Last week I was out to dinner with a senior client, and he introduced me to his Board members as their “Insights Guru”. I had never really stopped to think about a moniker but was humbled that people have come to think of me this way.
Partnering with my colleagues and clients to find and activate insights is my “happy place”. It’s what has driven me throughout my career at ad and marketing agencies, and now as head of Shapiro+Raj. This last gig has been a fun ride, purposefully building what’s consistently thought of as one of the most innovative strategic research and insights consultancies.
That’s why I’m super excited that for the fourth year in a row, in the Greenbook’s 2021 Global GRIT Report, we were voted one of the Top 25 most innovative market research agencies in the world by our clients and peers. We were also ranked as #6 for our strategy consulting capabilities, beating out much bigger firms like Deloitte, BCG, Accenture, and Bain.
We have achieved this recognition, not just by creating cool tech or cool tools, but by creating a disruptive business model that frames integrated strategic learning agendas to spark transformative business outcomes for clients. This is very different than the industry approach --institutional, industrialized model of products/tools sold by project to solve tactical evaluative needs.
This model is built on four pillars:
Focus On Delivering Business Outcomes: For every project, we go beyond just addressing the “what” and “so what” but clearly define the “now what” to help clients get market-ready insights.
Build Deep and Abiding Relationships: Unlike many agencies, we have dedicated teams working with our concentrated group of clients. Their intimate knowledge of their business helps build on prior learnings to frame powerful insights to create competitive advantage.
Staffed with Credentialed and Battle-Tested Talent: All projects, whether big strategic projects or agile dipsticks, are staffed by an integrated team of social scientists who dig for insights in partnership with brand strategists who transform these into market-ready actions. This gives our clients the ability to activate learnings quicker than other research companies.
Access to the Best Tech + Most Innovative Methodologies: We employ unique methodologies based on behavioral economic principles that integrate system 1 plus system 2 thinking; are a hybrid of qual + quant; and are not just evaluative but also generate deeper insights faster. These are paired with a curated tech stack and our proprietary ML/AI app, S+R AQuA™, to get deeper insights with agility and responsiveness.
The four pillars are founded on a fundamental framework. In the business world today, we need to integrate humanity with technology. That is why we have built techmanity, the perfect blend of Human Empathy + Artificial Intelligence, to deliver Transformative Outcomes. This is our formula for business-building insights: HE + AI = TO.
This formula and foundation have directly resulted in $37B of market value expansion for our clients in the past year. Maybe that is why my client thinks of Shapiro+Raj and me as an Insights Guru. In Sanskrit, guru literally means dispeller of darkness, a mentor, guide or master of certain knowledge or a field of study. It continues to be an honor and privilege to help our clients find the answers they seek and to help their businesses prosper and grow.
From numbers nerd to marketing futurist and best-seller author to now Chairman and CEO of Shapiro+Raj, Zain brings over 30 years of marketing perspective to MRX to make sure his clients deliver major brand AND financial growth. In a former life, Zain was a member of the C-Suite at companies such as FCB, Havas and Epsilon. Zain is also the founder and CEO of zednext, an ideas-driven incubator positioned to disrupt the future for marketers and business leaders. Combining creativity and technology to help his clients get to the future before it happens is his passion. Zain holds a degree from the University of Mumbai.
