Strategic Talent, Market, and Competitor Insights

Carrot Executive's Strategic Insights projects have a simple aim – to provide you with the data and insights you need to make informed strategic decisions. Because every need is different, all our projects are designed bespoke for each client.

This means we will deliver a project that:

Answers the questions most critical to your business.
Provides the exact data you need to make decisions with confidence.
Uses the most appropriate research methods.
Is designed to fit your budget.

Here are some examples of the types of projects that we can deliver:

TALENT INSIGHTS

Talent Attraction Strategy – If you want to make sure you are competing against others in your sector, a talent attraction review can assess your own talent brand against that of your competitors, including the messaging to candidates, your marketing touchpoints, brand awareness and perception, and even reward data. A strong Employee Value Proposition (EVP) should be a priority in your Talent Attraction strategy - read more about the importance of an EVP here.
Talent Retention Strategy– Make sure you aren’t losing talented team members by reviewing your talent retention. This might include an Employee Satisfaction Survey and reviewing exit interviews to understand what is causing employees to leave and how to fix it.
Candidate Attraction Document - We offer both a reviewing service for a document you have already created to offer suggestions and changes, or we can create an entirely new document for you based on the information you provide us with. Find out more about why a talent attraction document is vital to your strategy and how we can support yours here.

MARKET INSIGHTS

New Opportunities – If you are considering a new service or entering a new niche, Carrot Executive can help by collecting data on what is already on offer in the market and identify where there are gaps for you to innovate.
Location Studies – Are you expanding into a new market or considering a new office location? We can help by producing a location feasibility study on a few potential locations profiling talent availability, nearby competitors and clients, legal implications in that country, and other pros and cons.
Identify Acquisition Targets – Acquisition may be a consideration to help you fuel growth. We can work with your criteria and provide a list of companies who appear a good match with headline information and our recommendations on which to look at in more detail.

COMPETITOR INSIGHTS

Competitor Benchmarking – Better understanding your competitors through benchmarking studies can offer a real competitive advantage. Carrot Executive can design a study to fit with your specific requirements which may include a review of their talent brand and attraction strategies, their offerings to candidates, their positioning in the market or their organisational structure. Whichever competitors you want to profile and whatever information you’d like to find, we can support you with that.

As every project is bespoke, the possibilities are limitless. If you have any strategic decisions to make that could benefit from some added market intelligence, drop us an email and we’ll discuss how we could build a project to suit you.

Our Methods

The research methods we use vary depending on the needs of the project, but might include:

Secondary Data

Online Research

- Our consultants are experts at uncovering and pulling together data from multiple online sources, from company finance records to social media; if it’s in the public domain, we’ll find it.

Carrot expertise

- Carrot has been recruiting in our specialist sectors since 2006 and have a strong knowledge of both our candidate and client markets. We’ve represented hundreds of clients and candidates, so we know how best to attract and retain talent. This wealth of knowledge is used to augment data from secondary and primary research.

Primary Data

Surveys

- We can design expert online surveys to provide up-to-date insights from the market. With access to thousands of current and former Carrot candidates, plus vast LinkedIn networks, we have no shortage of possible respondents.

Interviews

- More in-depth, qualitative interviews can also be conducted with a select handful of key contacts. This could be candidates, key opinion leaders, or even potential clients.

The Deliverables

Insights will be delivered in the most suitable format. For most projects this is a longform pdf report, clearly structured and signposted for easy reading, with an executive summary, conclusions, and recommendations.

Other projects, such as acquisition targets or identifying new opportunities, may be delivered as spreadsheets to make it easier to compare, filter, and segment data.

For something like a Candidate Attraction Document, the deliverable will be a ready-to-use pdf document. If you are planning to use the data from any insights project to present to other stakeholders, we can also provide ready-to-use slides.

Pricing

There is no fixed fee for any of our projects because every project is different. Our fees are essentially related to time – how much time would we need to dedicate to design, implement and deliver the project. Our proposals are very transparent, breaking down the fee structure so that everything is clear and easy to understand.

This model means that we can adapt our proposed methodology to match the budget you had in mind. For example, for a larger budget, we may aim to survey more people or broaden the scope of the research. If you only have a limited budget, we can narrow the scope of the research to reduce the number of days required but still deliver meaningful insights.

Process

Our process always begins with a thorough briefing to understand exactly what you need. We’ll then write a proposal with our suggested research methods, timeline and fees.

After the proposal is approved, we’ll begin with a project kick-off meeting where we can fine-tune any details that weren’t covered in the brief.

We then conduct the necessary research and produce the deliverable. This part of the process will be different for each project, but you can expect regular updates by email and weekly or bi-weekly catch-up calls.

Once we’ve delivered the final report or spreadsheet, we’ll let you have some time to read and digest it, then we’ll arrange a convenient time to go through the findings and recommendations with you in more detail.

Why choose Strategic Insights?

There are many compelling reasons to use strategic market insights when making important business decisions.

Market insights can support business growth by ensuring that you secure the best talent against competitors and hold on to that talent for longer. They can also support growth through acquisition or expansion by uncovering opportunities and steering you in the right direction.

By making the most of available data and the expertise of a market insights consultancy you make sure that strategic decisions you make are informed and aligned to your specific market.

Martin Anderson

Founder

Martin began his career in Market Research and Business Intelligence with Adelphi International Research, before moving into Sales & Brand Management positions with the Biotech firm MerckSerono. Carrot was formed in 2006 to offer a knowledgeable and supportive service to consultancy and industry clients throughout the Pharma and Life Science industries, working across the product lifecycle.

Martin heads up our Executive Search and Insights business, working closely with clients to understand their strategic requirements around talent attraction and the generation of key insights to support their decision making across the business. Martin has a MSc in Marketing and Management, a BSc in Psychology, is an NLP master practitioner, ABPI qualified, and gained a distinction from the REC in recruitment accreditation. He is fully au fait with the MRS guidelines for conducting research.

Contact Martin Anderson: +44 (0)1625 541 032 / martin@carrotpharma.co.uk

Contact Martin Anderson:

Tel: 01625 541032
Email: martin@carrotpharma.co.uk