Corporate communications competitor research: due diligence

Before commissioning corporate communications competitor research, a buyer can use this checklist to assess proposed research routes and supplier claims against a defined communications decision. It covers evidence and supplier due diligence; it does not report market share, demand, capability or reputation.

Use pass, fail or unresolved for each line. Attach a source ID, access date, evidence owner and recheck trigger. Never turn absence of evidence into a favourable score.

What to take away

Compare evidence for one buyer decision, not organisations that use similar words.
A Companies House record does not prove current trade, England delivery, research competence, solvency or suitability.
Mark testimonials, portfolios and case studies as first-party material, not independent findings.
All performance fields stay unresolved when no authorised, controlled buyer test has occurred.
Do not publish ratings or allegations from this desk exercise.

Fix the comparison boundary

Define the buyer job
Record current in-house or manual route
State English site and stakeholder populations
Freeze common evidence fields

Define the buyer jobpopulation mapping, qualitative interviews, questionnaire design, fieldwork, analysis or accessible reporting. These are different services.
Record the current in-house or manual route. A supplier is not the baseline merely because it has a website.
State the English site and eligible stakeholder populations. Employees, customers, investors, suppliers, communities, journalists and regulators must not be counted as one audience.
Freeze common evidence fields: legal identity, scope, method, delivery unit, data roles, access, rights, security, acceptance, correction, export and exit.
Put relevant terms in the proposed contractownership or licence of outputs and data, permitted reuse, export format, correction process, subcontracting, deletion and exit arrangements.

Make the research communications-specific

Decide whether the work covers media analysis, social listening, review of owned channels or stakeholder research. These methods answer different questions and their outputs are not interchangeable.
For media monitoring, inspect outlet coverage, search strings, deduplication, coding and data export. Cision and Meltwater are examples of tools to evaluate, not recommendations. For social listening, check platform coverage, access, queries, coding and export; Brandwatch is an example, not an endorsement.
Set the competitor group, period, source coverage and coding rules before comparing results. Define measures such as share of voice and message penetration in the brief, and require the supplier to disclose exclusions and how each measure was calculated.
Treat company newsrooms and annual reports as first-party sources, and trade press and regulator filings as distinct source types. Do not present a volume of media or social mentions as evidence of stakeholder opinion.

Separate four evidence classes

Register fact: Companies House data products can show fields such as company name, number, status, registered office and SIC code. The official register disclaimer says filed information is not verified or validated by Companies House. A record therefore does not prove current trade, England delivery, research competence, solvency or suitability.

Supplier statement: copy the exact claim, page, date, service name and geographic wording. Mark testimonials, portfolios and case studies as first-party material. Do not rewrite a claim as an independent finding.

Independent authoritative record: use a regulator, court, government or standards source only for what it establishes. The absence of a ruling is not approval. A code applying to official statistics is not proof that a private supplier followed it.

Observed buyer test: admit this class only when an authorised, controlled exercise has actually occurred. No such test occurred for this article. All performance fields are unresolved.

Check lawful and ethical collection

Ask where every personal contact or participant record came from, its purpose and who controls it.
Require the participant-information text, recruitment route, consent or other assessed basis, objection route, suppression process and retention schedule.
Confirm whether employee responses can be linked to managers, human-resources files or performance decisions.
Identify potential special-category data and the named reviewer responsible for the Article 6 and Article 9 questions.
For the proposed data flows, obtain the lawful-basis assessment, privacy information and record of processing activities; require a data protection impact assessment where required and a data-processing agreement where the supplier acts as processor.
Check whether personal data will be transferred outside the UK and, where a transfer mechanism is needed, identify the applicable safeguard, such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses.
Reject a proposal that treats publicly visible business contact details as unrestricted research or marketing permission.

The ICO's right-to-be-informed guidance sets out privacy information that may be required when personal data is collected. The page currently notes changes to UK data law, so publication-day review is necessary. Its worker-monitoring guidance is also relevant when a proposed tool or method can observe workers beyond the declared research purpose.

Read the Article 6 and Article 9 questions under the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. Check whether a data protection impact assessment is required under UK GDPR Article 35, whether the record of processing activities addresses the work under Article 30, and whether a data-processing agreement covers the supplier's processing under Article 28.

Test method quality and access

Demand the population, frame, recruitment numbers, refusals, withdrawals, non-response and exclusions behind any claimed finding.
Inspect question wording, order, pilot evidence, coding rules, contradictions and uncertainty.
Ask which accessible routes were offered and which configured artefacts were tested against WCAG 2.2 or EN 301 549; record the test scope and results.
Keep a claim about a research platform separate from evidence about the supplier's researchers.
Stop if raw data cannot be exported, corrections cannot be traced or deletion cannot be evidenced.

The Government Analysis Function's questionnaire design guidance explains how question order, respondent burden and cognitive testing can affect survey work. It is a public-sector method source, not certification of a bidder. Use it to form evidence questions and leave unknowns visible.

Check research-sector assurance

Ask whether the supplier follows the MRS Code of Conduct or the ICC/ESOMAR International Code, and how that applies to the proposed work. Verify any claimed MRS Company Partner status with the Market Research Society; status is not proof that a particular project is suitable.
If the supplier claims ISO 20252 certification, request the current certificate and check that its scope covers the relevant service. Do not treat a code or certificate as a substitute for testing the proposal's method, data handling and deliverables.

Close without a reputational verdict

Compare admitted evidence in a contradiction log. A polished methodology page may conflict with a vague proposal; a registered entity may use another trading name; a claimed accessible platform may not have been tested in the proposed configuration. Give the bidder a correction route and record changed evidence.

Do not publish ratings or allegations from this desk exercise. The decision can approve further due diligence, reject an evidenced mismatch or remain on hold. Named corporate, privacy, IP, accessibility, security and research reviewers must clear their own gates before procurement or publication.

Before you act

Define the buyer job before comparing suppliers.
Record the current in-house or manual route.
Freeze common evidence fields across all bidders.
Ask where every personal contact record came from.
Keep a platform claim separate from researcher evidence.
Give the bidder a correction route and record changes.

Common questions

What does a Companies House record actually prove?

It can show fields such as company name, number, status, registered office and SIC code. The official register disclaimer says filed information is not verified or validated by Companies House. A record therefore does not prove current trade, England delivery, research competence, solvency or suitability.

When can an observed buyer test be admitted as evidence?

Only when an authorised, controlled exercise has actually occurred. No such test occurred for this article, so all performance fields are unresolved. Absence of evidence must never be turned into a favourable score, and unknowns should stay visible in the contradiction log.

What must be checked before collecting participant data?

Ask where every personal contact or participant record came from, its purpose and who controls it. Require the participant-information text, recruitment route, consent or other assessed basis, objection route, suppression process and retention schedule. Identify special-category data and the named reviewer for the Article 6 and Article 9 questions.