008 to 2009, concentrating on the large and middle-sized agencies.
The last column are my observations (if you think I have described your agency wrongly, please let me know).
The following patterns seem to me to emerge from the results.
Data
The largest companies showing good growth were from data focused agencies. This reflects, IMO, a general trend in the MR industry, where the companies who work with loyalty data and other metrics are becoming bigger and bigger players in the MR business.
Government/Social
NatCen and Euromonitor have strong credentials in social research.
Specialists
Two of the largest growers specialise in pharma research, several of the other successful companies have clear areas of specialism.
People
The final group of agencies in my table I have called ‘People’. They tend to make a lot of fuss about their people, the awards they win, and they tend to position themselves as premium rather than as good value.
So What?
The first caveat is that any list of successes suffers from survivor bias. For example, there are plenty of data companies, or specialists, or social research specialists who did do well in the period from 2007 to 2009. Choosing a good niche is not enough to be successful.
The second caveat is that past success is no guarantee of future success. In 2010 a new Government were elected and they have embarked on the largest cuts in public spending in recent memory. This is likely to make times much more difficult for social research.
However, I do think that it is interesting that all the companies that had a good 2007 to 2009 were companies with a clear focus. I suspect that in difficult economic times it is the generalists who suffer most, and having a clear focus is one element (amongst many) of doing well.
However, to accept my analysis you will need to accept my definition of ‘People’ as being a specialism.
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