Conducting International Market Research in Asset Management

At Phronesis we pride ourselves on our ability to conduct full-service international research across complex professional B2B industries, such as Asset Management.  

By full-service we mean survey design through to data collection, analysis and insight generation, all under one roof.  

Conducting international market research in the consumer world can be hard enough. At a basic level think translations, currency conversions, and different competitor brand lists, but consumer research has the advantage of large universe sizes. It’s very easy to find people to take part in your survey.

Asset Management is different, especially at the Institutional and Wholesale end of the market. Think Portfolio Managers, CIOs, Fund Selectors or even Wealth Managers, the universe sizes are typically quite small, and finding exactly the right people is hard.  

I worked at a large US manager with a global footprint for 12+ years. Here are my three key learnings and watchouts for conducting international research among high-end professional audiences in the Asset Management sector.

Find the right agency partner to access your difficult-to-reach audiences

I often heard agencies tell me they were sector experts and they could guarantee me X number of interviews. But once I dug a little deeper I often found that they didn’t understand the roles I was looking for, or the organizations they typically work for. Financial services experience is not the same as asset management experience!

Client-side insight teams need to be thorough in conducting their own due diligence, don’t be afraid to kick the tires. Ask agencies specific questions about industry drivers or simply the competitive landscape to ascertain their sector knowledge.  

If they don’t know the difference between a Wirehouse advisor and an RIA, or between public and corporate pension funds, then it probably means your in-house team will need to spend considerable time and effort educating them, and possibly covering for them later down the line.

Finding the right agency partner for international work

Ok, so let’s assume you have an agency with sufficient industry knowledge but are they the right partner for a global study? Does their knowledge travel beyond your home market?

Client insight teams should determine what role they are asking their agency to play in each market. Is your agency playing a coordination role, and outsourcing the data collection to a local market third party? Or is the agency doing its own recruitment and data collection everywhere? Who is doing the local market analysis and insight generation?  

The answers to these types of questions will enable you to determine where your agency is adding value. They may not need to know everything about every market but as a bare minimum they need to  

• Know how to find the right audiences in each market
• They need to know the competitive landscape, including the main local and global players 
• Be able to provide an informed view and interpretation of local market data

Mistakes are easy to make if you rely on an agency’s central team to coordinate far flung markets, I’ve seen examples where local firms have been left off competitor brand lists, or where a recruit has gone wrong.

I strongly recommend ensuring you have local knowledge and oversight (which can always be supplemented from your own in-house local teams).

‘Local market’ errors will not only delay projects but ultimately may damage the credibility of the in-house team. I urge client side teams to push their agency partners so they fully understand where and who is providing the vital local market expertise.  

Quality not quantity

I used to frequently survey the fund selector audience in Europe. Stakeholders would often ask for minimum samples of n=100 or n=200 per market. Really? Not only is this going to be very expensive but in reality, there are probably only a few hundred fund selectors in each market who are of genuine interest. If the universe is n=500, there is simply no need to get 200 interviews, a lower sample should be sufficient.  

Maintaining good relations with your stakeholders here is critical too, so you can get a feel for the universe and knowing which types of firms really matter.  

Many agencies, notably the consumer-type panels, will push for larger samples, but they are often unrealistic. I had one case where an agency was promising more than 100% of the universe size. Clearly implausible and a sign that they didn’t know the market.

My question to stakeholders was always “Would you prefer to speak to 20 highly experienced people who can influence future fund flows, or to speak to 100 people who don’t matter at all to your business?”. Without fail stakeholders always chose quality over quantity.

Conducting international research in Asset Management is not easy but hopefully my advice will give you confidence for successful agency selection and ultimately positive project outcomes.

In summary:

• Be confident your agency knows the AM sector, don’t be afraid to kick the tires to test their knowledge
• What value your agency brings to multi-country studies, and at what stages throughout the project
• Focus on speaking to the right people, not just the most people. This is essential for achieving buy-in