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M/A/R/C

Situation

Founded as a spinoff of a Dallas advertising agency in 1965, M/A/R/C Research (Irving, TX) is today a subsidiary of Omnicom Group, Inc., a strategic holding company. An early proponent of developing deep partnerships with clients through outstanding service, it has made a name for itself in brand optimization, customer value analysis, and custom marketing. In recent years, the company has been taking steps to move its business interests into new markets and industries.

Challenge

After assessing its survey design and dialer technology, M/A/R/C concluded that its internal survey systems, first developed 25 years earlier, needed improvement to keep the agency technologically and economically competitive in an innovative marketplace. Within that task stood several critical issues:

Solution

M/A/R/C Research added an array of SPSS Inc. survey design and computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) technologies to its existing lineup of SPSS Inc. tabulation and analysis tools.

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Results

M/A/R/C Research, ranked 22nd on the Honomichl 50 largest U.S. market research companies list, supports clients through every stage of marketing and brand development. The agency’s analytical power, advanced research systems, and experienced staff help clients understand their customers, brands, and the marketplaces in which they compete.

Years ago, M/A/R/C Research developed a proprietary questionnaire design, and a data collection, analysis, and reporting system for its survey services. Eighty percent of the company’s survey work during a typical year in the 1990s was done using CATI. When Jeff Sperring joined the company as senior vice president of research services in 1996, he set out to assess the system’s functionality and compatibility with the evolving research marketplace. After conducting the first review, Sperring was concerned that the internal survey process had become fragmented and outdated.

“Building questionnaires was one thing, data collection was another, tabulating data was still another,” described Sperring. “There was different software for each step. With every project, there was worry about handing things off and if interfaces we had developed between our systems were still working. Every time we upgraded software, we were concerned about its effect on all the other software packages. That had to change. We wanted to get to a place where we were managing the whole process on an end-to-end basis.”

By late 1998, Sperring and a 12-person task force had convinced upper management that practical and competitive issues made it imperative to boost the capabilities and efficiencies of their proprietary system. An investigation determined that installing SPSS survey design and CATI technologies was M/A/R/C Research’s best bet: it already had familiarity and comfort with SPSS Inc. analysis products, and the proposed new software and services fit well with existing tools and services. They also advocated a change in how the survey process was managed. “The quality of data collected is not a function of the tools we use as much as it is how we manage the process,” believes Sperring.

SPSS Inc. provided us with robust and complex capabilities that allow us to answer our customers' research questions effectively and efficiently.


Improved time required to program a questionnaire by 15 to 35 percent

Implementing SPSS Inc. offerings from questionnaire creation through data analysis made a significant improvement in CATI management. “SPSS Inc. provided us with robust and complex capabilities that allow us to answer our customers’ research questions effectively and efficiently,” he said. M/A/R/C Research implemented Quanquest for customized survey design, and imported Questionnaire Action Language (QAL) for customized surveys. This step reduced the time previously needed to prepare a survey by 15 to 35 percent.

Sped data collection turnaround by as much as 25 percent

M/A/R/C Research CATI call stations were changed to run on Quancept CATI and QTS, the agency’s first automatic/predictive dialer. “Until precision dialing was made available, we were not willing to move to dialer technology,” Sperring explained. That change cut data collection time for projects by anywhere from 5 to 35 percent.

Boosted data collection productivity (completes per hour) by 12 percent; Reduced time required for analysis by 35 percent

A need for cost competitiveness pushed M/A/R/C Research in multiple directions. Controlling data collection quotas became a new focus and SPSS Inc. tools gave greater flexibility towards that end. Overall data collection productivity increased by 12 percent (as measured by completed surveys per hour) and the average project time required for data analysis was shortened by 20 hours or about 35 percent per project.

Achieved overall cost savings of 5 to 25 percent per project

“We’re in a much better position to provide competitive pricing when it comes to data collection,” Sperring summarized. Establishing the new CATI process, encompassing the suite of SPSS Inc. products and services, is certainly saving M/A/R/C Research time. “We used to have a maze in our end-to-end survey process. Now, it’s much more seamless. Being able to get data from the data collection stage and straight into SPSS Inc. software for analysis has helped us tremendously. It’s better, faster, and cheaper,” he said, “and allows a 5 to 25 percent cost reduction per project.”