Richmond Events’ latest business panel report on research and development is now available. Headline findings include –

• The average number of people working within an organisations' research function is 21.
• 55% of respondents have between 1-5 employees within their research function.
• Around a third of the panel don’t have a specific research department yet allow whoever comes up with a new idea / product to research it themselves.
• The average amount the panel commits to R&D as a percentage of their overall turnover is 4%.
• 80% of the panel say they purchase from external market research agencies - 20% regularly and 60% sometimes.
• Organisations tend to undertake research more frequently with their customers than non customers.
• The majority of the panel are positive in their views towards research - almost one third say it keeps them up with or ahead of competition whilst over half feel it greatly increases effectiveness / product development.
• Well over half of organisations use their own employees to continually research their customers.
• Just under half of the panel feel it is always almost money well spent. However it is closely followed by 45% who feel measuring ROI on R&D is more difficult.
• On a less positive note only 39% of the panel use research to better understand their competition.