Citation
Rafiqi, O. (2005), "Internet research", Qualitative Market Research, Vol. 8 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/qmr.2005.21608cag.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2005, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Internet research
Omar Rafiqi, an IT expert who has worked for SME and multi-billion pound organisations over the last 25 years, reflects, in a provocative and humorous way, about his journey and the parallel changes enabled by IT and the Internet.
Market researchers, practitioner and academic, are continually attempting to reduce the complex, ambiguous, diversity of life and human behaviour into manageable, and generalisable findings. These findings assist them or their clients to make pronouncements, provide insights and act as a foundation for strategic decisions and marketing programmes.
In an age where the Internet is increasingly a major source for information of varying quality and credence it is important for the market researcher to understand the nature of the Internet as a precursor to understanding the validity of their source data and results.
How have things really changed? A view through problems
Only a few weeks ago, I found myself meeting some top executives of a medium sized manufacturing company who were looking to transfer their production to another country in an effort to substantially reduce their cost base. The meeting’s agenda included the required IT infrastructure, software and security to allow the transition to be as smooth as possible and allow for the least disruption to the normal operation of the business. It was also necessary to keep costs to a bare minimum and utilise any existing facility to the maximum. I don’t know how often I had been in this situation before, but it seemed like thousands of times and I am sure many Consultants and IT managers have done the same. After the meeting I returned to my office and started to think of what had actually changed over the last 25 years as this problem seemed to be a constant one. In essence, the directors could only see an increased profit through cutting costs. The real problem to me is that firms invest in IT to save money rather than to make money. Although it would be unfair to accuse all companies of this, it would certainly apply to virtually all I have dealt with (several hundred by now, including three or four large multinational groups) and, ironically, several computer services organisations. IT has also become an extremely emotive subject in that within the families of these said executives are children, nieces, nephews and cousins who are all advising on the best computers and their components. In one organisation I was dealing with a few years ago, the Managing Director’s son was an IT manager elsewhere and it seemed I was indirectly communicating with him all the time. Although this can be turned into a very positive relationship, it simply adds a further complication to an already demanding role.
Occasionally there is a glimmer of hope in the projects that appear. However these are usually found by chance or some form of inspiration. Recently some friends of mine have opened up a healing centre and have started to let the rooms out to several practising therapists. They offered a considerable number of services over and above the room hire and found themselves drowning in a sea of administration. During a conversation it transpired that the aim of the business was to expand and franchise the brand, but the costs associated to the number of staff needing to be employed made this prohibitive. A computer system in this case would not just realise the viability of the business, but would be essential in creating its competitive advantage. To me this was a pioneering project that appealed to my sense of adventure. This was the reason I started in the field of IT in the first place and one that I am not reminded of often enough.
25 years ago
I started working with computers over 25 years ago while I was a student reading Maths and Physics. I remember proudly spending a relatively substantial part of my grant in my first year on a programmable calculator (I was only aware that computers existed but had never had anything to do with them). During a seminar on quantum mechanics we were given a problem that had to be completed in one week and it became clear that my state-of-the-art calculator would take somewhere in the order of three years to calculate the outcome. Concerned, I spoke to the tutor about the dilemma and he suggested I speak to the computer department and get myself a “Job Number” (now known as a User ID). This I promptly did and spoke to one of the programmers who suggested a book on FORTRAN programming and I completed the task within the week. This was in 1979 and it opened up a whole new world to me. The technology was forever changing, from punch cards to teleprinters and VDUs (visual display units) and from batch to online processing. Computers were also becoming smaller and smaller as the microprocessor was taking over from the transistor as the most complex components of the circuit boards. New computer languages were springing up and we were all learning several of them including Algol 68, BCPL, Pascal, Forth, Simula and many others now forgotten. Even the pleasure of somebody finding the password file for the whole university network did not escape us. Hacking was just as active in those days. We were part of a revolution and we knew it.
The demise of the typewriter
After graduating in 1981 I joined a government project with the DTI. This was to promote IT in businesses and coincided with the appointment of the first Minister for IT, Kenneth Baker. Personal computers and word processors were only just being introduced and the concept of change had not been missed by the government at the time, although I do not think that any of us could foresee the problems associated with this. I remember entering a world of work where the typewriter was dominant and that pools of typists and secretaries appeared to run not only the administration but also all the communications. In my office Brenda and Edith were memorable. While Brenda controlled the diary, typed complex documents and answered the phones (frequently all at the same time) Edith would steadily type all other letters. There were no spell checkers at the time and mistakes were few and far between. I remember pointing out an error on a full page of text that Edith had typed for me and without hesitation she retyped the page correctly within only a couple of minutes. I have never forgotten this as I have never seen such abilities since. My boss, Libby, also enlightened me, but mainly on the aspects of communications. Letters and documents were all written in a particular format and design with the rules being strictly adhered to. Indeed it took me several days to produce my first acceptable document. She was, in this respect, a hard taskmaster. However it became clear to me that all secretaries, everywhere, understood this and there appeared to be a business standard for communication. This also translated to the use of the telephone. These standards I now hardly ever see and, in my personal view, caused great harm in the entire process of business to business communications. The introduction of the word processor with standard letters and documents and spell checkers provided the opportunity of reducing the numbers of typists and secretaries in the workplace. The main reason being cost savings. It took only five or six years for the typewriter to virtually disappear from all offices in Britain, heralding a new and perhaps precarious age for the commercial world.
