Market Research and Working Internationally – Security Questionnaires

When a small market research agency is looking to work with large multinational corporations, one of the hurdles you may encounter is completing their procurement and security questionnaires for third party vendors. These detailed questionnaires allow corporations to assess potential vendors, partners, and agencies across areas like data security, privacy practices, and more.

When working with large corporates who have dedicated legal and procurement teams, these questionnaires can seem daunting. The questionnaires can be tens of pages long and they are not tailored to the market research market. They can include technical questions on complex compliance rules like GDPR, CCPA, and sustainability issues.

Here is what we have learned while working in the market research sector and completing a lot of procurement questionnaires:

Get ready early – They may approve the project and then send you the questionnaire. You don’t want to delay the work so make sure you have documents easy to access. they will likely ask for proof of insurance, policies and certifications.

Know your limits – Be transparent where you are working internationally and relying on local recruitment or agencies in the relevant country to support the research. Make sure these third parties are reliable and have a contract in place.

Highlight specialisation – Specialising in certain geographies or methodologies can help overcome any reticence on the part of the corporate.  Play to your strengths.

Use advisors – Have advisors you can contact to help complete the questionnaire. It’s a service we offer and have regular clients use this service as new procurement questionnaires are received. Don’t risk getting knocked out of the process on a technicality or something you didn’t understand.

Follow-up and clarify – If you don’t understand a question, ask for clarity right away, don’t guess as it may mean you get disqualified from the process.

Update Paperwork – Make sure that any policies and procedures you are relying on are up to date and have been reviewed on a regular basis. Anything over two years old probably needs reviewing.

While corporate procurement processes can be demanding for small market research agencies, being organised, and proactive goes a long way towards making the process easier to complete.

If you need help you can book a call with us here