Chris Havemann Chris Havemann was the co-founder of Research Now, a world leading online survey data collection and online market research panel business. As CEO he led the successful IPO of Research Now on the London Stock Exchange AIM market in 2005, and the subsequent acquisition of North American competitor OpenVenue in 2007. In 2009, Research Now was acquired by US market leader e-Rewards, Inc. at which point Chris was named President and CEO of the merged business, where he served until September 2011. Read the full biography here.

Not Just for January

Resolutions for the New Year

3rd February, 2012

It's the New Year. The celebrations are over, pubs and bars are noticeably quiet, and there’s still a queue for the treadmill. For research industry leaders coming back from their holidays, there were plenty of issues piled up back at the office. Now it’s make or break time for those New Year resolutions, if you made any. According to a recent online survey¹ ; less than half of those people making resolutions actually think they will keep them. Let alone really keep them. Hmmm.

Reading the research industry runes, it seems many expect 2012 to be a year for the brave, and for good reason. As a leader, you’ll be doing your best to deliver a strong performance - yet your shopping list of challenges ahead for 2012 may look pretty daunting. Firstly, the macroeconomic backdrop is troubling, not least of course in Europe - with ongoing uncertainty and a likely ‘double dip’ recession unhelpful to expansive corporate spending. And this time it really is different perhaps – with deep and profound tremors of fear in much of the west, as economic power now visibly ebbs towards those not mired in debt, and with comparative advantage in human capital and natural resources.

Notwithstanding this backdrop, achieving decent growth in 2012 is likely high on your ‘to do’ list! Of course, your clients are wanting more for less – nothing new there then. Irritating new competitors may also be chipping away, and practically giving work away to build market share, with shiny but, from your perspective, unproven new ideas. The industry is going through change, yet your revenues from ‘innovation’ may still be taking time to build up a head of steam. All in all, delivering substantial organic profitable growth this year will look tough for many. Is M&A an answer? Well maybe, but not as a fig leaf to disguise your stuttering underlying growth, and only if the strategic fit, price and leadership are right – and you are prepared to dedicate a lot of management time to the success of the deal.

And what of your ‘internal’ organisational challenges? Your team may not be completely up to scratch – nothing new there either. But perhaps you could be more proactive about reshaping your team? Some of your staff may be disenchanted with their career progress. It seems many of our younger staff, rather inconveniently want to ‘work to live’ rather than live to work. More money and a promotion please? You may also have some deep seated technology issues – challenges inherent in a changing, global, multichannel, 24/7 information industry – which if mismanaged will almost certainly constrain rather than enable your enterprise.

So all to say what? Clearly there are plenty of ‘big picture’ issues facing our industry leaders. With these in mind, are there any big picture New Year resolutions that it really might be worth keeping beyond January? Rather presumptively, I would like to suggest three:

Resolution 1: “We will focus ruthlessly on meeting our customers’ wants and needs. Really.”

The success of early stage service companies often hinges on the clear understanding that winning and delighting those first few customers is the difference between survival or certain business failure. Countless books have been written on the merits of customer-centricity and paradoxically how to retain this ethos as your organisation grows and becomes more successful. How will you achieve this, such that customer-centric behaviour cascades in all directions across the business? In an ideal world this is entrenched deep within your corporate DNA. But what if this is fraying or long gone? It’s not sufficient to talk about delivering for customers, although you must do that. Better still; bring customer-centricity to life with some practical measures. Why not instruct all your direct reports outside your sales or business development functions to call or visit at least one customer, every day to see how your firm might serve them better. And make this customer feedback the centrepiece of your weekly management meetings during Q1.

Resolution 2: “Remember this is a people business - and act on it.”

Open any annual report and a phrase like ‘our people are our greatest asset’ will probably spill out of the closing comments in the chairman or CEO’s statement. After, of course, sufficient attention has been paid to the headline items of recent revenue performance, profitability, cash flow and shareholder returns. These financial metrics are, of course, endogenous, driven largely by your (longer term) performance on the customer and employee fronts. So what might this resolution mean in 2012 – how can you walk the talk? Do you and your team even want to?

You probably know the people issues in your business – but take time to refresh your knowledge, and share this knowledge in a transparent fashion, warts and all. Celebrate what you’re doing well on, and reassure yourself that any unpleasant or quite possibly unfair gripes certainly aren’t dangerous secrets. More importantly though, take some concrete action to address one or two of the key issues raised by ‘your greatest assets’ as you embark in 2012. This need not cost the earth. If some of your staff are seeking motivation and meaning from their work beyond the traditional ‘baby boomer’ model of hard work, competition to climb the ladder and financial rewards (and some of the Generation Ys almost certainly are² ), try to use this to your advantage. Are you doing enough on flexible working? Do you have a sensible secondment programme between offices? Can your longer tenured staff take sabbaticals to renew and recharge (rather than check out on the job)? Perhaps introduce a company-coordinated volunteering scheme, as one example of living values of teamwork and community spirit that can hopefully inspire beyond the, let’s face it, sometimes repetitive and occasionally uninspiring day job.

And finally:

Resolution 3: “Unlike the majority, keep your resolutions!”

¹ http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/majority-of-americans-do-not-make-new-years-resolutions-according-to-national-survey-136583868.html
² ‘Lynda Gratton Investigates: The Future of Work’, Business Strategy Review, Q3 2010

Chris Havemann

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