Measuring the value of research

Last week at a communication measurement workshop, one of the participants asked me how she could measure the value of her role at the company—conducting research.
 
I think the value of research can be measured in at least two ways:

1. Look for unexpected information learned through specific research projects that can be used to prevent future – expensive – crises. For example, if you learn of serious employee concerns through research, this is much less expensive to an organization than first learning about the concerns when they try to join a union or file a class-action lawsuit against your company.
   
   You could compare the cost of the research against the costs for union organizing or lawsuits targeted against your company or your competitors in the past.
   
   
2. Look for changes made at your organization based on past research results and quantify the financial value of the changes by the time the research is repeated, with more positive results.

Some examples of the second point at other organizations has included:

• A reduction in workplace accidents after a survey identified locations that were not conducting safety meetings.
• An improvement in call-center productivity after information flow research identified some inefficient ways call center reps were accessing needed information.
• A US$100,000 reduction in the cost of video production each year, while the new approach reached more people and was more useful – all based on survey and focus group research that cost less than US$60,000 to conduct.

See you next time.

Angela Sinickas
President, Sinickas Communications, Inc.
measurement@melcrum.com

 
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