A vision to be the best market research company

By M. HAFIDZ MAHPAR

 

ACNIELSEN (M) Sdn Bhd, already one of the country’s two largest market research companies, now wants to be perceived by clients as “the best market research partner in South-East Asia.” 

That is the vision drafted by the company’s executive committee that is headed by Steve Mitchell, who was appointed managing director in the middle of last year. 

“Our vision is based around our clients’ perception, not an ACNielsen’s perception,” he tells BizWeek.  

“That’s important, because we may think we’re doing very well, but it’s really how the clients perceive us at the end of the day that decides how we’re judged in the marketplace.” 

According to Mitchell, his role and objectives are related to the service-profit chain whereby happy staff contributes to happy clients and then to happy shareholders. 

Steve Mitchell

The ACNielsen group measures staff satisfaction in every country it operates in, using factors such as perception of leadership and perception of reward and recognition. 

Mitchell says the Malaysian office, which employs about 400 people, has a world-class staff satisfaction rating.  

“We regard any market or country that scores above 70 per cent as being world-class and ACNielsen Malaysia scored well above that – at around 80 per cent. Our commitment to the staff is to continue to measure that and to act on the issues that come out of the survey,” he says. 

As a way of getting staff feedback, Mitchell conducts regular lunchtime forums and visits all the company’s field bases in the country. 

Mitchell says: “I’ve categorically said to everybody that at whatever level they’re in at the company, my door is continually open and I want a dialogue on a day-to-day basis with everybody.” 

There seems to be a good effort at trying to get feedback.  

Late last year, the company put a staff suggestion box on each of the four floors where it operates at Menara MPPJ. Next to each box is a piece of paper saying: “If you have a great idea, please let us know ... Best idea of the quarter will be awarded RM150.” 

While having dialogues with staff is important, Mitchell says it’s not nearly as important as taking action to resolve issues. “We can’t solve everything,” he admits, “but what I’ve sort of committed to the staff is that if we can’t act, we will explain why.” 

Recently Mitchell conveyed to his staff the five key foundations that underpin ACNielsen Malaysia’s vision of being the best market research company in the region. And they are people, client service, quality, and speed and services development. For each of these, ACNielsen has identified concrete goals. 

Mitchell says there is a general perception that market research is a numbers business – which it is about data and statistics.  

“I refute that,” he says. “I think like any service business, it’s a people business. And the people who are going to be successful are those who know how to interact with our clients and interact with each other as staff members.” 

Mitchell has started joint client service teams that work across ACNielsen’s two strategic business units (SBUs) – customised services and retail measurement services.  

He says that instead of taking a business unit approach, the company starts by talking to its clients to see what kinds of services they require. “We’re trying to understand the clients’ business objectives and then set up a servicing plan flowing from that,” he explains. 

“The joint servicing plans foster discussion and circulation of ideas. And that refers to discussions both within our SBUs and between us and the clients,” he says. 

On making the SBUs work closer together, he says this is supplemented with formal training in account management and specific market research to retail measurement people, for example, have better awareness of customised services.  

“What we’re trying to do is to create true market research all-rounders, people who understand all aspects of the business.” 

According to him, the company will continue to look at industry sectors and to create industry practice groups to give clients some value. Currently it has five groups: communications, retail, banking/finance, automotive, and government. 

In terms of services offered, ACNielsen has a few in the pipeline. One that excites Mitchell is ScanTrack, a retail measurement services report. Based on data electronically scanned at hypermarkets and supermarkets, it covers information on sales, prices and distribution. 

It allows manufacturers and retailers to monitor such data weekly. Currently, ACNielsen’s Retail Index service only provides the information, which is collected manually, once every two months. 

“It also allows us to track new categories such as frozen and chilled products,” he says. 

ACNielsen is also studying whether it is viable to provide handheld terminals to its retail auditors, who are currently using paper, clipboards and pens. “We will make a go/no go decision shortly. We need to understand the impact in terms of quality and speed improvements versus the cost of implementing it,” he says. 

On the company's performance, Mitchell says he is projecting a double-digit growth this year both in revenue and profit.