Everyone views focus groups with some mistrust. Anderson suggests that the noisy tend to dominate. Weldon points to the danger of putting competitors in the same room.  Payget at NU uses focus groups for brainstorming but says that the results then need to be validated elsewhere.

So how can suppliers commission and use research better?  Dent says bluntly:  ‘Generally, research is bought badly and used badly.’  He adds:   ‘The really big question is,  “what are you going to do with the research when you get it? What will you use it for?” ’

Richard Sanders at Burlington Consultants says:  ‘A lot of the market research that is commissioned  doesn’t have any consequences at the end. This is the research that tends to not be followed up.  For instance, there is little point in commissioning research on what your partners think of your account management if you are not prepared to change it.’

Weldon reckons that all research projects need a senior manager to champion them and a willingness to meet the results with changes. She adds:  ‘I suspect that one-off projects are less likely to be followed up than continuous programmes where market research is built into the job role. If your salary is partially tied to what the channel thinks of you and you hold regular surveys, then it is much more likely that the research will be used.’

Anderson says that, as part of a channel audit, it is often useful to interview account managers, the suppliers’ staff in the field, and to get their perception of what partners think.  ‘You can then get a good picture of whether your account managers are really in touch with the views of the channel, and where there are real discrepancies, and why.’

Sanders says that some software companies have developed an inner ring of intermediaries who are prepared to roll up their sleeves and get much more involved in helping the supplier get its marketing right.  Cultivating such a group might reap dividends.

Much then hangs on how the research will be used internally. Dent argues that research can play a big role in change management by showing everyone incontrovertible proof that change is necessary. He warns:  ‘You can use research findings  to show why change is necessary. But if you do this it is important to cover an entire geography. Research conducted solely in the US and UK won’t convince a German or a Frenchman.’

Perhaps the ideal situation has been reached at Norwich Union, where Payget says that account managers’ views and perceptions of what the channel thinks are fed back into the research, which is then read, and acted upon, by the staff in the field.  But very few suppliers have reached the stage where research findings are fed back in this symbiotic way.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the reserch professionals both in-house and in the agencies reckon that it is essential to use a third party to carry out this research.  Anderson at INSEAD says:  ‘Intermediaries are much more likely to open up to independent third parties.’  She adds:  ‘It is also difficult for suppliers to be objective if they are doing the research themselves. Typically, I find that one or two noisy, articulate dissenters will capture suppliers’ attention. They find it hard to listen to the quieter voices, who might well be in the majority.’

Yet when a supplier commissions such research it places enormous trust in the hands of a third party.  Research companies are only as good as their individual researchers, and what you get depends to a great extent on what you pay. Research companies are all too aware that projects are often awarded almost purely on price, and cut their cloth accordingly. 

If you commission research it behoves you to find out who will actually be conducting the work. Out-of-work actors may be perfect for mass telephone surveys.  But they won’t ask the same questions as senior consultants, who are experts on an industry and  can thus probe deeply.  Equally, management consultants with little or no formal market-research experience, or who think they know most of the answers at the start of the project, can also fail you.  It is, therefore, worth interviewing the researchers in advance, and sitting in on the first day or two of the research process.  Yet few suppliers are prepared to make such an investment in time, much less to employ the internal experts who can ensure quality.