1. Opinion polls
In the world of politics, opinion polls are associated with electioneering. In reality, opinion polls can take different dimensions. From gauging the public mood on a particular programme or policy to collecting citizen’s feedback on service delivery inter alia, opinion pools can help decision makers to pause and do internal reflection. Research Hub follows this process. We sit with the client to agree on the research objectives and questions, target population, and scope. We then design a methodology that clearly articulates the sampling strategy, data collection protocol, analysis among others. We then implement and share the results with the client. This initiative is particularly useful to the media fraternity, stakeholders in the governance space.
2. Tracer Studies
Universities, vocational programmes keen to collect data on their former graduates, Research Hub is your natural partner. Our team will design the methodology and deliver insights that will enable your institution to align content to the needs of recipients. Clients who enter into a formal partnership with us receive a generous discount.
3. Investment Climate Advice
We partner with foreign investors keen to take advantage of Rwanda’s excellent investment climate through:
• Doing background research on the operational logistical requirements, taxation procedures, available incentives among others
• Doing context analysis on behalf of the investor in a bid to acquaint them with social, economic and cultural context.
4. Brand Awareness survey
In the world of marketing, the more people that are aware of your brand the more they are likely to buy your product. Companies spend the fortune to build this awareness and to leave a lasting impression on the clients. The natural instinct is to assume that after spending a fortune on marketing promotions, the clients are aware of your brand and products. But you always need data to back support this claim. To avoid guesswork, Research Hub helps clients to among others measure:
• Brand recognition: the goal here is to measure the percentage of the target market that knows a particular brand and or product. Why is this metric important? Awareness of a brand is a precursor to consuming its product. A client aware of the product is likely to be interested in knowing more about the product and possibly consuming it eventually.
• Brand recall: The intention here is to know the percentage of the niche market that recognize your brand and or product without being prompted. This particular cohort represents the low hanging fruit that can be converted into loyal customers but there is always a need to know who they are, where they are, their consuming habits among others.
• Brand trust: the trust clients have of the product says much about their long-term loyalty. Research Hub will measure the degree to which clients trust a particular brand in relation to competitors. Knowing this can be a game changer especially the reasons for lack of trust are discovered and acted upon.
• Brand loyalty: brand loyalty can mean different things in different contexts. It may mean a customer who consumes multiple products from the same brand. It may mean a client who recommends a product to other consumers. It may simply mean a customer who spends more on key products. We help companies to gather insights on their loyal customers by building a profile of who they are and their consumption patterns.
• Consumer profile: We help companies to understand their customer base in terms of demographic characteristics. A shift in the demographic characteristics of the clients may necessitate a need to readjust the marketing promotion strategies to achieve best outcomes.
5. Employee Satisfaction
Contemporary corporate governance best practices require rallying the rank and file of staff to the goals of the organization. Forging this unified vision doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It requires a workforce that is motivated, satisfied with their role in the journey to corporate success and the environment they work in. Employee’s general attitudes, the work environment can affect their productivity and the company’s bottom line. Research Hub helps companies to stop guessing by collecting data on metrics critical to the employee satisfaction and productivity. We also help departments such as marketing, sales, human resources to develop and track key performance indicators that gauge the overall performance of the company.
6. Product Testing
Between 75-95% of new products churned out fail to garner consumers’ interest according to several studies. So why do the likes of Apple and Samsung achieve high success rates for their latest versions of mobile handsets and why did Nokia fail to achieve the same level of success? In general, products fail because of lack of enough preparation, and product testing according to experts. Most companies spend so much on research and development but a big portion of this budget goes to branding and engineering aspects. Less is spent on understanding the tastes and preferences of the niche market later alone consumer behavior.
Research Hub has specialists who will test your product before roll out. We use innovative techniques that are proven to elicit a reaction from even the shyest clients. We deliver insights in the friendliest formats and keep data as confidential as can be. To enhance the user experience, we also collect customer feedback on the existing products on behalf of the clients.
