Research is like innovation. Both optimize. In particular, research drives business to be not just knowledge based but also knowledge creating, not just research users but research providers. It compels the next step, the road not taken, the inquiry not pursued. Increasingly, before savvy professionals embark on any new venture, they ask four related questions: “Want do we know?” “What does the research show?” “Who in our industry is doing what?” and “Does the problem and the solution have a future?” If the answers to any or all the above fall short in range and depth, some companies opt to do the research themselves. And on that decision hangs this analysis.
Historically, there have been four traditional research providers: universities, proprietary research and development (R&D) divisions, think tanks and centers, and government.
Universities traditionally have dominated research by supporting and sustaining research centers, a research faculty and doctoral degree programs. Such efforts have produced a steady stream not only of original findings of basic research but also future researchers. The former are highly valued by industry—a significant number of subscriptions to scholarly research journals are from the for-profit sector. Although happy to borrow the results of such expensive and long term projects, companies often view university findings only as initial grist for the mill. They still require the applied and supplementary science of their own research staff, especially for the results to be proprietary.
R&D units of companies seek to generate competitive edge and advantage by developing new products or services or improving those in house. Often their staffs are as impressive and degreed as any major research university. Indeed, they frequently attract and retain outstanding talent by offering research assignments so unique that they cannot be resisted or matched. For example, when stem cell research was restricted in the United States, China sought to recruit frustrated Chinese-American researchers by offering unlimited access to stem cells. Recently by approving a referendum permitting such research, California gave that state a recruiting edge. In its heyday Bell Labs had more Ph.D.s than many small universities. Currently the R&D research mantle has fallen largely to the pharmaceutical industry and to software entities such as Microsoft and Apple. But with the increasing demand for innovation, the search for research talent might rival that of senior staff.
The third generator of research has been various think tanks and centers, often privately and handsomely funded, and sometimes driven by political agendas. One of the most consistently competent is the Rand Corporation. Typically, the research subjects selected are complex and national in scope and involve major policy issues.
Finally, government has been directly engaged in research for decades as well as being a major promoter and funder of original research, especially through grants focused on national health.
But during the last decade many new contenders have unexpectedly arrived on the scene. A number of for-profit companies have made research their core business and used their findings to create or increase their access to a customer base. Moreover, because the research focus is frequently industry tailored and customized, research and marketing are aligned from the outset. All these new research and market-driven enterprises resemble somewhat the four major research providers. That is not surprising because many have provided an alternative employment path for university-trained Ph.Ds. Not yet recognized let alone examined is the overall impact all the doctoral business graduates have on their employers and their research agenda. Regardless, these new research providers are both sufficiently distinct and creative enough to be recognized separately and examined in their own right. Although each might have its own focus of specialization, applications and even research methodology, they surprisingly have enough in common to generate the following generic profile:
- 1. Like universities, their research is shared.
2. Unlike universities it is sold.
3. Their basic product is always new intelligence.
4. It is frequently focused on training.
5. Training thus becomes increasingly research-based.
6. Customers are targeted that do not know as much about themselves and their behaviors as the research reveals.
7. Because their findings also might affect organizational and even mission change, they also function as research-driven consultants.
8. Their preoccupation with macro problems or lost opportunities within the big picture engages the interest of top senior decision makers.
9. Often inevitably, they redeem and extend the short-term strategic planning of their clients.
10. Functioning in an entrepreneurial environment, they are self-selective in the niche they research and in effect brand their expertise.
In surveying and illustrating the field, I have limited myself to a group small enough in number to exhibit typicality and range on the one hand, but who serve as major research providers by offering an impressive unique track record of customer sales and satisfaction on the other hand. They also epitomize and fuse three functions: research, marketing and learning.
KnowledgeAdvisors
The research and market niche of KA is learning measurement. The goal is to provide training operations with learning analytics through its patented Metrics that Matter (MTM). The basic overall outcome is to justify the costs of training through the application of ROI methodology. But in the process it evaluates not so much the training as the implementation of training. In the process, many impact variables are assessed, including productivity, customer satisfaction, innovation and talent retention. Intensely data driven, KA metrics bring detailed transparency to work profiles in general and even to individual and team performance. Managers can view more than 100 Web-based reports over time generated by a data base that contains more than 30 million data points.
KA, like many research enterprises, claims not only to offer best practices but also to embody the state of the art. Toward those ends, KA and ThomsonNetg, for example, sponsor annual national and international symposia on the subject. KA’s annual meeting on Learning Analytics was scheduled for early March in New Orleans this year, and Netg’s annual conference was scheduled for April in Orlando. Although generally more marketing than research, these conferences showcase the research wares and offer case studies by users such as Microsoft of how MTM is used and altered to address unique situations. Such documentation provides a demonstration and evaluation of a distinct new best practice: the use of research to enhance market advantage.
Thomson Netg
The distinction and branding sought by Thomson Netg is its commitment to innovation. Toward that end, it has recruited and maintained a robust research and development group that collectively constitutes its Innovations Lab. Its creative track record includes the technologies of learning object architecture, EKG software to measure the effectiveness of simulations, and most recently Precision Skilling, which links job skills to training directions and designs. The last innovation in particular is bringing about a major review of training areas and the diagnostic management of learning diversity.
