The Community Research Programme

The premise upon which we operate is that most people involved in technology related investment decisions do not have access to expensive research from traditional analyst houses. We therefore created something we call the "Community Research Programme", within which we encourage vendors to fund or sponsor independent research that is made available free of charge at the point of delivery for the benefit of all.

Why do vendors support community research?
Many vendors, such as IBM, Microsoft, CA, Orange, T-Mobile and others, have bought into the community research approach. This is partially driven by a wish to give back to the user community and partially motivated by the positive PR that comes from being associated with thought leading research based on the knowledge and insights of mainstream IT and business professionals. In addition to this, it is clearly also in the interests of vendors to educate buyers and raise the general level of comfort in the market, particularly in relation to emerging ideas and technologies. And the great thing is that this tallies very well with the requirement within most IT departments to quickly, efficiently and objectively assess the relevance and impact of technology related developments on their own organisation.

How do we ensure the independence of community research?
Firstly we restrict the topics investigated to generic issues such as strategy, business drivers, business case, practical challenges, best practice, etc, and avoiding anything to do with specific vendors, products or services. Secondly, there are safeguards designed into our methodology itself. Freeform research provides respondents with opportunities to express themselves freely and in their own words on key questions, so research results always reflect the views of the buying community in an accurate and precise manner.

Where do the topics for community research come from?
In some cases, the idea for a particular study will originate from within Freeform Dynamics in response to a market need that has been identified though its industry analyst activities or previous studies. On many occasions, however, vendors approach us with an idea for research that they themselves would like to commission, which we then evaluate according to our criteria for independence and objectivity.

What is the research process?
From a sponsor perspective, the community research process is very straightforward. Freeform Dynamics agrees a high level scope with the sponsor then designs and executes the study on an independent basis, ultimately analysing and reporting the results in a form suitable for use by the sponsor's customers, prospects, partners and the media. Work is carried out on a fixed price basis and support is provided on completion of the study to ensure that the sponsor gets the most from their community research investment. Part of this includes helping the sponsor understand how the findings related to their business and how they may be used to better connect with the needs of the market.

Bespoke Research for Internal Use

While community research is great for those wishing to reach out to the market in a very visible manner, our clients sometimes need to commission research for their own internal purposes, e.g. to validate a market opportunity, test and tune a value proposition to ensure it resonates well with customers, or simply better understand the customer environment they are delivering solutions into. This is all in keeping with creating synergy and understanding between suppliers and their customers and again, the freeform research approach is ideal in this context.

Other Services

In addition to primary research, Freeform Dynamics helps clients by producing discussion papers to support marketing and education initiatives and making analyst speakers available to support events. We also deliver consulting services on a more ad hoc basis.

For more information on Freeform Dynamics services or to discuss a specific idea or requirement, please email us at info@freeformdynamics.com