7. Customer satisfaction survey
Statistics both official and unofficially put the number of clients lost by companies in a year to 20-50%. In an era of disruptive startups and evolving technologies, this should not come as surprise to anyone. What is shocking according to the Harvard Business Review (HBR), is the little insights CEOs have about the cause of the mass exodus of clients and how to woo them back. Given how expensive it can be to attract new clients, companies are advised to try and build defensive walls around their existing clients and win back the hearts and minds of former and dormant clientele. This requires several things:
• Understanding the root cause of the mass exodus
• For those dormant, knowing reasons why they are no longer active
• Collecting intelligence on the satisfaction and intentions of the existing clients
Research Hub will work with clients to figure out why customers are leaving, who is leaving in terms of demographics, where they are going and what can be done to bring them to bring back. Experience world over shows that companies that invest in knowing a great deal about the behavior of their consumers do better at reducing attrition and achieving customer loyalty.
8. Monitoring and evaluation
Monitoring and Evaluation have emerged as an important function in the execution of development projects. There are challenges though. Under-funding of M&E activities, emphasis on the collection of routine output data (at the expense of outcome and impact) and reliance on external consultants to collect mundane outcome data have reduced the effectiveness of projects’ delivery. The practice of doing surveys only at baseline and end line has meant that implementer is denied the opportunity to learn and take corrective action in the course of project implementation. Even as all development practitioners acknowledge the need to evidence change, there is often confusion as to what needs to be done to alter the status quo.
At Research Hub, we think we partly know why and how to change the status quo. Firstly, we believe that knowledge of M&E needs to go beyond the “M&E specialists” secondly, M&E needs to evolve and adapt to changes in technology. We are in the digital age as such, use of pen and paper ought to be relegated to the twentieth-century dustbin. Thirdly M&E and research should not be seen in isolation. The former is no longer just about filling forms with numbers of beneficiaries. Contemporary M&E requires an understanding of research designs including the debate around counterfactual evaluation designs. These are necessary to answer the “so what” question. Lastly, qualitative data is as important as quantitative data and knowing how to collect both sets of data and to triangulate it can be a game changer.
Our approach
Data advisory
We start from the assumption that not every staff member and to a certain extent management have a universal understanding of what their programs and projects intended to achieve in very specific terms. The definition of success or failure of programs is often assumed to be known by all actors. In reality, the perception of what a particular project aims to achieve can vary from person to person.
Partly, this may be due to unclear objectives, indicators among others. We, therefore, start by engaging the client to work out what the project aims to achieve in very specific terms. This means us facilitating sessions where a consensus on project-specific objectives is reached with the client. We then brainstorm on what counts as the attainment of those objectives in form of indicators.
We review M&E plan and log frames and make sure every stakeholder is on the same page as far as project outputs, expected outcome and impact are concerned. We then proceed to review tools with the client and data storage options. To capture data at the outcome level, we help clients in two ways:
• Where the client is implementing directly and has data collection chain, we help to configure a mobile-based data collection system and set it up on either the clients’ server or internet managed by the client.
• We collect knowledge attitude and practices (KAP) data on behalf of the client and share insights at a mutually agreed interval. We use the following.
Cross-sectional studies
Cross-sectional studies involve collecting data at a particular point in time with a view to assessing change over time. Our experienced team is happy to assist clients in collecting this data through baseline, end line, annual impact surveys at competitive rates. For registered clients, this is done at a subsidized rate.
Longitudinal studies
For organizations with long-term projects, we advise using longitudinal studies – a collection of data on the same subjects over a period of time. This allows the client to keep track of incremental change over time.
Counterfactual evaluations
We conduct evaluations using fit purpose methodologies such as propensity score matching (PSM), randomized control trial (RCT) quasi-experiment as may be deemed practical.
9. Content Development
We help clients develop tailored content for their programmes. Our experts in the field of gender, business development will sit with you to understand your needs and develop appropriate solutions.