Big-firm depth, mid-market price
A market research consulting firm for growing B2B and D2C brands, senior-led from start to finish.
Our stance on AI
AI in market research: fast tools, human thinking.
For decades the Big Four and the generalist consultancies sold one bundle, billed by the hour and stopped at the slide deck. No follow-through. Now AI is pulling that bundle apart.
In a controlled study of 758 consultants
On tasks just beyond its reach, the same tool does the opposite. It steers teams toward the wrong answer, sounds just as sure when it is wrong as when it is right, and from the outside you cannot tell the difference.
Knowing which is which takes experience. No tool supplies it.
This is where we come in.
The winners are the most ready teams, not the best equipped. Our research on AI readiness:
HACR, our Human-AI readiness framework →Where we sit
Hiring for B2B market research? How the options compare.
Four kinds of firm will take your brief, and they work very differently. Here is how they compare, whether you sell to businesses or consumers.
| Big 4 / Strategy | Generalist consultancies | Research vendors | Dromley | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Senior-led work | ||||
| Every finding sourced | ||||
| Value for money | ||||
| Mid-market fit | ||||
| Ends in a clear plan |
Senior-led work
Every finding sourced
Value for money
Mid-market fit
Ends in a clear plan
What the research shows
When the problem is hard, a senior-led firm gets you a better outcome than a big consultancy will.
Peer-reviewed research
And it costs less, not more: independent analysis puts the same scope at 30 to 40 percent under Big Four rates, and lower still at a boutique consulting firm with no junior layers to mark up.
Market analysis
What the Market Shows
Buying got harder. Here’s why.
How businesses really choose what to buy, and why an outside view keeps tipping the odds your way.
Confidence changes the outcome.
When a team feels truly sure of a choice, it is ten times more likely to be a good one it won’t regret. That kind of confidence comes from facts you can check.
Going it alone costs more.
Three in four buying teams try to choose without outside help, and regret it more when they do. Bringing in an independent view is not a weakness. It is how careful teams take the risk out of a big call.
It is harder than it used to be.
More than three in four buyers say their last big purchase was complex. If it feels difficult, that is the market, not your team. What helps is clearer facts, not more pressure.
Buy-in is the hard part.
Nearly three in four buying groups hit real disagreement inside the team before they choose. A shared, trusted picture of the market is usually what gets everyone moving.
The bottleneck is the data.
Two in five research leaders say data quality is their single hardest problem. Better choices start earlier, with facts you can actually stand behind.
Most market knowledge sits in silos.
Nine in ten organisations leave their market intelligence scattered across teams and tools. The value is already there. It just needs joining up.
On the record
We publish what we practice.
Checking every finding against more than one source is how we work, and it’s on the record: seminar frameworks, patents filed, peer-reviewed research, books in print.
B2B market research, answered.
What B2B and D2C owners ask before hiring a firm, answered first.
Hiring a consultancy
A market research consultancy finds out what your market, customers and competitors are really doing, then tells you plainly what to do next. The work usually covers market sizing, customer interviews and surveys, competitor analysis and a clear recommendation, whether you’re a B2B firm eyeing a new region or a D2C brand testing a new product line. The best firms put senior people on the work from start to finish, show where every finding came from, and stay on while your team puts the plan into action. That’s how we run every project.
A research agency sells data and reports. A consultancy sells strategy, often built on someone else’s data. A firm like ours does both, with the same senior team. Agencies are strong on data but stop at the findings; consultancies jump to strategy without always owning the research behind it. We show where every finding came from and carry it through to a clear plan.
Cost & timelines
A boutique consulting firm is a smaller, specialist firm that goes deep on a few areas instead of offering everything, the way the Big Four or the global strategy houses do. You work directly with senior people from start to finish rather than being handed to junior analysts, and without big-firm overheads the same scope usually costs less. We are a boutique market research and growth consulting firm built for mid-market budgets, working with B2B firms and D2C brands alike.
Usually weeks, not the months a traditional firm quotes. A focused project can land in a few weeks, and a quick sprint on one urgent question faster still. We set the timeline by the date you need an answer, not by a standard project plan.
Research, AI & choosing a firm
No. AI in market research has made the groundwork fast and cheap: gathering sources, sorting survey answers, summarising interviews and drafting first findings. What it can’t do is choose the question that matters, talk to your real buyers, or tell when a confident answer is wrong. In a controlled study of 758 consultants, AI raised quality by 40% on the tasks it suits and steered people toward wrong answers on tasks just beyond its reach. The strongest research today is human-AI collaboration, human-led and AI-assisted, which is how we work.
If real money or risk is involved, yes. The research should size the opportunity before you commit, not justify a choice you’ve already made, and that matters even more for startups and new product lines, where budgets are tight. The goal is not a report but an answer clear enough to act on, or to walk away from.
Ask five things: who actually does the work, whether every finding shows its source, whether they earn anything from what they recommend, whether they are built for mid-market budgets or only large enterprises, and whether the work ends in a clear plan or just a pile of findings. Most market research companies are strong on one or two. The best are strong on all five.
New to the vocabulary? Our Fundamentals reference explains every concept, plainly, for anyone who wants to dig in. →
Decks are easy. Decisions are not.
Tell us what you're trying to figure out. We'll come back with how we'd tackle it and a clear quote. No brochure, no obligation, a real starting point.
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