The introduction of MS Windows
It may be that the most significant development in the progress of the use of computers in business was the introduction of the Windows operating system. Developed initially by Rank Xerox and then launched by Apple, graphic designers flocked to buy the new systems in order to transform the printing industry and dramatically increase productivity. These computers were certainly not cheap and represented an investment in the future growth of the participating companies rather then a cost saving. Once again this was a pioneering time and the skills previously developed were enhanced by the technology rather than replaced by it. When Microsoft introduced their version of Windows, together with the Office suite of products, the revolution really took off. “Personal Productivity” was the catch phrase of the time and computers began to appear on every desk. However the driver was, once again, cost and each company, even each department within each company, seemed to develop its own rules for business communication and its own rules for filing. This was also reflected in the diversity of software available in that each system had its own rules too. This resulted (and indeed still does) in problems in staff recruitment where an experienced clerk would have to gain new skills for a new job that can take weeks to master. In the days of the typewriter communications and administration systems were standardised and your experience in one job was put to use immediately and effectively in the next.
Networks and communications
At the same time databases had become the way forward in keeping records and the development of Codd’s theories on Relational Databases led to IBM’s introduction of SQL. Within a few years a whole range of database products and associated languages were offered to the business world with a view of developing large, intricate software systems with greater speed and less technical skill than previously. This was the era of the 4th generation language and it generated a huge demand for IT staff from computer operators to programmers, data entry clerks to system designers. It was also a requirement of the new processes that information stored within the databases was centralised so it was always up-to-date. The need for multi-user networks (distributed computers) became ever more apparent and the demands on the hardware became greater and greater. Databases were being queried in all sorts of ways. In a famous case a marketing manager of one of the countries’ largest supermarket chains stated that his database had identified a link between buyers of a certain brand of dog food with a certain brand of chocolate snack. He couldn’t work out the reason why but said he would find it eventually. In another case a brand of biscuits was relaunched with a new name and immediately took over 50 per cent of its market share just because it was higher up the alphabetical list on the resultant database queries of most purchasing departments. Business to business communication, however, was still paper based and had to go through departments using Windows based computers. Confusion was rife and most of my time during the late eighties and early nineties was spent dealing with one problem after another and no IT strategy seemed to work. Everything appeared opportunistic and short-lived. This was not a good time for the IT revolution and it has been shown since that the return on investment during this period was far less than the previous ten years (the era of the typewriter). Perhaps it was due to this time that the sense of adventure and the pioneering spirit died.
In more recent years the price of computers has continued to drop, so much so that it costs less now to buy a PC than a Golfball typewriter in 1981. Companies do have a greater return on investment, but mainly to the lower investment required as a cost saving exercise. Businesses appear to concentrate on efficiency gains rather than opportunity gains. The Internet has also opened new doors and business to business communications has finally become entirely electronic. Electronic mail (a concept I first encountered at University) is finally becoming the norm. However the rules of communication are still as confused as ever. There is no doubt there is now far greater choice offered in the running of a business than ever before. Just consider the topic of advertising, the choices range from television to free papers and the internet. All options are now available to all businesses. The consequence of this is not necessarily good in my mind. Marketing strategies have ended up being fantastically complex and diverse as have business processes. In the last five years I have worked on a number of call centre systems, because some genius has shown that if a customer buys a product of the highest quality and nothing goes wrong with it they are less likely to repeat the purchase than if a fault has occurred and the company has dealt with it effectively. I am not sure that I follow the logic, just as I am not sure there is really a link between a brand of dog food and a chocolate snack.
Over these past 25 years it seems that certain skills and rules of communication have been forgotten and have now created a far more complex and less productive world. I am not saying that we are worse off, but I would say that the rate of progress has been significantly hampered. To me this is reflected in the decline of the pioneering spirit in the part of the IT industry and in executives who now have no secretaries. In short, I blame computers.
The next Internet Research will consider the role of the internet.
Omar RafiqiGuest author of this thoughtful piece, is a consultant working for Linteq, an Internet Consultancy firm based in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire. He has been involved in the IT industry since graduating from Royal Holloway College, University of London in 1981 with a BSC in Mathematics and Physics. Since 1989 he has been a consultant and an Interim Manager for a number of companies including large multinational and multibillion pound organisations. He has been responsible for IT budgets and projects exceeding several millions in value and is a partner at Linteq. (www.linteq.com, omar@linteq.com).