Your organisation has data. Probably a lot of it — from internal dashboards, syndicated reports, past studies, and the collective intuition of your leadership team. What you may not have is a clear, unbiased framework for turning that data into market research strategy. That's the gap a skilled market research consultant fills: not just conducting studies, but helping you decide what research you actually need, how to design it, and how to apply the findings to real business decisions.
Meraki Research's consulting practise brings senior-level market research analysts into your strategic process — professionals with the education, training, and hands-on work experience that only comes from years of designing and delivering research programs across industries. Our consultants don't just advise. They embed with your team, diagnose your intelligence gaps, and build a research roadmap that aligns with your business objectives.
We've served as market research advisors to over 80 organizations, from growth-stage companies building their first insights function to established enterprises restructuring how they use research. Our consultants average 12+ years of dedicated research experience, and every engagement is led by a senior analyst — never delegated to junior staff.
Our Approach: The Meraki Advisory Model
Most consulting firms sell hours. We sell outcomes. Our Advisory Model is structured around the specific business results your organisation needs, with clear milestones and defined deliverables at each stage.
Phase 1: Intelligence Audit
Before recommending any new research, we conduct a thorough audit of what your organisation already knows. This includes reviewing existing studies, syndicated subscriptions, CRM data, competitive intelligence, and internal expertise. We interview key stakeholders across functions to understand how market research currently informs — or fails to inform — decision-making.
This audit typically surfaces two things: valuable insights that are being underutilized and critical gaps where your organisation is making decisions on assumption rather than evidence. Both findings shape the advisory roadmap.
Phase 2: Research Strategy Development
Based on the intelligence audit, our consultants develop a prioritized research strategy that maps specific studies to specific business decisions. We define methodology, timeline, budget, and expected deliverables for each recommended initiative.
This is where our analysts' depth of expertise pays off. A consultant with genuine work experience in market research knows which methods produce reliable results for which questions — and which popular approaches waste money. We draw on our team's experience across hundreds of engagements to recommend what will actually work, not what looks impressive in a proposal.
Phase 3: Vendor Assessment and Management
Many of our consulting clients have relationships with multiple research vendors — panel providers, analytics platforms, specialized fieldwork firms. Our consultants evaluate your current vendor ecosystem, identify gaps or redundancies, and help you build a partner network that delivers maximum value.
For organizations that need to hire internal market research analysts, we also provide guidance on role definition, candidate evaluation, and training requirements. We've helped employers across sectors define what a strong research hire looks like — including the right balance of education (whether a Bachelor's degree in marketing, statistics, psychology, or a related field), technical skills, and practical experience.
Phase 4: Execution Oversight
Depending on your needs, our consultants can serve as project managers for research initiatives, ensuring quality and rigor whether the work is conducted by your internal team, external vendors, or our own primary research practice.
This oversight role is particularly valuable for organizations that are investing heavily in market research for the first time. Our consultants ensure your research investment produces trustworthy results from day one, rather than requiring a costly learning curve.
Phase 5: Insights Integration
The most common failure mode in market research isn't bad data — it's good data that never reaches the right decision-makers at the right time. Our consultants help you build internal systems for research synthesis, distribution, and activation.
This might include designing an insights repository, creating executive briefing templates, or establishing a regular cadence of research reviews tied to your planning cycle. The goal is building an organisation where market research drives decisions as a matter of course, not as an occasional exercise.
The Market Research Analyst Advantage
What separates Meraki's consulting practise from generalist management consultants who occasionally touch research? Our consultants are market research analysts first — professionals who have spent their careers designing studies, analysing data, and translating findings into strategy.
This specialization matters. A management consultant might recommend "conduct customer research." Our analysts will specify whether you need a quantitative segmentation study or qualitative depth interviews, define the sample design, estimate the timeline and budget, and anticipate the analytical frameworks you'll need to extract actionable findings.
Our team's expertise spans the full number of research methodologies and analytical approaches. Whether your question calls for advanced statistical modelling, qualitative synthesis, or a blend of both, our consultants have the training and experience to guide the work from design through activation.
When Market Research Consulting Is the Right Fit
Consulting is the right investment when:
- You're spending money on research but not confident it's driving decisions
- Your organisation needs a research strategy, not just a research project
- You're building or restructuring an internal insights function and need experienced guidance
- You have multiple research needs competing for limited budget and need help prioritizing
- You want an independent, expert perspective on your current research approach and vendor relationships
- Leadership has questions about employment change dynamics, market evolution, or competitive positioning that require a structured analytical framework
A different service may be better when:
- You have a clearly defined research question and need execution, not strategy — our market research practise handles that
- You need a single, focused study for a specific decision — our primary research team can help
- You're a smaller organisation with a straightforward research need — our small business practise is designed for you
What We Deliver
Consulting engagements are structured around defined deliverables, not open-ended retainers.
| Deliverable | Details | Typical Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Intelligence audit report | Comprehensive assessment of current research assets, gaps, and utilization patterns | 2-3 weeks |
| Research strategy roadmap | Prioritized plan with methodology recommendations, budgets, and timelines for 12-18 months | 1-2 weeks (follows audit) |
| Vendor assessment matrix | Evaluation of current and recommended research partners with capability mapping | Included with roadmap |
| Hiring guidance (if applicable) | Role descriptions, candidate evaluation criteria, and training plans for research hires | As needed |
| Execution oversight reports | Monthly progress summaries with quality assessments for active research projects | Ongoing |
| Insights integration framework | Templates, processes, and governance recommendations for research activation | 2-3 weeks |
| Quarterly strategy reviews | Live sessions to assess research ROI and adjust priorities | Quarterly |
Engagement models: We offer three consulting structures — project-based (defined scope, fixed fee), fractional advisory (ongoing senior consultant access at a set monthly commitment), and embedded (dedicated consultant working within your team for a defined period). Project-based engagements typically run R360k-R1.1m. Fractional advisory starts at R90k/month.
Industry Applications
- Financial Services: Research program design for product development, customer experience measurement, and regulatory compliance studies — areas where market research analysts need deep domain knowledge
- Healthcare: Insights function development for health systems and life sciences companies, including patient experience research strategy and HCP engagement measurement
- Technology: Research roadmap development for fast-growing SaaS and platform companies navigating rapid employment change and market evolution
- Consumer Goods: Optimization of existing research programs, vendor consolidation, and integration of syndicated data with custom primary research — supported by our consumer insights practice
- Retail: Customer analytics strategy development, connecting market research findings with transactional and behavioral data for unified customer intelligence