LEADERSHIP CORNER
OmniTrak president pushing boundaries of research
Interviewed by Debbie Sokei
Advertiser Staff Writer
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Age: 54
Title: President
Organization: OmniTrak Group Inc., a research-based marketing and consulting company, with 40 full-time and part-time employees.
High School: Kaimuki High School
College: Northwestern University and the University of Hawai'i-Manoa
Little-known fact: "My interest in international affairs started as a fourth- or fifth-grader collecting coins for UNICEF every Halloween. I loved seeing the photos of kids from Africa and South America who got glasses of milk from the nickels and dimes that our neighbors in Kaimuki put into our UNICEF cans as we went trick-or-treating each year."
Life-changing experience: "While a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) consultant in Malaysia at the age of 24, the university newspaper I was advising reported on an anti-government demonstration against a growing hunger problem in East Malaysia. Within 12 hours of publication, the government shut down the paper, took an editor from his dorm room into prison, and I had 12 students hiding from arrest in my home. Before meeting with the government to negotiate restarting the paper, I met with a retired Supreme Court justice who lived in my neighborhood. I learned that Malaysia's government could imprison anyone threatening national security without a trial. This was living evidence to me of how unique the United States Bill of Rights is. As an anti-Vietnam War protester, I demonstrated knowing my right to freedom of speech. My students in Malaysia had no such protection. These days with the Patriot Act, we again have to fight to defend those rights that are at the core of American democracy."
Breakthrough job: "This would have to be when I was at Bank of Hawaii as vice president of market planning and development. Our research showed potential for Bank of Hawaii to own the electronic delivery system market in the state in the early '80s. Our marketing team installed the first ATM outside of a bank branch at Ala Moana Center, signed up Bank of Hawaii as a charter member of the emerging PLUS System, and asked that Japan be included in its territory. I remember attending one of the first PLUS System board meetings in Denver and dreaming about the day when technology would make it possible for our customers to get cash from their Bank of Hawaii checking accounts when visiting Tokyo, New York or Paris. This sounds prosaic today, but in the early 1980s, it was my first experience with how technology was forging a global economy. Marshall McLuhan said think globally, act locally. Those words became real at that job."
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Q. How did you get your start in market research?
A. When I worked at the bank one of the things I did was market research. I found that good research made marketing a lot easier. For example, ... our research showed in order to get people to switch from using tellers to automated machines, customers would need to use the ATMs three or four times before their behavior would change. So, we launched a marketing campaign that was geared toward incentivizing the customers.
Q. As a business owner, what is the biggest challenge for you?
A. One of the biggest challenges is continuing to push the boundaries of research. We need to model the actions a company can take rather than being content with the research information.
Another challenge is finding people who have statistical knowledge, a marketing and communications background. It's quite rare to find all of the qualities of a good researcher in one person. So, instead we put together teams of people to work on projects. We have a statistician, an analyst, someone who collects the data and a project leader.
Q. The Hawai'i Business Roundtable is one of your clients. Who are some of your other clients?
A. We service about 125 organizations. Some of our clients include HMSA and Board of Water Supply. We have done marketing promotion and testing for Disney. We also do political polling. We just completed a study for Sen. Inouye's re-election. Last year, we sampled more than 600,000 consumers and executives. People love giving their opinions, and we love analyzing the insights that come from them.
Q. What kind of research did you do for Sen. Dan Inouye?
A. I can't talk about our clients. But, most politicians want to understand their constituents' needs.
Q. You have been conducting polls and gathering public opinion for many years now. Have you seen a shift in public opinion?
A. We see a change in public opinion. In 1998 the economy was the No.1 issue. Today, education is. I think there is a higher awareness of the importance of core competencies and the lack of textbooks.
Q. With the popularity of the "American Idol" and call-in voting, does this type of unscientific polling lessen the credibility of your work?
A. Telephone call-in polls are not scientific research. It's something we call self-qualifying research. People misunderstand that research isn't only about predicting the right candidate or outcome, but it is also predicting the spread. One of the biggest challenges for our industry is that there's a proliferation of call-in research and e-mail research and it's very hard for the average person to understand that this is not an objective sampling frame.
So, as a result, things get mixed up. Under the broad banner of research, I think it does confuse and perhaps erodes the real value of market research.
Q. How profitable is the company?
A. As a closely held company, we don't divulge profit levels. However, we do measure ourselves against a peer group. We either meet or exceed industry standards on profitability. Company revenues grew by 10 percent or more for the past three years. We expect this growth rate to slow somewhat unless we seek market diversification, and we are currently analyzing this.
Q. There are several marketing research companies in town. How do you remain competitive and stay ahead of your competition?
A. We stay ahead of other companies by investing in new products and training so we have cutting edge products to offer clients.
Besides research, we develop predictive models, data mining and most recently we started brand strategies in conjunction with
Laurie Lang, she was the former senior vice president of brand management for Disney. Importing new products and technologies that have worked elsewhere gives our clients analytical benefits being used in larger markets and by larger clients.
