Professional services firms ‘research sceptics'
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UK-- Professional services firms are spending far too little on market research, according to a new study by the Professional Marketing Forum.
A survey of the PM Forum's membership – which includes marketers for legal, accounting and other professional services firms – found that 39% of companies spend less than 1% of their marketing budgets on MR. In North America, the figure rose to 48%.
Jo Summers, chair of the PM Forum's New York chapter and a director for UK-based research firm Acritas said that spending less than 1% on research was “ridiculous”. She urged firms to “challenge the excessive scepticism about research typically shown by partners and their defensiveness about allowing anyone else close to their clients”.
“Relying solely on the knowledge in your partners' heads is like driving fast with ice on the windscreen,” she said.
The survey found that global firms were the most in favour of research, suggesting problems occur most when relationships between clients and partners are more personal.
Richard Chaplin, executive director of the PM Forum, told Research: “The root cause is that the marketing people have very limited flexible budgets – they have to get any expenditure cleared with the partners. They are very reluctant to canvas their clients on anything. It's also a cultural issue about what the role of research is in a professional firm where individual partners deliver services to the clients almost personally. They think they're close to those people, but once you finally start doing research they find they're not that close.”
Acritas commercial director Victoria Scarisbrick said: “They always used to say advertising is the first thing to be cut when budgets were tight – well research doesn't even always appear in a budget!”
Author: Robert Bain
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