Let The Research Begin

By Jim Prevor, Editor-in-Chief, Produce Business

As an American, I am not sure if I should celebrate China…or fear her. In a sense, I find a great affinity with the Chinese. The sense of a dynamic and entrepreneurial society you feel in China is very akin to our own ways. I don’t think it is an accident that a prototypically American organization like Wal-Mart struggles in Germany but thrives in China.

And yet…as China grows in economic might, we cannot be indifferent to the uses to which that wealth might be put. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was in Australia recently and she pointed to China’s massive military buildup and asked what it was for.

Bryan’s visit is actually the beginning of all good research. It is the kind of informal thought process that is designed to raise questions. The questions that later are answered through more formal research. And, believe it or not, the most important part of research is the questions, not the answers. It has to be so because the answers you get depend on the questions you ask.

Ask if you think John Smith should be reelected and you get one answer; ask which of the two candidates up for election, John Smith or Jane Jones, should be elected and you may get a totally different answer.

In large part, this is the argument for diversity in organizations, including trade associations. How do you know the right questions if you don’t have diverse points of view?

In general, qualitative research doesn’t get its due. Organizations like to do quantitative research — partly because it is comparatively easy to get results, partly because it lends itself to publicity. You do a survey, you get a computer to tabulate, and you can send out a press release announcing that 97 percent of the population enjoys whatever fruit you are looking to promote.

But it is wrong very often. Mostly because the questions asked were not designed carefully enough, and they were not designed carefully enough because not enough qualitative work was done first.

Qualitative work is expensive. It requires top people to analyze and reflect on its meaning and importance. It produces no publicity in the form of attention-grabbing statistics. But it is essential. The meaning of words is a crucial component of research. Bryan asks what people will think of when they think of the Great Wall of China, what it will mean to them.

The same type of question needs to be asked every time we ask consumers a survey question. Asking consumers if they will pay more for an “Idaho Potato” and thinking their response has meaning presumes that we are talking about the same thing. If the researcher is asking, “Would you pay more for potatoes grown in the State of Idaho?” and the consumer is hearing, “Would you pay more for long white baking potatoes?” — the research results won’t mean what the researcher assumes.

The globalization of the produce trade practically compels more research because, at its core, research is simply a way of learning about things we don’t know. And the bigger the subject, the more we don’t know.

Many a business mistake is made because people act on hunches or suppositions. But just as many mistakes are made because research is done and it is too one-dimensional. Too often people assume that a telephone or mail survey and research are synonyms. But they are not. A survey is but one part, and often not the most important part, of a research project.

Reading the Rabobank Report that Bryan refers to is going to be very interesting. I find that financial institutions often do very good work when they do research not related to a stock they want to promote. There is something about the fact that someone will be putting money on the line as a result of the findings that concentrates the mind.

All of us need, though, to do our own informal research. It is vitally important to know the impact China will have on the produce industry and, doubtless, if you can figure it out, that creates opportunities. But taking advantage of those opportunities is difficult because it begs the question of what your own organization’s competencies are. That is why change is always heartbreaking. It is not just the lazy and incompetent who suffer; many a successful player can see what is coming but has no special competency to capitalize on it.

For trade associations, the internationalization of the industry poses real problems. Sure a grower in Mexico, who sees the United States as its only real market, may join with full force. But a grower in China, for whom the United States is just another market and probably a secondary one to many other countries, is unlikely to be a fully committed member.

And to the extent that trade associations take positions on issues such as immigration, one wonders what the notion of membership means when a trade association, purporting to have a truly international membership, takes positions opposite to the interests of the very international members the association is looking to woo.

As an entrepreneur — and we entrepreneurs are constitutionally optimistic — I think Bryan’s walk through Shanghai and his stroll on the Great Wall is a step in resolving these issues. One thing is certain; it’s the beginning of a research project that will consume generations.