Market research will grow exponentially in Nigeria – Tns global CEO
Richard Ingleton, the global CEO of TNS whose multinational company’s job is to help governments and companies understand what people think about their activities and their products was in Nigeria recently. He told BusinessDay in an interview that Nigeria is an exciting market but if it continues to drive the education and continue to create the policy framework and the infrastructure that allow business to flourish it could be more exciting in Nigeria as there is competitive energy in the country. Richard who sees research growing in Nigeria says Nigeria needs to unleash the potentials through the right infrastructure and policies.
Why are you visiting Nigeria at this time?
Tns is a big company and we operate in 92 markets with some 40,000 staff. As a CEO you have to prioritise by picking those markets you think you will have the most profound effect on your business going forward. It might because of the things you will learn in the market or the growth or the people you will know in the market. I think that Nigerian market is a place we can learn about Africa and opportunity to grow and as a market for talent. It is big business today and we think it will be bigger business in the future. Importantly, we think it will lead the thinking on Africa and for us it is profoundly important market.
From reports you have in the Nigerian office of TNS, are you satisfied with the growth level and performance
I am very satisfied. If I look at the clients we are talking to and the clients we are working with whether it is the government, NGOs, some of the big global brand and more importantly, the local companies, and the sectors we are working in whether it is telecom, the banking, the consumer companies. If I also look at the history of the business, the heritage as the leading market research provider in Nigerian, I am satisfied with where we are. That is not to say that is where we are going to. Because of the global capability we have to accelerate and to bring world class marketing disciplines to Nigeria is very significant. We are in great place and we are the market leader but what we have to do now is to bring the best thinking in the world and develop the best thinking in Africa. For me it is not enough to bring the best thinking but for Nigeria to contribute to that best thinking and when we get to that point then I will feel very satisfied.
Where do you want to be?
When you set up a business, it is with a number of motives. The business we set up here we have always had the motive to be the best research in the market. But as competition comes in being the best requires you to try a bit harder. You have seen what happened to Manchester United in the last couple of years, we don’t want that to happen to us. We want to see ourselves really deepen research and our relationships with universities, governments and we are pulling the best people out of universities and working on the most important social problems and working with the biggest Nigerian businesses. We are positioning ourselves that when you ask students or government which organization in research they would like to join, they choose TNSRMS immediately.
Why do you think that marketing research growth has been slow in Africa?
I think a market like Nigeria, the growth has been asset export led growth. People are interested on how they export one thing or another and while that is good as it is bringing money to the economy it not necessarily the best stimulus for local economic growth. The government should increasingly thinking about how they create policies that encourage the local as there are local entrepreneurs that are coming out of Africa. I think marketing becomes powerful when it is about taking less of the assets of the country and exporting for money and is more about growing business, commerce and growing capitalism with the country. I think for Nigeria growth will really come when there is socially policy framework that encourages markets to grow. And grow an entrepreneurial base who are able to build their business.
Technology has become crucial to business, how has this assisted the growth of research
Our job is to help clients make decisions. To take a decision you have to rely on some data, speak to experts. That is what we do in research, we gather data, we apply expertise to that data and present that data in a way it will have an impact on the organization we are working for. If you think about each of those steps, technology can be used in information gathering. We also use technology to automate the research process and finally in the presentation of the results could be automated. The more we automate the process the more we free our people to do what they could do best that is to think deeply. We use the machines, the human for the insight and the analysis. In Africa there is work on mobile because of the way people use mobile here but in advanced economies there is much work in advanced mathematics. Technology is crucial and appropriate to the market we are working.
Are you thinking of phasing out traditional way of conducting research
For certain research technique for instance social work, if I want to track crime in a country, to do that effectively, it has to be face to face interview. There is no way you can take away face to face research method because for some research you absolutely need to be with the person. What you will find is that there is still face to face, telephone, online and increasingly there is mobile as the demand requires. But the fundamentals are the same as we are only using technology to drive it. Employment of any method depends on research problem.
What trends do you see in research going forward?
The main trend will be a move to more automation research process, what we call technology enabled research. That will though cut jobs but the expertise and insight is bringing another type of jobs.
Some WPP companies operate in the same market like Nigeria and compete against themselves, what is the philosophy behind this business strategy
We are used to competition and we embrace that. In life sometimes we compete against our brothers and compete against our friends and sometimes against our enemies. If I am competing with MillwardBrown for instance, that means I am competing against my brother. For that competition assists you is to focus on what you are good at. It forces you to be very thoughtful on the way you compete and behave. If my brother is bigger and stronger than me I will not compete with him in a fight but if I am smarter than my brother I will compete with him in a race. This is what happens with WPP companies. If it is fight, it is for this brother but it is race it is for the other brother.
Completion is good, but if I am competing with my brother in the same house or market, then what is the advantage to the house or to the market
That is a point. If everybody fights for exactly the same thing, there is no advantage to the house or to the economy. But with my brother in my house, we all got different things. We don’t compete very often, when it comes to work on innovation, customer satisfaction or social work, we don’t compete but when it comes to brands tracking we compete there. We actually deploy various philosophies as we do it in different ways and that leaves the choice for the client and the money remains in the family.
Are we going to see more of polls for election in Nigeria by TNS
In some countries, different companies buy election results. In some the polling is sponsored by TV channels and in other markets, the poll is sponsored by governments. In other markets, the research companies do it selflessly. For us depending on where the sponsorship will come from but when we do it we will do it properly. Polling is such an important measure, if you get it wrong as a researcher; it is bad for your brand. Making polling public before elections is another consideration about polling. The reasons one is winning is perhaps his policies are far reaching and polling helps politicians to focus on what is important to the society. We do it because we want to ensure that the political dialogue is strong. In some societies, some politicians don’t want polling and in some societies the media want it.