Why should you have a research team?
With the increasing number of startups, the new age of intrapreneurship culture is on the rise. Most of the S&P 500 companies are having this concept. But, what is common in most of these gigantic industry leaders? These companies think ahead of the time and their league. They have a long term vision to fulfil. And to do that, They incorporate the most foremost strategy by having a RESEARCH TEAM in the house. Being said that, they all have their dedicated product and service research teams filled with mindful people who work on improving their market position every day!
In this blog, we are going to discuss why should an organization invest in having a research team?
What exactly is a research team?
A research team is a department or a group of individuals who are thinking of tomorrow and want to develop something new; are responsible for working together on developing a new solution to a topic related to the industry an organization is working on. For most business, people thinking about exploring new opportunities or possibilities form a research team. The goal of a research team is to solve the problems and issues or the organization by doing research on a common topic or developing a new solution or product to stand against the competition. Also, to make the company’s work more efficient and how the organization can adopt automation to improve technical aspects is also comes in their vision.
Also, how the company would build the product more sustainable, scalable and get it to the customers before the competition can gain any traction. The industry is always competitive and user demands keep changing. Even to adopt or change a single feature in the product, you would need a strong solution and a lot of resources to spend behind it.
Many times, software companies build an internal research team to achieve diversity in their capabilities and the technologies they are offering. At Adrixus Tech Studio, we also built our own research team to not only get experience on new technologies like voice assistants, Blockchain-based smart contracts, bots and solving various business problems of ongoing issues. Our Alexa Skill lets job seekers apply through their Alexa voice devices and applications and we have a couple of Blockchain POCs which are focused on some or other solutions.
Not only with technology, but a research team can also help an organization to grow its business and its market position with respect to revenuer and brand visibility. Even sales and marketing team can become a part of the research team. To implement a new product or validate a new product idea, companies can assign market research and go-to-market sandboxing task to business people.
So, a research team can help the organization in many ways from market research to getting brand in the market and working on next-generation technologies to solving complex ongoing problems of various projects.
Why should you have a research team?
As we discussed that research team can help solve new problems. It can also help to get the team ready for MVP development and helping service team solve their issues. Most of the startups develop their core product along with working on collaborations with other platforms and other business ideas. With the research team, the organization can get ready in advance to integrate new features into the main product. And, it does not stop at integrating features only, they would also help to improve the approach to develop thing and what can be improved at Beta phase to improve product roadmap overall.
A research team would help to accelerate the growth of the technical capabilities for a company. Any new technological shift coming in the market would be absorbed in the organization in the early stage only. That would give an added advantage to the company and its future capabilities of serving clients.
The team would also help the leaders in the company to see business opportunities in advance. From adopting a new business model to upskilling the tech team in advance would become easy for them to sense. And, it is not only limited to that. Integrated internship programs along with the research teams can also help the organization to develop new paths in the business. Young and energetic brains can bring positive change to every company.
Not only limited to the organization, research team and research team members can also help the community to grow. The knowledge they gain from trying something new would help millions of the community members out there to gain some knowledge. Or think about people who are starting fresh on their ideas, such community members would gain benefit from this knowledge sharing.
So, not only for your organization, for the community as well; a research team is always a great way to go. Plus, they would share their knowledge and case studies within the organization helping overall growth to the organization.
How to build a research team?
Well, to gain all the benefits from the research team, leaders must need to develop a research team within the organization. But, how does one decide and build a research team out of the existing team members?
Do not wait for your company to reach a stagnant stage. Where you would need to make a decision on whether you need to try your hands onto new and emerging ideas/technologies. Building a research team from the inception of the organization is a good idea. When an organization starts growing, if they do not have the essence of working towards adopting new things, they might go out of the business soon.
Leaders can initially guide the team and set their clear expectations from the research team and why they have been chosen to do these things and what are end goals. The what and why has to clear on both the ends with a clear communication channel to make sure nobody misses their path.
Leaders can act as the research team members in the early stages of the organization growth. Then, interns and new team members can bear the responsibility of keeping the new research alive. Continuous feedback loops among the team members and consulting with them to solve the structural issues can help build an efficient process-oriented team.
Give problem statements as tasks to the team members and help them navigate the way towards making your company a better place to grow. The concept of intrapreneurship also comes into the picture here. Companies like Samsung and Google allows users to work on their own project ideas and even fund them to go live in the market. Which not only makes their consumer’s lives easy, it also helps organizations grow with better vision in the future.
To select the team members for your new or ongoing research team, find people who have a hunger to learn new things and like to do experiment even if they fail. People who like to actively participate and have patience in their mindset are a good fit for the research team. The research team cannot put their core tasks aside, so people who are ready to work without looking at the clock and want to make a difference and drive something new in the organization are the best fit for your research team.
So, if you are planning or are already running a business, do invest yourself into building your own research team.
