Complexity is Ramping Up for Financial Services Market Researchers. Here’s how Dedicated Implementation Consultants Can Help.

See how a financial services market research group leverages a dedicated team model to move faster, stay flexible and deliver actionable insights.

The world is a complex place. Anyone who does their own taxes or tries to remember their Netflix password surely understands this. The more we know, often the more complex it becomes. Invest the time and effort to really understand something? Congratulations, whole new, uncharted dimensions of reality are now revealed for your cognitive processing. 

The advance of technology, multiplying processes, specialization, and atomization. We all have to deal with it. Futurist Jamais Cascio called this “participatory complexity” and described it as the key characteristic of modern society. You may not be interested in complexity, but it is interested in you.

Our jobs are certainly not immune to complexity. In fact, one could say we’re generators of it. So whether your role is in Financial Services market research, product development, marketing, or innovation, wrestling with complexity and navigating uncharted territory is sort of your wheelhouse.

But nobody said discovering the truth and changing the world would be easy. And it’s not. The inputs to good research are numerous, including (but not limited to): knowledge of methodologies, access to the right tools, expertise in both, and, most preciously, the time to do it right. But the indicators point to a scenario where your team will be asked to do more with less.

It’s already happening. Just look at the technology sector – where major corporate hiring freezes are making headlines. A stark contrast to just six months ago, when corporate recruiters struggled to keep up with demand. Is the Silicon Valley staffing squeeze a harbinger for Financial Services?

All this adds up to less time you and your core team may have to tame complexity and focus on strategic priorities.

Beating Back Complexity While Winning Back Time with Implementation Consultants

In the Financial Services industry, the world moves exceedingly fast. On a daily basis, your priorities can be affected by the behavior of markets, government policy changes, and world events. In times of economic uncertainty, the pace accelerates. 

Yet few Financial Services organizations have the scale and resources to meet these demands consistently. And what you need today is not the same as what you need tomorrow. Do any of these sentiments sound familiar?

• We’re moving too slowly. The people on our team are too bogged down in non-core work and can’t get the things done they really need to. 
• We’re making decisions without proper information because we don’t have the time on our team to do the research or analysis we should. 
• We’re spending too much on consultants. We’re using consultants for things consultants shouldn’t be doing. 
• Our team could up our game if there was just time.

And what about in the months and years to come? How will complexity and uncertainty affect your ability to meet future needs?

• I don’t have the clarity to know whether this need will continue beyond this year. 
• My needs go up and down. I can’t hire for the peaks. I need flexible support.
• I can’t hire the right people fast enough.
• On top of everything else, I don’t have time to hire, train and supervise new talent and . . .
• . . . even if I did, given all the uncertainty, we don’t have a clear developmental career path for them.

Concerns like these are rippling across the business world. Short of a surprise million-dollar angel investment in your team, is there a way to meet these challenges? We think so.

How a Dedicated Team Helped a Client Get Ahead of Student Loan Forgiveness

Here’s a recent example of how Escalent’s Implementation Consultants helped a Financial Services market research group. 

When the US Federal government announced an unprecedented student loan forgiveness plan, our client needed fast answers to how its customers would be affected by this news and how their behaviors may change. Immediate and actionable primary research was essential, but the client’s core team was at capacity, with multiple initiatives underway.

Through an Escalent Implementation Consultant team, survey creation, programming, data collection, tabulation and reporting were all at the client’s disposal. Resources had already been aligned and could be accessed in phases, or in this case, all phases of this hot-button initiative. The work was completed within three days without affecting preexisting commitments or diverting the client’s core team from their strategic priorities.

Get Flexibility Without Sacrificing Quality with a Higher Form of Market Research Outsourcing

Escalent builds and manages dedicated teams of skilled researchers and analysts. Our Implementation Consultant team is nothing like your typical market research outsourcing. As a fully managed service, we hire and train outstanding analysts that are fully dedicated to their client’s business. They won’t rotate on and off your business. Instead, they’ll build institutional knowledge and act as an extension of your core team. And if your needs change . . . who are we kidding, when your needs change . . . this resource can be scaled up or down accordingly. 

Escalent’s Implementation Consultants are skilled in several areas including:

• Basic Primary Research Support 
• Secondary Research 
• Data Mining 
• Knowledge Synthesis 
• Data & Content Visualization 
• Business Analytics 
• Project Advancement 
• Implementation  

The business of marketing research and analytics is always challenging, sometimes difficult, and, when it works, deeply rewarding. It is the business we have chosen, and complexity is its nature. Implementation Consultants can make complexity work for you. To quote Jamias Cascio again: Intelligence augmentation decreases the need for specialization and increases participatory complexity.”

Implementation Consultants from Escalent are your opportunity to conquer complexity. Give yourself and your team a boost and free up time to focus on the future.

Find out more in our Guide to Boosting Bandwidth & Winning Back Time with Escalent’s Implementation Consultants.