Three interactive workshops were run at the conference - two of which are reported on.

'How to Eliminate the Risk Involved in Conducting Market Research'

Tony Price and Jill Hassan of PriceWaterhouseCoopers ran a very thought-provoking workshop looking at risk management and why it's important. Risk management is the process of identifying and dealing with risk and is a key part of the management process. Tony encouraged us to think about what sort of risks our own companies ran and to consider how we could control and monitor these risks - what, for example, would be the impact of a major IT failure. The key messages were to be risk aware, to plan, to have an agreed documented policy, to carry out risk assessments in terms of:

• probability (the likelihood of the event occurring)
• impact (a subjective assessment of the effect of the event on the business)
• controllability

Key business risks Tony identified included financial, IT and regulatory/legal. Financial revolves around cash flow as cash flow is one of the main reasons that businesses, particularly SMEs, fail. He stressed the importance of credit control, knowing which contracts are profitable and understanding our costs. He pointed out that it is easy to sell to someone who is not going to pay and suggested giving our worst customers to our competitors - which led to some interesting discussion!

Tony then moved on to IT risks and suggested that we not only have contingency plans but that we test them out. He worried us by explaining that it is possible for recipients to 'roll back' MS office documents and see all the previous versions of the document - not something that most of us were aware of.

Jill then moved on to take us through some of the risks in the different phases of market research and the type of process that they go through at PriceWaterhouseCoopers to assess risks.

She looked first at the 'selling' phase where common risks included scenarios such as the client opening up a project to tender when there is already an incumbent agency where the risk is that time and effort will be spent on a project which you have a limited chance of winning. Their way of assessing risk involves a Bid Review Process, which they carry out before submitting a bid.

Routinely they look at:

• who the client is and whether they have an existing relationship
• what the opportunity is
• whether they have the capacity
• logistics and timescales
• whether the solution they're putting forward is the right one
• whether the team is right
• whether the 'commercials' are right

We then went on to look at common risks at the 'engagement' phase such as the failure to deliver because of a failure on the part of the client in not, for example, providing sample, and at the 'delivery' and post delivery phases, such as data being used out of context.

We looked at the type of measures which you would take to minimise exposure to these risks which included issues such as terms of engagement, contracts and copyright.

The final message was that we need to put risk on the agenda and take it seriously; we can't eliminate risk in our business lives but we can learn to manage it.

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'Quallies and Quanties, Can They Live Under One Roof?'

As a BIG conference virgin I joined my first workshop unsure of quite what to expect from an investigation of whether qualitative and quantitative researchers can and more importantly should work together under one roof. I had been told that past workshops had been 'lively' and I wasn't disappointed. An inspired choice of subject matter resulted in a session filled with intelligent comment and passionate debate as well as perhaps slightly too many medical and animal analogies.

Rosie Hayes of Allianz Cornhill got things started by offering the client-side view. Whilst there are obvious advantages of using agencies or consultants that specialise in one of the disciplines, Rosie highlighted the 'convenience' and 'cost benefits' of allowing multi-skilled agencies to manage larger projects in their entirety. Many companies successfully employ full service agencies to complete projects requiring both disciplines. Ultimately it comes down to idealism versus pragmatism.

Neil McPhee of Nuance Research then presented the counter argument based around the premise that qual and quant should actually be conducted by very different people. Whilst any intelligent person can be trained to run a group, very few individuals have the acquired skills and natural ability to do them well. Neil offered a particularly compelling and interesting philosophical and psychological based argument for why qualitative research in particular should be left to the experts - the detail of which I couldn't do justice to now.

Although it took some time, we did eventually come to the conclusion that qual and quant specialists can exist under the same roof. Who can argue with the analogy of a hospital and its various specialists all successfully operating in one building? This led on to the much more contentious issue of whether one can actually be an expert in both. Although there was some difference of opinion, the majority believe this to be uncommon and that 'generalists' are rarely as skilled in each of the disciplines as a specialist.

Our final area of discussion concentrated on theory vs reality. If research were commissioned with the aim of actually finding the 'truth' and without constraints of finance or time then the use of specialists for the different disciplines would be necessary. In the real-world, however, clients have a limited budget to get the figures they need to support the plan they are presenting at tomorrow's board meeting. Locating and using specialists is likely to result in additional hassle and money. It is easier to use a full-service agency.

This was a session that generated as many questions as it did answers. After two hours we had barely started to dissect a whale of an issue that clearly divided those present. One thing that we all agreed on, however, is that research will always need specialists in both disciplines regardless of where they are based.

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