Kirsty Antrobus, Senior Commercial Lead, reflects on a year of learning and how they’ve re-shaped BEAM’s approach to risk and reward in 2026.
2025 was a pressure test for many businesses engaging in market research. Against this backdrop, RFQs became more than a procurement exercise; they signalled how businesses were balancing urgency, value, and ambition.
With 2026 well underway, it feels timely to ask an important question:
Are we optimising for short-term savings, or investing in the best results?
A Changing Commercial Landscape
The backdrop shaping today’s RFQs is complex and fast-moving. Globally and in the UK, businesses are navigating economic recalibration, political uncertainty, regulatory change, and rapid advances in technology.
For many businesses, this has translated into tighter scrutiny of spend, a sharper focus on ROI, and a desire to widen the RFQ scope to extract the maximum output from every commissioned project.
This isn’t inherently negative. It has encouraged greater discipline and clearer prioritisation. But it has also changed how research is commissioned. Briefs are expected to move quickly, deliver certainty, and flex around evolving internal pressures. Speed, specificity, and efficiency are often prioritised simultaneously, which can make RFQs appear deceptively straightforward on the surface.
Across the research industry, these expectations ripple outward. Agencies, Fieldworkers, and Recruiters are being asked to do more interpretive work upfront, not just pricing what’s written, but understanding what is implied. The most effective RFQs aren’t simply transactional documents; they’re starting points for collaboration, where clarity, realism, and alignment matter as much as cost.
This shift places greater importance on reading beyond what is explicitly stated. Successful outcomes increasingly depend on how well we interpret intent, anticipate complexity, and align expectations early, before timelines compress and decisions harden.
Looking Beyond
An RFQ rarely tells the full story. The strongest outcomes come from understanding the context behind the request – the business pressure prompting it, the decisions it needs to inform, and the risks of getting it wrong. Looking ‘beyond the brief’ means moving past surface requirements and engaging with the underlying objectives that truly define success.
This starts with identifying a clear North Star: the real business question the research is meant to answer. Often, this sits beneath the stated deliverables. Understanding where research design is to support outcomes and how fieldwork can best support these outcomes is where the expertise of a good fieldwork agency really comes in!
Clear quotation and scoping practices play a critical role here. Transparent assumptions, defined boundaries, and scenario-based options allow stakeholders to see how different choices affect risk, quality, and certainty. Rather than presenting a single “answer,” this approach supports informed decision-making and shared ownership of trade-offs.
Where possible, a proper conversation adds another layer of clarity. Discussing a brief allows for challenge, refinement, and alignment before fieldwork begins. It reduces misinterpretation, surfaces hidden constraints, and ensures everyone is working toward the same definition of success.
Where Risk Really Lives
Risk in research rarely comes from one place, problem or point of failure. More often, it builds in the background through small assumptions, compressed timelines, or untested feasibility. Addressing risk openly isn’t about caution for its own sake.
It’s about protecting outcomes.
Feasibility and True Incidence
Understanding whether an audience can realistically be found in the timeframe, geography, and volume required is foundational. Incidence assumptions that aren’t tested early can unravel later, leading to delays, compromised samples, or inflated costs. Proper feasibility work means interrogating data sources, pressure-testing assumptions, and “seeing the end before the start” so that delivery plans are grounded in reality rather than optimism.
Clarity in Recruitment Criteria
Vague or overly broad criteria often feel flexible, but they create ambiguity at the point of execution. Without precision, recruiters are forced to interpret intent, leading to inconsistency or misalignment with research goals. Challenging and refining criteria upfront ensures the right participants are recruited for the right reasons, not just those who technically qualify, but those who genuinely reflect the behaviours and experiences under investigation.
Verification and Participant Quality
Risk to quality doesn’t announce itself; it shows up in subtle ways – inconsistent responses, shallow insight, or findings that don’t quite ring true. Robust verification processes protect against unqualified or inattentive participants entering a study. This isn’t just about compliance; it’s about safeguarding the integrity of the insight and the decisions that will be made from it.
Planning for Attrition
Dropouts and no-shows are an expected part of fieldwork, not an exception. The risk lies in failing to account for them upfront. Building realistic buffers, over-recruiting thoughtfully, and monitoring engagement in real-time ensures projects stay on track without compromising quality or rushing replacements at the last minute.
Participant Availability and Incentives
Even well-defined audiences have real-world constraints. Availability varies by sector, seniority, and life stage, and incentives must reflect both the ask and the audience’s opportunity cost. Misjudging either can lead to low engagement or extended fieldwork timelines. Assessing these factors honestly upfront helps avoid friction later.
Timelines, Compliance, and Transparency
Compressed timelines can amplify every other risk if they aren’t reality-checked. Ensuring compliance with data protection, consent, and regulatory requirements adds another layer of responsibility. Transparency around what is achievable and what trade-offs compressed timelines introduce, allows stakeholders to make informed choices rather than reactive adjustments.
Human-Centric Project Management
Finally, risk is managed day-to-day through people. Clear ownership, regular checkpoints, and accountable project management create visibility and control throughout delivery. This human layer adds resilience, catching issues early and maintaining momentum even when conditions shift.
Squeezing cost in any of these areas doesn’t remove risk. It simply defers when and where it appears, often at a point where options are more limited and consequences more expensive.
Final Thoughts
Looking beyond the brief and engaging openly about where value and risk truly sit creates stronger partnerships, better insight, and outcomes that stand up to scrutiny long after the project ends.
If you’ve got upcoming RFQs and want a partner who’ll be straight with you about risk and return, we’d love to help. Get in touch with us, or let’s jump on a call. We’re ready and raring to talk through your next project.