It is no surprise that prices for research change over time, but the impact of technology and the pandemic have made understanding the price for market research projects even harder to assess. This presents a great challenge to agencies who need to ensure they are pitching their prices at the right level. If agencies pitch their prices too high, they will not win the projects. If they pitch them too low, they will soon struggle financially.
For many years, the best reference point for agencies wishing to benchmark their prices has been the ESOMAR Global Prices Study. For example, the most recent report (the 2018 report) highlighted the way that the prices for online research globally have become more similar (from country to country). Another key finding in the 2018 report was the very high tariff rates associated with data scientists, compared with other researchers. In total, the report shows which countries are more expensive, which are less, along with what sort of projects are most expensive, and what the cost of one methodology (such as telephone) is compared with another (such as online).
TUNA Prices!
We know that the research world is in turmoil, following the pandemic. The most obvious change is the shift from face-to-face to online, especially for qualitative research. The pandemic has also resulted in booms in expenditure by some clients and massive cuts by others – depending on the impact of the pandemic on their business sector. Another shift reported by the 2020 ESOMAR Client Study is the shift towards more projects being conducted internally. One last megatrend is the explosion in the number and range of research-related platforms – leading to an increase in what is termed ResearchTech.
We are in TUNA times, as defined by the scenario planners at Oxford University, that is Turbulent, Uncertain, Novel and Ambiguous. Getting your prices right in TUNA situations is key, but at the same time, determining the right price is harder than ever.
The 2021 ESOMAR Global Prices Study
To help agencies benchmark their prices, ESOMAR is just about to launch a new edition of the Global Prices Study. The fieldwork will begin in May and we plan to have the results in September. You might wonder why it will take so long to conduct the study? The notes below outlining the study and the steps we’d like you to take should make it clear.
Seven archetypical projects
The core of the Prices Study is based on seven projects that represent a diverse range of the sorts of things research providers offer. The first project is a simple U&A project, with an easy to reach sample, with options to collect the data via F2F, telephone, and online. All of the studies in the Global Prices Study have to be designed in a way where they make sense in countries like USA and Australia (where there is relatively little face-to-face research) and in Indonesia and Bangladesh (where there is relatively little online research). Another project that is researched is a focus group project, looking at financial services, with options for face-to-face and online focus groups.
The agencies who take part in the study receive the description of the seven projects and indicate which of them they would normally quote for and then state for each project (and for each option within the project) what they would charge. In effect, these prices are what hotels refer to as their ‘rack rate’ or the “list price” of a study, i.e. the price they would charge for a one-off project, without a discount. In order to make the information comparable from country to country, the pricing is based on what they would charge a local client (i.e. it does not include translation or international travel). Agencies can quote in their local currency, and the final results are converted to US dollars, to make them comparable.
Why should agencies take part?
The first reason for an agency to take part in the Global Prices Study is to create a benchmark for them to be able to assess their own pricing. The study is anonymous, even the team processing the results do not know who the agencies are, but the agency will of course know what they would change and can compare that with the results for their markets. All of the agencies who take part receive a free copy of the Global Prices Study.
Interactive Benchmarking Tool
ESOMAR also produces an interactive tool to allow people to compare projects across countries and methodologies to get to a level of detail not available from the printed report. This benchmarking tool is also made available, free, to any agency who takes part in the study.
Ensuring Quality
Most research industry studies seek to get as large a number of people answering as possible. This is NOT the case with the ESOMAR Global Prices Study. We are looking for a wide range of companies, from a wide range of countries, but only one person from each company/country. The ideal participant in the study is somebody who is responsible for pricing projects and issuing quotes.
With the larger agencies, we try to work with a single coordinator who can help gather prices from several countries. This helps the agency benchmark their prices against the market with even more consistency.
The final step in ensuring quality is the research team, comprising ESOMAR staff, the independent consultant (Ray Poynter), and the Sounding Board:
John Smurthwaite, ESOMAR’s Ambassador for APAC
Joris Huisman, Managing Director, Skim, Netherlands
Finn Raben, ESOMAR Director General, Netherlands
Joy Uyanwune, CEO, Decision Support Consulting, Nigeria
Adriana Rocha, President & Co-CEO, ecGlobal, Brazil
Shinichi Hosokawa, CEO, GMO, Japan
Chee Ngai Ng, Founder & CEO, Samplenomics, Hong Kong
Michelle Levine, CEO, Roy Morgan, Australia
Priya Lobo, COO, Ormax Compass, India
Want to help?
If you’d like to be able to benchmark your company against the market, contact industrysurvey@ESOMAR.org and let us know. We’ll get back to you to set up the process.
If you are in connection with agencies in your market, tell them about this project, make sure that they are getting on board, so that the everybody has the best possible benchmark to work with.
