Do online panels compete with the research companies of same clients? Yes, in many cases. And worse, in many cases it is not clear that your supplier and partner is also your competitor.
I believe it’s time to separate the wheat from the chaff. It’s not acceptable to work with companies that are, at the same time, your supplier and your competitor. I’m revealing to my supplier competition secrets that may potentially be used against me! They are planning, samples, questionnaires, project management techniques (and even part of my costs structure) and a lot of knowledge we end up sharing with companies that, later, will use it to compete for our clients.
The curious thing is that a lot of panels think this is normal. Maybe for being, many of them, outsiders from the research market, they do not understand the logic and the ethics that rule our activity. I don’t see field or processing companies preying on clients of their clients.
Therefore, from today on, in addition to stopping working with any supplier that may potentially compete with us (whether through the company that provides us with a service or another of the same group), we are paying a lot of attention to disguised competitors of partners.
I recommend my colleagues to do the same: we must not feed the lamb that, tomorrow, will reveal itself as the wolf that will swallow us.
