Managing the minefields of global product development

Editor’s note: Eileen Moran is a principal at Applied Marketing Science, Inc., a Waltham, Mass., market research and consulting company.

Most people who are active in international markets are all too familiar with the challenges associated with developing truly global products. There is never (or should I say rarely) an instance when a “one-size-fits-all” product meets the needs of all targeted customers. No matter how hard you try, a marketing manager in one of the regions is likely to be dissatisfied with the new line of products, complaining, “How do you expect us to sell this in our market? This is a product for the American market, not the (fill in the blank) market!” It’s this need for international market research, and the intricacies involved in conducting it well, that I’d like to discuss.

“They oughta want what we wanna give ’em!”

This may be preaching to the choir, but let’s lay out some of the benefits of including all relevant markets in your research agenda.

First, the main question on most product development managers’ minds is: Can we launch the identical product worldwide, should we retool the product on an as-needed basis, or do we need completely separate products for each market? It can mean the difference between a product’s success and failure. Collecting data in all major markets will help you decide to what extent you need to customize the product, or, in the case of really unique markets, if you need to go back to the drawing board.

There are also other, more pragmatic reasons to conduct international research. Most global companies suffer through chronic political battles between the home office and the international regional offices. Many companies (and American companies are among the worst offenders) have a one-size-fits-all approach to product development and this is an endless source of conflict between the international sales organization and the home office. Including all major markets in your research efforts can go a long way in stimulating company-wide buy-in for newly developed products. Not only will local affiliates feel that their customers’ voices are finally being heard, but these affiliates can be tremendously helpful to the market researcher in terms of planning and carrying out the research. For example, is there an upcoming conference that would bring many customers together during which the research could be conducted? Can they supply customer lists to help with sample recruitment? Can they help in checking translations? Perhaps they can actually take part in the interview process by observing interviews. Taking these steps will go a long way in creating goodwill between the product development team and the international sales and marketing team.

Let the researcher beware

Once you’ve taken the leap and decided to collect data globally, there are a few things to beware of when eliciting customer input. First, in many instances, particularly with business-to-business products or services with a complex purchase decision process, the actual decision-maker or influencer may differ significantly from market to market. For example, in complex hospital diagnostic equipment, the purchaser in the U.S. is often the laboratory director. In Europe, however, where testing is more decentralized, the decision-maker is often a nurse manager or department director (physician) on the individual care unit.

Once you’ve determined the appropriate respondent(s) in each market, you will likely need to tailor your approach and structure the research differently from market to market. For example, central location interviews may be perfectly acceptable and easy to recruit in Germany, while in-person, on-site interviews may be required to gain cooperation from Japanese respondents. Following and respecting the local etiquette for how research is routinely conducted will help your project run smoothly.

Except in very unusual circumstances, customer interviews should always be conducted in the local language by local interviewers. That would include even those interviews conducted with respondents who speak English well. Few people are as at ease or articulate in a second or third language as they are in their own mother tongue. By forcing a respondent to speak a foreign language, you are, from the outset, limiting their ability to express their opinions and needs clearly and articulately. It probably seems very obvious, but there are countless examples when this rule has been violated in the interest of time or simplicity - to disastrous effect. There are certainly those cases when it is either not possible or not feasible to interview each respondent in his or her own language (e.g., an online focus group with hard-to-find respondents scattered all around the globe). We once conducted a focus group with highly specialized designers of massive power plants from all around the world who were gathered in one location for a short period of time. In that case, the default language of communication among this highly-specialized population had traditionally been English, so the group was conducted effectively in English.

One cannot overestimate the importance of being extremely cautious when it comes to translation. Our process involves having original text (for screeners, interview guides, stimuli material, etc.) professionally translated from English into the language in question. We then work with a second independent translator, whose job it is to compare our original English text to the translated version, to ensure that both texts are essentially identical in meaning (this does not mean that they will be word-for-word translations, as that is typically not our goal). The last step is to have the text checked by our client’s local affiliate for technical accuracy. We often find that even translators who have specializations in high-tech or medical language cannot be relied upon completely for appropriate translation of highly specialized technical terms. The people at the local affiliate can also check for the naturalness of the translation.

I’m sure this process must sound like a tremendous amount of work and a lot of expense - it is! It’s expensive to hire local interviewers and recruit respondents in countries where the market research infrastructure may not be very well-developed. It’s costly to have people on your staff who are trained in the complexities of international data collection. And doing translation properly is also expensive. However, without taking these types of precautions, companies can end up with several even more expensive (and painful) problems on their hands:

  • A roomful of inappropriate respondents due to an inaccurate screener translation.
  • Skewed research results because of respondents’ reactions are to the language used rather than the concepts themselves.
  • A concept that respondents don’t really understand because it’s been translated incorrectly. (In one study we did for a camera manufacturer, we found an interesting translation from the English into the Spanish. The customer’s sentence was: “I get a good shot every time I use it.” The word shot was translated as “gunshot” - an unusual feature for a camera, and definitely not the one we wanted to test.)

Cultural differences can necessitate a different approach to research from country to country. For example, in recruiting business respondents, pay attention to the role of the desired respondent within the organization. In some countries, corporate or organizational hierarchy may make it difficult or even impossible to recruit respondents directly, without first approaching their supervisor.

In one study we conducted on postage meters, we were interested in talking to the person in small companies who used the postage meter on a regular basis. In most cases, that person was the administrative assistant or mail room clerk. In Germany, this type of person was very difficult to recruit. They were often hesitant to take part without their manager’s approval and worried about accepting a cash incentive for their participation. We altered our approach slightly, by faxing letters of explanation to them, which they could show to their manager. We also offered an incentive check, made out to the company, that could be used for an office lunch or something similar, improving our cooperation rate greatly.

Even something as straightforward as rating scales should be given some thought. We have found it best to utilize rating scales that make the most sense to the given population. For example, Americans may be very comfortable giving performance ratings using an A-F “school grade” system. That scale, however, is meaningless to Germans, who are more familiar with a 1-6 rating scale, with 1 indicating the best performance and 6 indicating the worst performance. And of course, the Japanese wouldn’t understand our letter grades at all – they generally use a 100-point scale for these purposes. You may even find that different populations use the same rating scales differently. For example, Germans may consistently give lower grades than Italians, while Italians may consistently rate every attribute as more important than Spaniards. These differences need to be factored in during the analysis phase.

Cultural differences can also surface with an issue like participation incentives. The first question is, “Are cash incentives appropriate in this market?” In Japan, for example, incentives for businesspeople often take the form of a gift, rather than cash. We’ve had success offering gift certificates to major department stores as incentives. Charitable donations might also be an option.

It is worth the effort

While this article has laid out a host of potential problems that one might encounter in conducting international research, our experience has been that it is clearly worth the effort. If you don’t have the expertise in-house, it would be worthwhile to create relationships with savvy research partners who have experience in this field.

The main message is that market researchers should examine each component of the research design to determine if it should be altered for international markets. Don’t be intimidated by the seeming complexity (and expense!) of including these markets. When you consider the total cost of a global new product development initiative, the cost of correctly-done research is a small percentage. And the benefits usually far outweigh the cost of the added effort.