Dubai: A name change can go a long way to turning around a business's fortunes, it seems. Nigel Sillitoe will be one of the first to confirm this is indeed the case.

When Menu Discovery, a market research company founded in 2007, was not winning many clients, Sillitoe thought it was time to rejig the business strategy. And he started with another name.

"The name of Menu Discovery led to a lot of confusion, people thought we had something to do with catering. Consequent to this realisation, the company came to be known as Insight Discovery," said its CEO Nigel Sillitoe.

"The company [now] offered the same things, but with a better name," said Sillitoe. The changes that he brought about did not just end with the name.

While Sillitoe had been a passive investor in the company, he decided to take on a more direct role in its operations. It helped that Sillitoe was cut out for the job, having had fruitful stints in asset management with the likes of BNY Mellon and Thames River Capital.

The next step was to get new investors on board who were able to commit some capital in order for the business to expand. In fact, a lack of adequate capital was one of the main factors which had been holding the business back.

"It was a small company that not many people had heard of before, but it ticked along, made money," Sillitoe said. "But if it was to go to a high level, it would need that extra capital injection."

Lot of competition

The larger market research companies in the UAE offered a range of studies. However as a small business and in order to be able to hone in to their preferred market, Sillitoe decided to focus on two things — employee engagement and customer attitude, with a bias towards the financial services sector, which is an area he said he understood at some depth.

"There has definitely been a lot of competition from most of the big market research companies," Sillitoe said. "There are many boutique companies like ours which is why we'd rather be covering a niche rather than pretend to be a jack-of-all-trades."

One of the projects the company worked on in the first quarter of this year was for a well known hotel in Dubai which required an analysis on their 15,000 members, a percentage of their total loyalty membership programme. After receiving the required minimum sample of 1,000 within five days, Sillitoe said Insight Discovery dissected the results and was able to come up with recommendations on how the hotel's loyalty programme could be improved.

Brisk business

As a boutique business, Insight Discovery was able to focus on aspects larger companies often neglected, he said.

"Being a small company we are able to make ourselves available 24/7 — if a client wanted to do a conference call on Friday at 8pm we'll do it," said Sillitoe.

"Not everyone would be willing to make that sacrifice on the weekend."

To ensure they are able to give full attention to their clients and their requirements, Sillitoe said the company limited itself to about five projects a month. New contracts were coming through nicely, so much so that the quota for September had already been reached, he said.

Sillitoe said his company was also able to maintain a competitive edge on pricing because of its size, which translated into lower overheads compared with a larger international organisation in the same field. With all the needed changes in place, their strongest indication yet of the interest the business was generating came from the number of hits to the website. When as Menu Discovery it was receiving an average of 15 unique users a month, this had now shot up to a staggering 3,000 plus unique users, Sillitoe said.

"Part of that is because when you do a survey you get people looking at the website when the survey has been completed," said Sillitoe.

"In the first quarter, Insight Discovery conducted nine large surveys with invitations being sent to over 23,000 individuals."

Nigel's Top Tips

  • Have an ironclad agreement in place with investors. It's better to hire a lawyer from day one to avoid a dispute at a later date.
  • Ensure the staff in the business have a vested interest in the company. Everyone in Insight Discovery is a shareholder in the business.
  • Try and get client testimonies. For a small business that's a great way of building up a reputation.
  • Get out there and network. Attend every event that is relevant to your business and have lots of contacts you can leverage.