Research

McDonnell-Phillips has been designing and undertaking specialised market research projects for more than twenty years. This includes:

• business to business research
• stakeholder research
• consumer research
• community and social research
• policy research
• staff research.

We also use thorough and robust research as the foundation for our consulting projects - it is an essential prerequisite to effective review/evaluation, marketing, planning or change management.

With research, we focus on working with our clients to clearly identify and delineate the core research or management issue. From this, research objectives are defined and the most cost effective and appropriate research method is planned and then implemented by our expert team.  This saves our clients' time and money. We will not pursue research projects that will not deliver what our clients need.

We differ from other market research firms in that we have a broad understanding of industry and organisational drivers and we use this to design research tailored to deliver strategic knowledge rather than just data. Our research provides more than just information – it gives us the foundation for ways to change awareness, perceptions or behaviour.

Qualitative research

Qualitative research provides in-depth information from a relatively small number of people and is most useful in complex situations, exploratory research, new product development and forming the basis of larger quantitative studies. Our qualitative research techniques include:

• facilitated focus group sessions with recruited participants, representative of the target audiences
• implicit research - which uses projective techniques to identify underlying attitudes and perceptions that do not normally surface in interviews or traditional focus groups. The results enable you to map perceptions of your organisation or product against psychographic profiles, experimental products and your competitors
• executive in-depth interviews - which are often the only way to explore complex issues with key stakeholders whose time is limited. Using senior consultants ensures the quality of feedback needed for this type of research.

We are also exploring the use of social media in gathering qualitative feedback on products, services and community issues.

Quantitative research

Quantitative research provides validated facts about a known group of customers, staff or public that can be used for projections and decision making. This often incorporates sophisticated techniques drawn from the disciplines of psychology and economics. We use a sensitive approach with respondents and advanced statistical tools to:

• create customised customer and staff satisfaction indices
• identify market segments requiring particular attention
• pinpoint critical areas for issue management purposes
• gauge needs and expectations
• measure trade-offs customers or the community are willing to make.

We use a range of data collection approaches and the specific approach is selected in line with the client's needs. Approaches can include participation by invited online surveys, pop-up surveys, face-to-face interviewing, phone interviewing and panel studies.

We have a track record of successfully undertaking a broad range of research projects for a wide range of public and private sector organisations across many different industry sectors. This ranges from insightful stakeholder consultation to large-scale quantitative community studies.

Research Capabilities