When Netg functions in a consultant capacity, its focus is always synthesizing in nature. It seeks to deliver an integrated learning solution, which frequently requires three activities: updating current in-house technologies; linking older systems to Netg’s new innovations; and leaving the now integrated LMS open ended to future development. As noted, the commitment to research and marketing unexpectedly changes consultant-client relationships. It is no longer outside but inside, no longer distant but infused, no longer separate but partnered. What drives consultant and client together is research, which reveals more about the behaviors, problems and situations of clients and companies than they knew before. That creates the kind of captive and receptive audience open, often for the first time, to innovations that already embody the research insights. In short, branding is not limited to products but includes process as well.
Bersin and Associates
It’s not necessary to be big to select a big research niche. Bersin and Associates has staked out the research area of developing industry-wide information and practice patterns of e-learning. The answer to the critical question of “Who in our industry is doing what?” is Bersin’s research focus. Their most recent source book, “LMS Customer Satisfaction Survey,” completed and distributed during the first quarter of 2005, is a research case study.
To ensure that what is being researched is needed and valued on the one hand, and to spread the cost of undertaking such a large scale project on the other, Bersin has formed a LMS Quality Council whose members represent about 80 percent of the LMS market. Many research tasks are too enormous for any single member to undertake. In-house research capacity might not be unavailable, and frequently bias can intrude. So the council in effect subcontracts to Bersin to compile through surveys a source book that, among other patterns, will reveal for the first time how the products of various LMS vendors stack up to each other from the customer perspective.
Once again research and marketing are fused to the point where it is not possible to discern where the one begins and the other leaves off. In addition, to ensure that synthesis drives inquiry and remains on target, a consortium of users is formed whose common-knowledge needs override competitive and proprietary separateness. In other words, such an arrangement enables and facilitates Bersin and Associates to function as a research university serving its alumni customer base.
Brandon Hall
The research and marketing niche of Brandon Hall displays best practices for e-learning. Last published in March 2004 and authored by Tom Werner, the volume offers a comprehensive survey of case studies and organizational profiles of the e-learning industry. Extremely rich in detail, the compilation features best practices in five categories: steps and documents for building the business case for e-learning; ROI methodologies; developing company-wide LMS; criteria for selecting outstanding and award winning LMS technology, courses and evaluation systems; and linkage of learning to human capital HR management.
Brandon Hall invests its research with the additional judgment of annually singling out firms and practices for “Excellence in E-Learning Awards.” The identification of such industry leaders supports Brandon Hall’s focus on establishing benchmarks and thus guiding the strategy and technology selection of clients. Recently, Brandon Hall announced the publication of its latest research, “Hosted versus Installed LMS.” This three-year perspective reveals a surprising preference for installed rather than hosted LMSs. Finally, Brandon Hall offers customized research to individual clients who seek to know the best practices of its industry and competitors. Such individual and focused surveys benefit both from Brandon Hall’s methodology and its database of best practices. Recycling research methods and findings in effect has become Brandon Hall’s own best practice.
IDC
The focus of IDC is IT, the span global. It produces “The Worldwide Black Book,” which provides extensive analysis of the status and projected growth of the worldwide IT industry in 53 countries. The book also contains regional sub-set profiles such as those of Central and Eastern Europe and Asia/Pacific Issued quarterly, the most recent edition is dated December 2005. It also generates “The Worldwide Telecom Black Book,” which presents a consolidated view of market size and growth opportunities for network equipment vendors. Current and comprehensive, IDC’s research survey products accommodate multiple users and perspectives on one hand and routinely fuse macro and micro foci and issues on the other. The result is an indispensable research data support system for the entire IT industry.
Gartner
Although Gartner shares much of the same focus and scale as IDC, Gartner is explicitly in the forecasting business. Its current version is simply entitled “Predicts 2006.” But what sets Gartner’s trend monitoring apart is the degree to which it supports both short- and long-term decision making and strategic planning. Thus, it alerts print buyers and vendors to multiple technological and market trends, which directly impact and drive immediate profitability and manufacturing choices. Of special value are those anticipatory predictions, which read the emerging transformations of products and services before they are fully apparent. Such heads-up predictions display future agendas for company review and decision making. Indeed, tapping Gartner’s forecasts provides companies with a research partner and consultant that is not only typically beyond in-house expertise but also does so with an authority and independence essential to all future projections.
Clearly, much of what we currently know about marketing and learning and the marketing of learning is generated by these new research providers. The process has become self-recycling or self-perpetuating. A new and more demanding and holistic generation of learning and training leaders and systems have further required that research learning intelligence also be aligned with both ROI and innovation. In many ways these research providers define the learning industry and grant it autonomy and distinction. Above all, such alliances ensure that LMS, hosted or installed, will be smart, effective, targeted and profitable.
The new research enterprises will not eliminate or reduce the need for the traditional providers. They all will exist side by side and proceed as they have historically—as parallel lines that do not meet. But in substance and output, new room might have to be provided for this new fifth research provider. Moreover, with the creation of an alternative career path, new university Ph.Ds. might find not only a new home but also a more congenial and collaborative one there. Bersin’s research fraternity like Bersin’s quality council might turn out to be a more welcoming and convergent way of identifying and addressing the increasing multi-disciplinarity of knowledge; the management of learning diversity; and the global, holistic approach to training. If that occurs, these new research providers might identify and address the research agenda of the future as well as secure and extend their market niche by serving as an alternative research fraternity of distinction.
Irving H. Buchen, Ph.D., is director of international programs for IMPAC University and senior research associate of Canis Learning Systems. He can be reached at ibuchen@clomedia.com.
