Sharp end of real relationship

Jun 4 2007 By Alastair Gilmour, The Journal

A business analyst has Alastair Gilmour querying his questions and analysing the response.

How do you get the answers you want from someone who asks questions for a living?

Do you use the closed-ended technique where a choice is made from a range of replies? Or the dichotomous question, where the response is yes/no, true/false, male/female ...? The type that ticks the strongly agree/agree/don't know/ boxes? The multiple choice option? Perhaps this is a situation for the open-ended question - ask and wait for their own words.

Lisa Hart doesn't just ask; she probes, she analyses and she searches, sifts and studies.

She is chief executive of Acritas, a Newcastle-based enterprise that operates under the umbrella of market research, but after a question or two, this emerges as far too loose a term for the business analysis, brand value identification and client relationship world that she, her two co-directors and 20 specialist staff move and shake in.

"My other half still doesn't understand what I do for a living," she says. "What we do is use market research in very specialised areas, advising organisations in the very high value service sector, such as the larger accountancy practices, commercial insurance companies and high-end banks - people who have very relationship-based businesses. We help them develop their own business."

And, crucial to a relationship-based business is its brand. The Acritas team - mainly highly motivated graduates and people with business experience - delve into the value of an organisation's brand and identify what makes each firm special in the eyes of buyers. She says that knowing the strength of your brand is essential in retaining and attracting clients and a powerful tool in understanding what they value most - and well executed research will provide crucial data to capitalise on brand strategy, client relationships, service development and employee retention.

Acritas means "sharpness" in Latin, though some of Hart's learned friends jokingly refer to its other definition, "bitter". She enjoys the banter all the more because of the awareness and profile it has generated. She's in the brand business, after all, and her own brand seems to be doing all it's asked of it, capitalising on its sharp-edged nature.

"We talk to the people in companies who have influence," she says. "We challenge their assumptions, not from our own experiences, but by talking to other people who can advise and analyse.

"Market research is quite a dirty phrase - other market researchers will kill me for saying that - but we don't stop people in the street or ring people at home. We make business appointments for face-to-face meetings. I worked for a big law firm in London when the sector started to become more marketing-orientated through rule changes. When I was hiring people to do research I found they weren't as robust in their approach as they could be. They might be doing nappies one day then talking to a chief executive the next, so I saw there was a gap in the market for very specialist research at a high level.

"We look at a brand, ask how effective it is, does it stand out, are there new market opportunities, new regions, products and services to exploit - and is there a demand?"

However, the first partnership she established to fill the business-to-business services gap ended in tears. Before she launched Acritas in 2002, Hart had returned to the North-East from London to join Sage and shortly after formed a company with two other directors.

"I had a great six months at Sage," she says, "but I always knew I wanted to do my own thing. Coming back gave me that final push and my law firm experience gave me the confidence to set up in that area."

But, differences in direction and the way the company should be run led to the partnership splitting. In typical Geordie girl manner, she turned setback into advantage.

"It gave me the opportunity to change," she says. Change led to opening an office in London and another in New York to complement the Jesmond nerve-centre.

She says: "Although a lot of people in London have copied our idea, there was nothing like us in America. New York is the second-biggest financial centre in the world. It has been a slow start there, though, and we knew it would be. It has massive potential, but they're quite far behind us in using market research - not like their sales approach, which is very much ahead of ours.

"We did a huge exercise across the UK in January, February and March this year and we created a whole map of the country's legal market to enable us to sell the results. We'll do an annual update and start selling a similar thing in the US then begin rolling it out to Europe and Asia. Then we'll be truly global."

Acritas has interviewed more than 10,000 decision-makers around the world to seek their thoughts and opinions on a range of issues from client service to innovation.

"It has taken a lot of investment," says Hart, "but we have to take that sort of risk.

"Business-to-business is not quite as easy as working in consumer goods, which has very standard methodologies. But when relationships take over it gets more cloudy. We spend a lot of time with our interviewers training them to understand law firms' terminology from the simplest things so they can be confident and are able to interact. We do a lot of detailed probing."

