Part I: The Birth of SwissPeaks
“So why SwissPeaks?” – the ultimate ice-breaker with prospective clients and a great conversation starter. I have told this story a few times and each time I tell it, I feel a sense of nostalgia taking over, reminiscing the Swiss mountains where the idea was first conceived.
Picture Switzerland 1997. Three people sit on a mountain top enjoying their picnic, taking in the panoramic views somewhere in the Swiss Alps. The conversation ventured onto what it would take to set up their own company. All three had somehow stumbled into the market research industry and at this point, two of them were employed by a renowned market research agency in Switzerland. Despite it being a top company in the sector, the two found that they had hit a brick wall in their careers, feeling that they had mastered their respective roles and what was left was a repetitive experience only. Being foreigners, they were often quizzed with the “so how much longer do you think you will be staying with us?” query and, as it happens, neither could envision furthering a career at the company.
Minus the job front, they found Switzerland to be a beautiful country and over the next few months they continued to explore the sights, finding a new area of Switzerland to visit and a new mountain to climb every day (slight exaggerated truth, they rented a cable car to take them up most of the time). Over numerous picnics on the various Swiss mountains, they formulated a business model for their new venture. Project name “SwissPeaks” was in motion.
I was one of the two working at the Swiss research agency at the time. There was consensus between us that research projects were very production heavy, with no real connection between the research and the data activities. As a result, projects were predominantly delivered late and with very little “learning” regarding the data processes in order to provide a more seamless throughput, especially in the large multi-country projects. We were on a mission to change this.
We started out as the go-to people when other, larger companies needed overflow – specifically on the bigger and/or more complex projects. We enjoyed the challenges we were set and even now are still involved with the not-so-easy projects external agencies commission us with, as well as taking on more customised/bespoke projects, paving our way towards becoming a full service market research agency in our own right.
It’s been two decades since I left the company in Switzerland and yet we still battle the same issues as back then; as much as CAPI, Online and Panels are the more predominant platforms, the industry as a whole doesn’t seem to have evolved as quickly as I would have hoped, regarding the data know-how. That’s a story for another time, however. This is the story of how SwissPeaks came to be, why the name and which direction we endeavour to grow as a company.
Quite simply, SwissPeaks was a project name, made with reference to our frequent picnics on the Swiss mountains. We thought we’d change it one day once we got the gears going and even though the two people I began this “data mission” with are no longer a part of the SwissPeaks journey, the name still stands. SwissPeaks is something personal to me and indicative of my journey through the industry.
Who would have thought, we as market research and data experts and our peculiar name are well recognised throughout the market research industry! It will be 20 years next year since the idea of forming our own market research service was born. I am very much looking forward to celebrating the milestone and I must one day go back to those roots and walk (or more likely get a cable car) to some of those places I first visited. Who knows, maybe on my adventures I will finally come up with a company name that is more market research savvy!
