Organizations that don’t embrace trend may disappear, says Tnsrms CEO

Adeola Tejumola is the CEO West, East and Central Africa Kantar Consumer Insight, putting under this purview probably the largest market business in terms of value and volume across the region. Tejumola who was also recently awarded market research Man of the Year by the Institute of Direct Marketing spoke to BusinessDay on marketing research prospects and challenges in Nigeria and Africa and the reasons for deepened collaboration with Millward Brown. Excerpts

How would you describe the effect of the current macroeconomic issues on market research business?

We are not immune to the challenges that have  clouded  the economy especially in the last few months. The biggest problem that befell Nigeria was the crash in the oil price. That singular act has created so much cyclical effect on everything which brings us to wonder how sustainable we as country relying on one major source of income can be dangerous. It is a challenge and what this has clearly put in the front of the government and us as stakeholders is that we need to diversify by not talking it, but immediately acting it. We should remember that we must not just wake up and diversify economy; we need get in the minds of people and understand what opportunities exist. The urgency that is required to diversify this economy has never been this high. So, there must be things as a country we can start focusing on.

The economic difficulty led companies to cut marketing, how would companies then understand consumers in a dynamic environment without research?

Yes, marketing research business was affected by the declining spend from clients and in some instances by cancellation in spend. While that is immediate reaction from clients, in times like this, I would have thought that this is one of the important periods in any life-cycle of a business that marketers need to increase spending on market research. This means that they need to re-prioritise and innovate as a business. Also the consumer is also not immune from all the environmental challenges. This has caused change in lifestyle. When the consumer and behavioural pattern are changing in a challenging environment, then the time for understanding the consumer new habit is important to a company. Unfortunately this does not follow the theoretical term. It is not prudent to cut the market research spend in a time like this.

Apart from maintaining research budget, how do you think organizations should be responding in difficult time?

Unfortunately, a lot of organizations and the country did not prepare well enough, even though we saw the signs coming. I think the corporate sector needs to be much more involved than we are seeing when it comes to nation building trying to formulate long term strategies that would be much more sustainable. I think a lot of it has been left in the hands of the politicians. The corporate society needs to be much more involved in how we chart the new way forward. There should be less talking to more doing.

Apart from the challenging economy, what are the other challenges facing market research in Nigeria?

Market research, not only in the Nigerian environment but in the African landscape has not been widely implemented. Though it has gotten better in Nigeria in the last 10 years but the excuse is that it is not an African phenomenon. We usually take a lot of decision based on guess work. A lot of companies, pre – 8 years ago were not widely adopting market research. We, as practitioners were doing two things – trying to create the awareness about the importance of market research and secondly we are trying to sell a business. In the last decade, it has gotten better but prior to now it is the multinationals that invest in research and the local corporate wonder why the multinationals are doing better  – it is planning, forecasting and reading  the future and people minds. It is also important to mention that the locals are employing international professionals who bring global thinking and best practices in to their businesses and this has helped market research

There is erroneous thinking that market research is largely for corporates, where should government involve in research?

As for the government, we have a department called public affairs unit and what the arm does is social research. Government needs to continuously carry out social research. Even donor agencies spend more on social research than government agencies to determine why people are engaging in certain behaviours like terrorism and other vices and this is important for the government to understand. Given the macro economic issues which Nigerians are currently facing, government also needs to understand the pinpoint of people which helps to allocate resources. Market research is not about global corporate or multinationals, it cuts across governments.

What is your forecast of the market research business in the rest part of the year?

I am optimistic and I don’t believe that it is going to be gloomy. Economies  depend on a flourishing environment and direction of things and appetite from clients. One thing you cannot take away even when things look difficult is the size of the country. If you decide to slow or pull out of the economy because of the temporary challenges, you will be doing your business a lot of damage. I have faith in brand Nigeria and the economy and I believe that economy will bounce back and subsequent re-bounce of market research. Also given this challenging times, the clients are looking for value in the face of dwindling resources. To help clients achieve this, we as TNSRMS is investing heavily in mobile research. We believe that mobile is the future as it is difficult for individuals to do without mobile.

Inasmuch as mobile for research is fast, what are the challenges?

Mobile has some challenges. There is the coverage, connectivity, there is language barrier. But that is part of why we are investing. As global leader in this part of the world, we are taking a major investment drive to invest so much in mobile. It is innovative as we are pushing ahead. But I must say that we are not abandoning the traditional way of doing research, it has been with us, but when you do not move with the changing times, be ready to disappear. It is not about pen and paper anymore and we must understand that our clients are looking for value. So we are positioned to help our clients get the necessary value and assist them to get more for less.

What informed the discovered collaboration between TnsRms and Millward Brown lately?

Earlier this year, I was appointed the regional CEO for the Tns, Millward Brown, and Kantar Public Affairs across Sub Saharan Africa. These companies are owned by Kantar which is owned by WPP. What happened is a strategy direction. It is not a merger. Tns remains separate entity in this environment and globally, Millward Brown also remains a separate entity and Kantar World Panel remains a separate entity. However, from a management point of view, we can actually give our clients more. We decided to streamline at the top. From a CEO point of view, my singular objective is to deliver value to my shareholders and clients and above all run a profitable company. I will do this new job without compromising the confidentiality of our clients. The clients’ service teams and project management teams remain distinctive and separate. We are collaborating more so that I can largely give a compelling offer to my clients. It is also in the interest of our people as I have over 6,000 employees in this part of the world both permanent and temporary. It allows the fluidity in their movement

Then, why did we not see an outright merger?

The expertise in these different brands and their offers are completely different. What Millward Brown is known for and very good at, is sharply different from what Tns or Kantar Public Affairs are good at. Unlike in the past where it was a general business and they can do everything. Our clients understand that there are different offerings and cultures within the companies. It is important to mention that it was done to give more to the client. It is innovation, value and staying ahead. We are responding to the needs and call of our clients globally, it is not so much about Nigeria. Nigeria remains important in the radar of Kantar.

Capacity building is important in research, how are you equipping your workforce?

What we continue to do is that certain percentage of our revenue, about 10 to 15 percent of our revenue, is fully dedicated to training. In the last couple of years we have spend over N500 million in training. We take training very seriously. We also move resources around. One of the benefits of being a global corporate is that you can leverage skill set that is not based here. We have invested in bringing people in to the business where we have seen shortfall.