SSI's Mantra for 2008: 'Continued Leadership, Innovation, and Growth'

Business Wire, March 4, 2008

CEO Jim Follett's First Year Accomplishments Outlined

FAIRFIELD, Conn. -- As Survey Sampling International (SSI) enters its fourth decade in serving the marketing research industry, the company's goals still reflect those of its entrepreneurial roots: continued leadership, innovation, and rapid growth. In an interview with Jim Follett on his first anniversary with the company, he lays out the energetic and expansive strategy designed to keep SSI on a strong growth path in 2008.

"SSI had a successful 2007 as measured by growth and by client and employee satisfaction. 2007 was a year of change and transformation for SSI. While strategic initiatives were being defined and implemented, SSI kept customers happy as evidenced by strong global growth of 20%," said Follett. In fact, SSI made significant investments in people talent, technology, and new processes, which will position SSI for long-term growth and profitability. For 2008, Follett has identified three major goals:

1) Maintain strong growth in all regions,

2) Implement a global operating model that will enable increased speed and higher quality, and

3) Invest more deeply in developing global talent.

"In early 2007, we formed an Executive Management Board to serve as our global leadership team and developed a strategic plan to position SSI as the premier global provider of solutions for surveys. The company has been reorganized to deliver this vision," said Follett. "We secured board of directors' approval to make it all come together in 2007 and 2008."

For example, the North American sales organization was reorganized to focus on and serve distinct client segments. "The goal is to improve the quality of the servicing experience. New sales professionals were hired and trained alongside SSI veterans in order to implement the plan. And it's working very successfully," said Follett.

As the foundation of the company's offerings and expertise, SSI's respondent community is an invaluable asset. In 2007, SSI concentrated considerable time and effort to enhance its community management process. At the forefront of this effort is SSI's Respondent Experience (REx) team that works with clients to ensure surveys are optimal in terms of language, logic, length, and cultural fit. This team also ensures respondents are treated with respect and their survey experience is relevant and engaging. Because of this effort, respondents are more receptive and loyal to the research process on a long-term basis.

To maintain its leadership position on quality issues, SSI formed a Global Knowledge Management team in 2007 to focus on proactively developing best practices. This team conducts its own research to better understand sampling methodologies and respondent behavior, and to test recruiting and communications methods to determine what works best. The results help SSI attract more quality respondents who generate better quality responses.

The Global Panel Solutions team was established in 2007 to put all proprietary community management under one team. "This team is focused on establishing consistent standards for respondent recruiting and incentives, and programs that build respondent satisfaction. They work closely with the Global Business Development team who are charged with developing new respondent sourcing techniques and methods. SSI now has proprietary communities in 22 countries with expansion into new countries planned for 2008," explained Follett.

In 2007, SSI established a global operations and client services team and is moving to a single global platform for project management and delivery. The benefit to clients is that SSI can better implement global best practices, consultation, and project servicing down to the individual client level, regardless of location.

"So no matter where a project manager is based around the world, the same process, technology, and techniques will be used to provide clients with consistent results and a better servicing experience," explained Follett.

"In 2007, SSI established global shared services teams for IT, operations, marketing, finance, human resources, respondent community management, knowledge management, and business development. All practice areas are run globally and focus expertise locally. Having this matrix work properly is going to be a critical success factor in 2008.

"In addition, we looked at various markets around the globe and decided where we wanted to expand geographically in order to continue our double- and triple-digit growth in 2008 and beyond," said Follett. "Our clients are expanding their businesses overseas and we want to be ready to service them regardless of region. So, we continue to expand into Asia-Pacific, Europe, and Latin American countries.

"SSI has 12 locations worldwide with two more offices opening in 2008 in Stockholm and Seoul. We will be there with the right respondents and the right services for our customers," explained Follett.

"SSI believes long-term success is based on obsessively focusing on and satisfying three groups of people: clients, respondents, and employees," Follett said. With employees in mind, significant investment is being made to develop talent and unique programs such as international exchange. This effort allows SSI to take full advantage of its employees' talents, and, in turn, offer increased ability to service clients. "It also serves as a great way to develop careers and multi-country experience," Follett added.