Case Study: Global Services Provider

Strong intellectual capital, comprehensively and powerfully marketed, is a highly effective way to generate significant awareness of and strong demand for any professional services endeavor —whether it's a boutique consulting organization, midsize accounting or law firm, or practice area of a global services company.

The veracity of this notion was illustrated by a project Alterra Group completed with the human-performance consulting practice of a major professional services provider. A strong believer in the ability of superior "content" to distinguish one firm's offerings from those of its competitors, the head of marketing for this practice embarked on a comprehensive research effort to study the characteristics of high-performance workforces. The marketing head had four ambitious goals for the study:

• Serve as the basis of the practice's marketing efforts for an entire year by generating the content for a wide range of marketing programs, including direct mail, e-mail newsletters, white papers, conference and sales presentations, media relations and bylined articles
• Increase awareness of the practice's capabilities and expertise among key target buyers, as well as professionals within the company responsible for selling human-performance consulting and outsourcing services
• Further enhance the company's already strong credentials in the area and provide a way to differentiate the company from its competitors
• Give business development professionals within the company a powerful tool with which they could open doors and engage prospects in a discussion about the company's expertise in the human performance arena

Seeking external assistance with the project, the marketing head tapped Alterra Group to help design and execute the research.

Working closely with the practice's marketing team and subject matter experts, we first created the study's "research guide." This guide included a set of hypotheses that laid out the key issues the project was studying, as well as the tools that would be instrumental in proving or disproving the hypotheses: the interview questionnaires to be used both in a global survey of human resource and senior executives (which would help identify the key challenges in human capital management around the world) and in case study interviews with companies exhibiting best practices in human capital management (the results of which would form the basis of the "prescriptions" to the challenges highlighted by the survey).

While the survey (which was administered via e-mail and telephone by a third-party survey firm) was in the field, Alterra Group conducted a series of case study interviews with more than 20 companies on their human capital management practices. Concurrently, we conducted comprehensive secondary research to find further data from other sources that would help the research team fully explore the issues identified by the hypotheses.

After several months of data gathering, Alterra Group — in concert with the practice's marketing team — conducted intensive analyses of all the data to pinpoint the major challenges companies faced in building and sustaining a high–performance workforce, as well as the critical best practices employed by companies whose workforces strongly contribute to overall business success. We subsequently conducted deeper analyses and review of the data with the practice's subject matter experts, after which we wrote the report that explored the research findings and recommendations in depth.

Alterra Group also helped the company develop a number of pieces that were key to leveraging the company's investment in the study and generating broad interest in the strong intellectual capital presented in the research report. These pieces included:

• A series of PowerPoint presentations that educated the company's business development professionals on various aspects of the study so they would be better prepared to discuss the study's findings with clients and prospects.
• A news release on the study's findings that was disseminated by the company's public relations firm to major media around the world.
• Bylined articles and white papers that explored specific aspects of the study findings in depth for more narrowly targeted audiences.

The content emanating from the research project has been extremely well received by a variety of audiences. Internally, enthusiasm for the study among consulting and business development professionals has resulted in considerable use of the study as an important credentializer and prospecting tool. From a media perspective, dozens of articles on and mentions of the study in top–tier business and trade publications around the world illustrated the study's value in bringing new insights on a pressing business problem the publications' readers were facing. And hundreds of requests for copies of the study from the practice’s target buyers indicated the study struck a chord with executives responsible for improving workforce performance in their organizations.

Overall, the study has strengthened the company's presence in the markets it serves, helped increase awareness of the company as a major player in the human–performance arena, and led to more plentiful and fruitful discussions with clients and prospects.