Anova Consulting Group

Perspective

Questions and Answers with Anova’s Rich Schroder and Heather Jenkins

Q: What are the three things that make Anova different from others who provide similar services?

Richard Schroder:

I think we’re different because every project we do is staffed and managed by a senior person who works directly and intimately with the client to understand their needs and objectives and to then design and execute projects that provide meaningful strategic insight. A lot of market research firms put a senior-level “rainmaker” out front with the client to cultivate and manage the relationship, but the real work gets done behind the scenes by very smart, but very junior and inexperienced analysts. That’s not our business model. We’re focused on using creativity and innovation to plan and execute customized projects for clients and that takes senior level experience and involvement. Our people have a very long history of success in the financial services, investment management and HR service sectors – success that even pre-dates our current collaboration at Anova. Many of us played key leadership roles at Chatham Partners, one of our competitors, prior to coming together again at Anova and that experience has helped us understand what approaches work, and which ones don’t. In the end, we’ve come to believe that clients don’t just pay us to collect data and hand it off to them. They pay us to tell them how to use it to make continuous improvement in the areas of sales, marketing, product development and client service – and I think that’s what we do better than anyone else. Frankly, that’s our passion. It is why we get up in the morning.

Q: How do you want Anova to be seen in the marketplace?

Heather Jenkins:

We want to be seen as athletes. By that I mean, as people who are dedicated, hard-working and totally committed to helping our clients compete and succeed. We also want to be recognized as thought-leaders – as a firm that is defining new ways for clients to use market research to achieve strategic superiority. Finally, we want to be seen as hungry, aggressive and passionate about what we do. We’ve been in business since 2005, and I think these attributes are starting to be reflected in how Anova is perceived in the marketplace because we’re working with a very impressive group of clients – firms that are market leaders in their own right and that are known for being innovative and highly successful at what they do.

Q: When you are designing a new project for a client, what’s your approach?

Heather Jenkins:

At the end of the day, what we do is answer “why” questions for our clients. “Why did we win? Why did we lose? Why do our clients stay with us? And, why do they leave to work with someone else?” Getting answers to those questions is a pretty straight forward exercise and is something any good market research firm should be able to do using tried and tested methodologies. However, here at Anova, we take things a few steps further. We don’t use a “cookie-cutter approach.” We tightly define how a client’s projects are scoped and designed and then we take those tried and tested research methodologies and significantly adapt them to the situation and the client’s objectives. We then interpret the findings and help the client develop a plan for making them actionable. Once that plan is being executed, we remain involved to help the client oversee its successful implementation. The point is, we offer a tightly defined set of research and analytical capabilities and focus exclusively on the financial services, investment management and HR services sectors, but we design and manage each project on a customized basis. To us, this is the essence of embracing a strong consulting ethic.

Q: Why is that important?

Richard Schroder:

It is important because some market research firms compete primarily on the basis of their technology or their high-priced talent. Clearly, having the capacity to collect and manipulate data and information is extremely important – as is having very bright people performing those tasks, but at the end of the day, there is a very strong human and personal dimension to what we do. To be successful we have to have good systems and good people, but we also have to be engaged with our clients and empathetic to their needs and to the issues and concerns of their clients. It is all about listening, understanding, analyzing, interpreting and proposing solutions that make sense. That’s what any good consultant does and it is how we try to operate ever day.

Q: What does the future hold for Anova?

Richard Schroder:

We hope it holds continued growth and lots of highly satisfied clients. We don’t ever want to be perceived as fat, dumb and happy about what we’ve accomplished. We also don’t want to be perceived as conventional and set in our ways. We want to be a learning and innovative organization because that is the only way your capacity to add value for your clients increases and magnifies. We also want to stay focused on what we do best. We will continue to look for ways to better serve our clients by offering them new products, services and strategies that help them attract and retain clients, but our area of emphasis will always be in financial services, investment management and HR services. Finally, we will continue to work very hard to distinguish ourselves on the basis of the relationships we build with our clients and the value we add for them. At the end of the day, that’s how we keep score for ourselves.