Turning a flagship study into a global research platform

The need

Create authoritative research that could keep working across a global organization

The original requirement was a global view of the digital priorities, investments and customer-experience challenges shaping the market.

But a global company does not have one audience.

As the study became established, industry teams needed evidence relevant to their sectors. Solution teams wanted to explore themes connected to areas such as data, content and customer engagement. Regional teams needed findings they could use in their own markets.

The challenge became how to expand the usefulness of the research without fragmenting it into disconnected studies.

The starting point

One global evidence base, increasingly different demands on it

The program had a strong anchor: a recurring global survey and flagship report.

Over time, that foundation became substantial. Since its launch in 2010, more than 140,000 executives contributed to the research.

The opportunity was to preserve a coherent global view while allowing different teams to ask more specific questions of the evidence.

That expansion happened progressively. Industry reports arrived first, followed by analyst decks, solution-focused work, dashboards and eventually a global consumer survey alongside the executive research.

What we did

Built specialist perspectives around a common research foundation

We worked across research design, fieldwork, analysis and development of the core global narrative.

Later editions combined large-scale executive research with consumer research, allowing us to examine business priorities alongside customer expectations.

Before report writing began, findings were analyzed and brought into workshops with client stakeholders to identify the themes that mattered, develop the central point of view and agree the structure of the global story.

From there, different teams needed different forms of interpretation.

For industry teams, relevant questions and deeper analysis were developed around sectors such as financial services, retail and B2B technology. The task was to identify what distinguished the sector within the wider results, which findings mattered and what they meant for its customers.

Solution-focused work took another route. Core research was combined with input from client specialists to develop narratives around areas such as data, content and customer engagement.

Regional teams received locally relevant analysis and summaries built around their own markets while retaining the connection to the global research story.

Dashboards, interactive crosstabs and additional data tables extended the evidence further, allowing internal teams to explore regions, industries and audiences beyond the findings selected for publication.

What they got

An ongoing research system rather than a succession of standalone reports

The flagship report remained the anchor, but the research could support industry and solution content, regional perspectives, analyst presentations, workshops, events, webinars and video.

Different teams could work from the same underlying evidence without being restricted to the same story.

The program also became increasingly reusable. Published reports provided the main narratives, while dashboards and supporting data let teams investigate questions that emerged later and develop their own market-specific material.

Why it mattered

One piece of research could create value across the organization rather than serving a single launch

The global study established a shared evidence base and a recognizable market point of view.

But much of its longer-term value came from what happened after that evidence existed: applying it to different industries, combining it with solution expertise, interpreting it for different regions and making the underlying data available for further use.

The result was a research platform that could evolve with the organization while retaining a common foundation.