1.  Building a Global Index that Impacts Company Performance

Frost & Sullivan, together with a major telecommunication services provider and a global collaboration software provider, undertook a research program to understand how global enterprises use collaboration in their business.  To understand thoroughly the impact of collaboration within an enterprise, a structural model, to evaluate its interaction with other organizational factors, like company performance, strategy, corporate culture, organizational structure, collaborative technologies, and environmental turbulence, was developed.  Among the significant findings are the following:

• The quality of collaboration significantly impacts company performance.
• The impact of collaboration on company performance is significantly higher than the impact of strategy and environmental turbulence.
• Corporate culture, structure and technology significantly impact the quality of collaboration.

From the structural model, a global collaboration index was developed that had both descriptive and predictive value.  Collaboration, as measured by the index, is a key driver of all the dimensions of performance: profitability, profit growth, sales growth, labor productivity, product development, customer satisfaction, innovation, and product quality.  The global validity of the index is demonstrated by the fact that top performing companies in Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the USA had consistently higher collaboration index scores when compared to bottom performing companies.  The index was used to compare relative collaborativeness across the regions, and across 6 industry verticals.  The global collaboration index has provided insights that can have significant impact on global, regional, and vertical strategies related to collaboration and company performance.  

2.  Measuring Customer Loyalty for A Global Company

A multinational industrial and consumer products manufacturer commissioned a global study with Frost & Sullivan to measure the satisfaction and loyalty of its customers. Frost & Sullivan understood that traditional customer feedback approaches, such as those based on satisfaction, are not likely to produce new requirements. Feedback studies are moving increasingly towards measurements based on loyalty, value, and actual behavior. This provides more information to the business planner to set priorities for market segments that offer potential while, at the same time, understanding what these segments are currently seeking and their motivations for using a supplier.

Close coordination of all aspects of the research study were required to ensure comparability of results across the countries under study. The use of behavioral scales solves much of this problem by ensuring cultural neutrality. Still, the many vagaries of a region or country must be well understood by the researchers. Typically, this requires a truly global presence and a long history of building operational knowledge of the many cultures (business and societal) and economies around the world.

Any multi-country study needs a very systematic approach if the final delivered data is going to be of any use in terms of accuracy, comparability, and actionability. Frost & Sullivan recognizes the importance of these issues and has the requisite experience and resources to ensure that this study is closely managed by a project team well prepared to deal with the issues that will inevitably arise.

3.  Understanding Consumer Behaviors and Industry Practices Regarding Recycling and Reuse:  Custom Research for a Leading Automotive Company

A global automotive company was looking to market their self-imposed recycling/reuse initiatives within the U.S. but was uncertain if their investment would positively increase their brand image, and therefore, worth the investment.  Specifically, they were uncertain of: 

• Personal recycling/reuse behaviors among U.S. households
• Industry practices related to recycling and reuse

Frost & Sullivan was commissioned to conduct this research and had an opportunity to showcase the “Frost & Sullivan advantage”…the coupling of our Customer Research and Industry Analysis Research.  We recommended this approach since it would provide this leading automotive company with a complete information picture: a demand-side and a supply-side perspective.

Specifically, the Customer Research team conducted a comprehensive survey among U.S. households that not only surveyed directly about their current and past behaviors, but also was able to apply behavioral psychology to reveal the influencers of recycling/reuse behaviors.  Specifically, these results were obtained through the development of psychological indexes and were tested with our toolbox of statistical applications - thus, revealing the strong influence that beliefs, attitudes and social norms have on recycling/reuse behavior.

Simultaneously, the Industry Research team contacted leaders among targeted industries to determine what recycling/reuse policies are currently implemented.  Given the extensive relationships Frost & Sullivan has developed with so many industries, we were able to identify the key decision-makers and approach them for their perspectives and their organizations' recycling/reuse policies.  Our experienced and skilled industry analysts were able to extract the general trend that “industries place stronger emphasis on efficiency and pollution reduction than on recycling.”

These combined methodologies provided extensive research capabilities in which to recommend relevant and actionable strategies.  Specifically, we evaluated our separate conclusions to see where consumers and industry leaders seem to connect.  In conclusion, it was determined that to increase recycling/reuse among both consumers and industries there needs to be a cycle of support in which industries support recycling/reuse programs in communities, implement recycle/reuse strategies within their organizations, etc., while consumers need to call for organizations to increase their recycling/reuse efforts, request their support in developing recycling/reuse programs in communities, etc.

These results provided a basis in which the leading automotive company could make decisions regarding the marketing of their environmental strategies, and where they could become innovators of recycling/reuse efforts.  Thus, positively increasing their brand image, while also “doing the right thing” for the environment.