Hart's persistence was generated at home where she could hardly avoid the pressures that accompany running a business. Her father, mother and brother are involved in different capacities in Hart Door Systems in Westerhope in Newcastle, an industrial door manufacturer. Her partner (they have a two-year-old daughter) is also involved in his own separate family business, so there's an understanding on both sides of the issues that arise trying to understand the theory of relativity.

She says: "My dad is still very much involved in the business and my mum always handled the accounts, so I grew up being taken there, then worked in the office. It was absolutely invaluable experience. I grew up amongst the stress of a family business - it's difficult for children going into a family business, but nothing really prepares you for doing it for yourself."

Doing it for yourself is easier when you apply your own methodologies and Lisa is forever measuring herself and her company's performance against role models, seeking advice whenever possible. A personal trainer, Dominic Bowser, not only puts pressure on her physical fitness, but also helps clear her head.

"I always find networking groups helpful," she says, clearly happy that the name Acritas's alphabetical position puts her at top tables at those events.

"And Dom is more like a shrink. You just tell him all your issues; he's great. He'll come into the office and I'll tell him I'm too busy today, but he'll say `get your stuff on, we're going running'.

"I started going to the gym because I was getting migraines and I was told it would help. It did for a while but they started coming back and I got in touch with Dom about six months ago. I haven't had one since."

Despite Acritas carving out a national and international profile, Hart admits that local companies have been slow to enquire about its services. Perhaps they don't understand the question. "We haven't done an awful lot with North-East companies yet," she says, "though we've done some work with Ward Hadaway, Crutes and UNW and we'd obviously like to do more.

"You need mathematicians to do the in-depth side and wordsmiths to restructure what people are saying - we've got all that here in our offices.

"We're very much at the development stage and it's very exciting."

Lisa Hart believes research is at its most powerful when it's used to help shape and define business strategies, inspiring confidence that the right decisions are being made using intelligent extraction, analysis and interpretation of the questions asked.

She understands all those questions. The success of her business suggests she knows all the answers, too.

And, if by chance she doesn't, there are 20 other sharp minds at Acritas who do.

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CV

Age: 34 (just)

Marital status: Living with partner and our two-year-old daughter.

Born: Newcastle upon Tyne.

School: Ponteland High School, eight GCSEs and five A-levels.

University: 1991-1994 BSc Mathematics and Management Science at UMIST, Manchester.

EMPLOYMENT

August 1994, market analyst in small market research agency in Buckinghamshire working for large blue chip accounts.

Research manager at same agency.

January 1998, business analysis manager for leading London law firm Denton Wilde Sapte, implementing a research-based business planning framework.

February 2001, set up Gracechurch Consulting and Research with two partners.

November 2002, set up Acritas Research Limited, a niche b2b research agency, specialising in professional and financial services, now employing 20 staff with offices in Newcastle, London and New York.

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The questionnaire

What car do you drive?
BMW.

What's your favourite restaurant?
Louis on Osborne Road in Jesmond.

Who or what makes you laugh?
My PA, Lynsey!

What's your favourite book?
Don't have time to read novels.

What's your favourite film?
The English Patient

What was the last album you bought?
Elton John Greatest Hits - but I don't often admit this.

What's your ideal job, other than your current one?
Running a fashion empire!

If you had a talking parrot, what's the first thing you'd teach it to say?
Remember to pick up some dinner!

What's your greatest fear?
Not spending enough time with my daughter and suddenly she'll be grown up.

What's the best piece of business advice you have ever received?
Recruiting people for where you want to be, not where you currently are.

And the worst?
Not to invest in property.

What's your poison?
Gin & tonic.

What newspaper do you read (apart from The Journal)?
FT.

How much was your first pay packet and what was it for?
£35 for a 35 hour week for my dad as office administrator!

How do you keep fit?
Bullying from personal trainer, Dominic Bowser.

What's your most irritating habit?
Not listening to people when they talk to me.

What's your biggest extravagance?
Holidays.

With which historical or fictional character do you most identify?
Can't think of anyone.

And which four famous people would you most like to dine with?
Richard Branson and Maggie Thatcher for the chat, Brad Pitt to look at and Robbie Williams to entertain me.

How would you like to be remembered?
For creating a successful business that people can thrive in if they want to.