Market Research Vendor Excellence: Exclusive Vendor Management

Like other functions that work with vendors, market research groups often struggle to find the optimal balance between controlling vendor costs and delivering quality insights.

Best Practices, LLC conducted benchmarking research to examine both well-established and newly emerging models and trends in market research vendor management. In particular, this report provides benchmarks around managing exclusive vendor partnerships, use and extent of outsourcing of exclusive vendors, evaluation and return on investment, vendor management automation and key lessons learned.

Study Snapshot

16 Market Research and Business Intelligence leaders from 15 leading biotech and pharmaceutical companies were engaged in a benchmarking survey to distill insights on exclusive market research vendor management. More than 40% of study participants serve at the director level or higher.


Key topics covered in this report include:

• Managing Exclusive Vendor Partnerships
• Use and Outsourcing of Exclusive Market Research Vendors
• Evaluation and Return on Investment
• Automation in Vendor Management
• Lessons Learned in Exclusive Vendor Management

• Vendors' Primary Research Activities Governed by Project by Project Contracts: Thirty-six percent of primary research outsourced to vendors is governed by project by project contracts while another 36% are governed by preferred vendor contracts. Companies also employ some other partnership models with external vendors - tiered rebate vendor model (used by 75% of companies) and pay for performance vendor model (used by 25% of companies).

I.	Executive Summary	pgs. 3-10
	Research Overview: Objectives & Methodology	pg. 4
	Universe Of Learning	pg. 5
	Key Recommendations	pg. 6
	Key Findings and Insights	pgs. 7-10
II.	Structure	pgs. 11-15
III.	Managing Exclusive Vendor Relationships	pgs. 16-25
IV.	Use and Outsourcing of Market Research Vendors	pgs. 26-31
V.	Evaluation and Return on Investment	pgs. 32-34
VI.	Vendor Automation	pgs. 35-37
VII.	Lessons Learned	pgs. 38-41
VIII.	Participant Demographics	pgs. 42-43
IX.	Appendix	pgs. 44-47
X.	About Best Practices, LLC	pgs. 48-49

• Levels at which Exclusive Vendors are contracted for outsourced market research projects or activities
• Exclusive Vendor Partnership Model used at the listed business unit levels
• Types of primary market research studies for which Exclusive Vendors are used
• Vendors with whom participants have enjoyed a successful Exclusive Vendor Partnership
• Do you have a penalty system built into your contracts with Exclusive Vendors (to prevent complacency and poor performance)?
• Benchmark companies’ relationship with Exclusive Vendors
• Do you centralize your vendor management in a vendor management organization (VMO)?
• Benefits, if any, realized by companies from using a VMO
• Management of Exclusive Vendor Relationship within internal market research group, in the absence of a VMO
• How often do your Exclusive Vendors work directly with marketing teams (on market research activities)?
• Types of training employed by participating companies when onboarding an Exclusive Vendor
• Impact of use of an Exclusive Vendor on internal employee engagement
• Reaction of internal market research employees to the organization’s use of an Exclusive Vendor and reasons for the same
• Percentage of primary market research outsourced to Exclusive Vendors
• Other types of partnership models utilized with external vendors for market research
• Participating companies’ primary goals in using an Exclusive Vendor for market research
• Benefits, if any, realized by participating companies as a result of moving to an Exclusive Vendor for market research
• Challenges encountered by participating companies as a result of moving to an Exclusive Vendor for market research
• Metrics used to measure return on investment in use of Exclusive Vendors
• Ability to demonstrate a positive return on investment using the specified metrics
• Have benefits of using an Exclusive Vendor outweighed the benefits of other models/using multiple vendors?
• Automated aspects in participating companies’ vendor management
• Efficiency from automation of vendor management
• Briefly describe how you are automating vendor management
• Top three lessons learned in transitioning to an Exclusive Vendor model or in working with an Exclusive Vendor
• Anticipated changes in use of Exclusive Vendors in the next 12-36 months