New Platform Adoption : Programming and reporting platform adoption in TNS

Abstract

In 2013 TNS a one of the largest Market Research companies in the world decided to replace their current country specific mixed assortment of data collection, data processing and reporting tools to a more powerful dual platform that would be used globally within the group. This would enable the group to use human and system resources more effectively and spend less time and money on managing various old platforms and servers. The change was targeted to the core function of the organisation and raised many challenges that could have a very serious impact to the stakeholders in form of delays, interruptions in service and even failure to deliver. To minimize these risks, the timing for the adoption was to commence when fewer critical projects in process. This limited the available time to be used for the adoption to a very short period as operations function throughout the year on a very tight schedule and with very limited resources. For the adoption to be successful the teaching and learning of the use of the new platform needed to be done efficiently. The purpose of this study was to make the adoption process more effective in TNS Finland by ensuring the survey process is fully described and applying pedagogical methods to the training and the material. This thesis focuses on how the adoption process was seen through in TNS Finland, motivating and inspiring a very heterogeneous group of trainees to embrace the change, introducing effective methods in teaching and learning, also including aspects on knowledge transfer and information sharing, that can be taken into use in a short time span and providing guidelines for future trainings and adoptions.

To measure the difference between the TNS group provided training and the new pedagogical approach qualitative discussions were held with the stakeholders in the beginning and the end of the adoption.

The discussions revealed that many issues had not been addressed in the TNS Group provided training, which needed to be documented and trained for the platform to be used. The use of a more pedagogical approach had a positive impact to the adoption process.

The author recommends using a pedagogical approach in future adoptions and the necessity of preparation to create the material and to provide support.