In this blogpost, you will find some important updates about InSites from a company and business perspective, in the category “corporate news”. Here we go! Despite the challenging economic climate, we have managed to grow our business with 28% in 2011, bringing total revenues to more than €16 million. Next to the existing offices in Ghent, Rotterdam and London, we opened new offices in Timisoara and New York, thus expanding to a total of 120 employees. Last year, we were rewarded as best research agency in the Netherlands, got nominated for best new agency in the UK and received 5 award nominations at ESOMAR’s most recent general conference in Amsterdam.

“We are living in great times: consumers have more power than ever, technology is creating chances every single day, clients expect to drive future growth from new emerging markets and the boundaries of our industry are becoming more blurry”, says Kristof De Wulf, our new CEO of InSites Consulting. “Our key to accelerating growth in the coming years is based on increased focus, further strengthening our investments in continuous method innovation and marketing thought leadership, empowering consumers and employees, and wowing our customers”.
20% of turnover from  Market Research Online Communities (MROC)
Tim Duhamel, as CSO now in charge of our corporate strategy, highlights our companies’ vision and related focus:

“We believe consumers will take the lead in shaping any company or brand in the future. Marketers need to learn how to let go and take down their marketing walls as companies actively listening and involving consumers outperform the competition. Our core mission is to make organisations more successful by bringing consumers inside through activating and engaging experiences”.

Market research online communities are one of the main vehicles InSites Consulting is using to achieve that goal. Duhamel: “Today, close to 20% of our business is community-based; it is one of our main growth axes for the future.  This method fits with our clients’ needs today and tomorrow: it combines old and new techniques, integrates solid research know-how with more creative and non-traditional skills, provides our clients with fluid and always-on knowledge collection capabilities, and allows an ‘insights-on-demand’ capability”.
New Managing Directors for the Belgian and Dutch office
InSites Consulting redefined some roles of people and management in order to better support clients around the world. Kristof De Wulf explains:

“This is of crucial importance given the fast pace at which we need to respond to environmental change and  the fact that more alignment is needed across our five offices in four different time zones on two continents”.

With De Wulf and Duhamel in charge of strategy execution respectively strategy development, we want to increase speed and quality of decision-making and at the same time protect and drive long-term strategic thinking and acting. De Wulf adds: “We believe in empowering people. We are very glad that we were able to welcome Magali Geens as our ninth partner and that Hakim Zemni and Ramon Pardo will take on the role of Managing Director of respectively the Belgian and Dutch office. Furthermore, InSites Consulting is proud to say that the office in New York is now fully up to speed. Managing partners Filip De Boeck and Niels Schillewaert are leading the InSites  Consulting growth overseas, together with Dennis Claus.”.
Expanding the ForwaR&D Lab team
Future growth is finally believed to be dependent on continued investments in method innovation and thought leadership. Kristof De Wulf:

“We expanded our ForwaR&D lab team with 4 new bright people: Anouk Willems, Elias Veris, Bas De Luij and Thomas Troch. I am also very proud to see that our investments in thought leadership are paying off. Steven Van Belleghem’s book ‘The Conversation Manager’ received the 2010 PIM Marketing literature award, Joeri Van den Bergh’s book ‘How Cool Brands Stay Hot’ has been nominated Marketing Book of the Year 2011, and we expect more than 1,000 people to attend the launch events of Steven’s new book ‘The Conversation Company’.”

Well that’s it! We hope you like this update about our company. Keep an eye on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin and this blog for more news and interesting content.