A full-service market research agency, headquartered in Chicago, UK, Synovate is six years old in India. Last year, in a significant move, head of business services in the UK, Mick Gordon was appointed managing director for India. Based out of Mumbai, Gordon?s one big task is to implement a five-year business plan for the agency?s fast-track growth in India, where it faces stiff competition from other established players such as Nielsen and other Kantar group companies like IMRB, TNS and Millward Brown. On a recent visit to Delhi, Gordon spoke to FE?s Radhika Sachdev about how the agency has managed to wade through the past year of economic turbulence to emerge stronger and sharper in focus.
How was 2009 for Synovate India? Globally, companies drastically cut their spend on research. Is that the correct approach to take during a downturn?
The year wasn?t bad for Synovate-India, as there was considerable shift from international to local spends. Companies that were rolling back plans at home were redeploying those resources in evolving markets, like India and China. In a measure, Synovate-India benefited from those trends. However, the mood remained largely somber for the industry and some of the progressive companies that otherwise remain very focused on research also did some bit of belt tightening.
A year ago, when you took charge, you had ambitious plans for growth, some of which must have been put on the back burner. Did this cause major set-back to the research outfit?
I have completed a year as Synovate India MD and when I look back, I feel we haven?t done badly. We were able to ramp up our operations in Delhi (we moved to a new office last year) and this year in Bangalore. Our entire operations, machines were upgraded ? and this has led to better efficiencies and increased employee motivations. As a consequence of that, Synovate India has done well on the growth trajectory. We?ve had to shift focus to some extent due to the market conditions but we have been impacted minimally. All leading global and home-grown players in the packaged goods industries and services continue to engage with us as a preferred partner.
What major trends have you observed during this two-year stint in India?
I am not sure, whether you can extrapolate those changes as a major trend, but there are several micro level changes that I have observed in these two years. I see client companies under a lot of financial pressure due to which they want to engage more with their research partners and gain deeper insights into their consumers, and ensure full value from their research spend. From what I see, they also want to link different sources of information to make sense of the world. Most of them have always been aware of the significance of research, but the pressure on the
bottom line and increased customer expectations have made the job more challenging. There is a demand to go back to basics and to my mind; these changes will last well beyond the recession.
Synovate recently shifted a substantial part of its back-end work of its global finance division to Bangalore and also integrated Synovate Healthcare from a more fragmented presence in the US, the UK and South Africa and Asia to offer this capability in all 61 key markets of Synovate globally. What prompted these decisions? For global finance back-end operations: Was it the wage factor, or the quality of the Indian resource?
A combination of several factors. The expertise that you get in India, and the price at which you get it, is unlike anywhere else in the developed world. You have a huge talent pool here and your system of education can be considered one among the best. My children study in Indian schools and I feel it has had a huge impact on them.
Have you identified sectors/areas that could be Synovate?s engines of growth in India?
The Indian pharma and wellness market is pegged at Rs 36,000 crore and is growing at the rate of 12% annually. This is of key interest to us. Other potential sectors to watch out for are the FMCG, telecom, automotive and financial services. We have global leading practice in brand communication, customer experience management, shopper insights, product testing and development for each one of these sectors; need-based qualitative segmentation model, ethnography has found many takers.
What is India?s contribution to Synovate?s global revenue and how does this compare with China?
I will leave detail commentary on the scale of our global business to the formal communications to the investment market, but I can say that although India is an important market, China is currently bigger. At the moment, top three markets for Synovate are the US, the UK and China. Compared to these markets, Synovate-India?s contribution to the global revenue is growing in value and significance.
While in the UK, you developed deep expertise in managing acquisitions and conducting offshore business reviews.
There is still a great deal of demand for this kind of expertise and India continues to make significant contribution to that specialist function.
In a market like India, where do you see greater potential for growth?customised or syndicated research?
I feel there is huge potential in both sectors, certainly there is a great potential for syndicated research. However in India, there is great demand for customised research to dovetail a client?s specific needs in a complex and evolving market.
Market research is still a very fragmented practice in India. How do you differentiate your services from the others?
On a number of levels. First, we position ourselves as a full-service agency. Second, we command global expertise in key areas, and third and the most important, the culture in which we conduct our business is very different. Clients come to us to leverage our large agency network for the small company comfort and customer focus that we provide. All research companies have similar tools?brand-tracking; product testing; stakeholder management etc. However in our case, our people are our differentiators. Clients like working with us.
For clients looking for a sharp focus on specific requirements we created a new suite of research tools that are faster, more focused than traditional larger, research studies. This is complementary offering to our existing portfolio, and we have christened this capability: Nano. Designed to offer absolute accuracy in less time and therefore with less cost, each tool can be used separately or clubbed together to fit in with other research they?ve been doing, even if it?s not with us!
We believe that bulky research studies that don?t correspond to real world results are a thing of the past, and it?s time for smarter and more relevant surveys that give you immediate and tangible results.
Historically, Synovate has been an acquiring company. What path have you chosen in India?
At the moment, we are fully concentrated on organic growth.
Any new tools that you are planning to bring to India?
Quite a few, but specifically, Nano, under which we provide a slew of brand equity studies, communication tracking tools, shoppers survey etc. And, second we help in setting up online community panels. A Community Panel is a dedicated group of existing or potential customers you engage with through interactive surveys and discussion forums.
Your forecast for the next year?
We foresee double digit growth for ourselves.