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Learning,
a Lifelong Endeavor
S. I. Inc. has always
been in the business of educating its clients. This took the form of classroom instruction
when we were marketing MCS-3. When
developing a capability for a client, like the CRM system for a systems
integrator, we always build into our contract time to teach the users of the
product how to get the most from our work.
Early in his career When we are not doing the
work, or teaching others, we are educating ourselves. This means taking courses or just plain
reading books and trying things out.
Some of our best products and services came from learning about
something, testing the ideas, and developing a capability to offer this to
our clients. We are not afraid of
taking a three inch book off the shelf, opening it to page one, and reading
it complete to the end. In fact, there
is money to be made in learning how to do something that way, and selling the
instruction to a client. There is a cute story
told about the late Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter, although I do
not know if it is true. The old man
was lying on his death bed reading a book when a visitor came into the
room. The man said: “Felix, what are
you reading?” To which the Justice
replied: “This is a Greek Grammar and I am teaching myself Greek.” The man, taken aback asked: “Why are you
doing that?” “Because I do not yet
know Greek” shot back Frankfurter! Live as if you were to
die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. High
Tide Software Taps S. I. Inc.
Late in June, High Tide
Software (HTS) of Focus Group Research
When should you consider
using focus group research? Like
surveys, market experiments, and test markets, focus group research is just
one of the many techniques that fall under the larger category of “Marketing
Research.” First and foremost, a focus
group is a “proof of concept” technique.
It is by definition qualitative research. There are few, if any, statistics emanating
from this effort. It is most usefully
employed in the middle of product (or service) development. The product must be fairly well along such
that the group can get a good idea of what it looks like, what it does, and
how he might use it. The group will be
the first real “users” to look at this new entity. What you want to gain from focus group
research is their reaction to the new offering. In the paragraphs that
follow we are going to outline the steps of a typical client engagement
involving focus group research. As an
example we have drawn on an actual project we did for a major computer
manufacturer. The first thing that we
need to establish is the “research objective.” That is, what question is the research
going to answer.
The client was thinking
of packaging up some professional services to be sold and delivered by
partners who are Value Added Resellers (VARs). The client wanted to know how this would be
received by the VARs. We proposed
using focus groups, made up of VARs, to address this question. Our research objective was to find out if
the VARs would enthusiastically resell and deliver the services packaged by
our client. By the end of our
engagement we needed to have a yes or no answer. Once we establish the
objective we need to concern ourselves with the logistics of running the
sessions. Often you need geographic
dispersion. This was the case in our
study as we ran four groups in three American cities and one Canadian
location. It is very important that
the group be composed of people who look like the market in general. Because focus groups are between 10 and 20
people you must recruit the attendees with skill. We had representation from big VARs and
small. We had people with both wide
and narrow product focus. We had
attendees who sold our client’s products exclusively and those who handled
additional competitive lines. It was
deemed important to feed the attendees, pay them for their time, and record
each session on video. Although it is not
mandatory, we believe that every focus group should have a “model
product.” In our case it was a model
service. This is something concrete
that you can put down on the table so that the attendees can get a real feel
for what the finished offering will look like. Since we were testing a service, the
moderator (the person running the focus group) took five minutes to describe
our model service. Our client was
proposing to offer an installation service for a very large computer storage
product. The service was created by
our client, but sold and performed by the VARs. So we have our attendees
coming, we know what we need to find out, and we have an example to put
before them. What will keep the two
hours flowing smoothly? The answer is
the Moderator’s Guide Book. While
months of preparation meant that we really knew our subject, by documenting
our work we assured our client and ourselves that each of the four sessions
would be very similar in organization.
The major component of the book is the session outline. Blocks of time are allotted to such things
as introduction, model product, and moderator questions. The role of the moderator is mostly to ask
probing questions. He is not to give
his opinion. There are two types of
questions. First are the “timeline”
questions. These are the questions
that will always be asked at a certain point in the session. For example “Are your customers asking for
installation services you do not currently provide?” Beyond the timeline questions there are
another set of questions which may be used.
These are called “shepherding” questions. If the discussion is wandering down an
unproductive path, the moderator needs to bring the flock back on track. The guide book has many of these questions
which is hoped will not have to be used.
An example of a shepherding question is: “Could an installation
service add significantly to your profits?”
Now you are all set with
your guide book in hand to run the focus groups. When they are all complete you take the
video tapes and transcribe each session.
Everything that an attendee says is coded with a number. Because the sessions are on tape, most of
the time you can coordinate the comment to a person and a company. This provides the major input to the final
report. Some would not do anything in
the final report save a general comment as to a sense of the sessions thus
leaving it up to the client to draw his own conclusions. This is not the way we do it. First, we explain in
general how we met the research objective.
In our example study the VARs would resell and deliver the kind of
services our client was developing.
Second, we
defended each and every conclusion with the coded comments transcribed
directly from the tapes. Thus, we did
not state our conclusions as assertions, but proved them one by one. Finally, we added new insight that came out
of the focus group serendipitously.
These were concepts that the client had not foreseen. In our work we found that the VARs would
not only like to resell the packaged services of our client, but the packaged
services of other VARs! This was news
to our client as our client believed that the VARs looked at other VARs in
the room as competitors. This was
clearly not the case. For additional information:
bob@s-i-inc.com
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