FocusIT

From Mainframe to IPhones: Daniel Research Group has been designing and executing focus groups among technology buyers and users for three decades and has built a design and analysis methodology based on that experience. When applied to business buyers and users, the FocusIT methodology employs a buying process model based upon thousands of hours of research.

Daniel Research Group believes that the buying process for technology products in the enterprise typically follows this basic model:

• Trigger Event - A business or business process event that brings awareness to someone in authority that a compelling reason exists to address a need.
• Needs Assessment - The task of understanding and defining what that need is, from a business or business process point of view
• Solution Specification - The task of understanding technical, resource and organizational requirements and constraints
• Vendor Selection - The task of selecting brands, vendor or channel from qualified alternatives.

Business FocusIT applies this model within the framework of a focus group to develop an understanding of the specifics and the complexities of the buying process for the clients' product or service.   Who are the decision makers and influencers, and what are their issues of concern, are clearly identified for each step in the buying process.  Additionally, we explore how information about alternatives is sought out and obtained. Our methodology, technology and marketing consultants will analyze the recordings and transcripts and apply their experience and insight to address three fundamental questions:

1. What did the respondents say, consensus and outliers?
2. What did the respondents mean, the real reasons behind their opinions and perceptions?
3. What does it mean for the client, actionable recommendations drawn from contextual interpretation?

Business FocusIT is an effective research tool applicable to many strategic and tactical marketing situations, ranging from product development and design to creating effective advertising.  With successfully application to services as well as to hardware and software products, it is one of the most powerful research tools available for extracting data and information and delivering knowledge and actionable recommendations.

Technology is an evolutionary agent in society.  Since the first application of computing technology at the start of World War II to the present we have seen more and more of our fundamental commercial and personal processes change as they migrated from manual, mechanical or older electronic implementations to current technologies.  What started out as a better way of computing is now a better way of managing our lives.

Today, much of the focus group research in the consumer markets is centered on these Life Management processes.  Consumer focus groups today present new design challenges in both the recruiting and the execution phases. The choice of which taxonomies and metrics to apply in building the recruiting criteria depends upon a large number of factors including the decisions that have to be met and the natural market topology.  As an example, Consumer FocusIT when applied to the consumer markets often uses Life Cycle Stage taxonomy as its primary design structure:

• Pre-Child Rearing individuals and households
• Early-Child Rearing individuals and households
• Late-Child Rearing individuals and households
• Post-Child Rearing individuals and households

Daniel Research Group has used this segmentation coupled with the more traditional taxonomies in many focus group engagements and has achieved results that provided our clients with a clear understanding of the consumer buying process.  We have also developed an inventory of moderator guide templates that are adaptable to the wide range of products and services that are currently or expected to be marketed to consumers with particular emphasis on the emerging convergence opportunities.