December 2005 GMI Newsletter

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Vision, Stability and Constancy of Purpose

Looking back on the year, much has been accomplished at GMI. Our organization nearly tripled in size, to 210 salaried staff in 25 cities on 5 continents. The staff is supported by nearly 200 hourly personnel. This rapid growth was made possible by the continued patronage of customers around the world who increasingly look to GMI, not just as a vendor, but also a partner and an ally.

So what exactly sets GMI apart? At the core, we believe it comes down to three essential ingredients of any great company: Vision, Stability and Constancy of Purpose.

Vision

GMI was conceived in 1999 out of the womb of the Consumer Packaged Goods industry. Over the course of nearly a decade with Procter & Gamble, I came to know the research profession in Asia, Europe and the Americas, where we regularly deployed multi-country market research studies for the Pampers brand of baby diapers. During those years at P&G, it became apparent that the Internet would revolutionize market research. After some deliberation about the pros and cons of embarking on a start-up, we moved from Kobe, Japan to Seattle, WA USA and started a business focused on using the Internet to improve market research. GMI was born. Three intense years of development followed, and by the middle of 2002, GMI was growing, profitable and debt-free.

Today, GMI is on the forefront of building an integrated technology and panel platform for the market research industry. Our platform unites research buyers, research suppliers and respondents in real time using the Internet as the operating system. The Net-MR Software suite is the most complete solution for end-to-end research management and is supported by global panels that extend to more than 200 countries. Our service bureau operates 24 hours a day across 4 locations and our technical staff is the largest ever assembled in the research industry. The $13 million venture financing which closed in April, enabled us to accelerate investment in growth, as well as complete acquisitions of MI Pro AS in Norway, NetReflector in Seattle, and Insight Systems in Shanghai.

Stability

Our people are at the core of GMI's success. We also pride ourselves on being a magnet for talent. During 2005, GMI received an average of more than 100 applications for employment per day. Over the years, we have learned to identify the types of people who succeed here and reward them not only with competitive salaries but also profit sharing, stock options, and 100% company-sponsored medical, dental and vision insurance, a generous retirement plan, and a host of other benefits. In 2004, we introduced GMI University, a weeklong training program, which is conducted in Seattle and attended by all new employees. The courses are taught by the senior management of the company. The first day of the program includes a discussion of the "What Counts" factors, which first appeared in the employee handbook in 2000.

As for ownership of the company, after two rounds of outside financing, GMI is still majority-owned by the employees and founders who built the company. The executive committee, which manages the company's day-to-day operations, has grown to eleven and is responsible for the ongoing decisions that drive the business forward. The Chairman/CEO and three outside investors compose the Board of Directors, which adheres to strict standards of corporate governance. The company has virtually no debt, and ample resources with which to fund continued growth and good relations with both its investors, as well as the financial community at large. Thus, GMI is in a good position to pursue its stated goal of achieving a NASDAQ National Market listing in 2007 and strengthen our ability to lead the market.

Constancy of Purpose

GMI considers itself to be a true partner to the research profession. For the record, GMI is not a research company, and has no aspiration to become one or to become part of one. As such, we do not view research companies as a "channel" but rather we embrace research organizations as true allies in the quest for increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of research. At the core, GMI is a provider of enabling tools and services to help researchers do better research faster, at a lower cost, in real time, and on a global scale. We also have a strong belief in what we call "Doing the right things in the right way" -- a belief which transcends policy and protocol and guides every employee to make the right decisions that are in the long-term interest of our customers and the research profession that we jointly serve.

On behalf of the entire GMI team around the world, I would like to thank you for your continued interest in and support of GMI, and to also wish you a joyous holiday season.

Sincerely,
Robert W. Monster
Chairman and CEO
GMI (Global Market Insite, Inc.)

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Global Enterprise Solutions

"Not one minute of unplanned downtime" since Mindwave switched to GMI.

The team at Mindwave Research has been doing online research for major IT companies such as HP/Compaq, Dell, and Cisco since the mid 1990s. Each month, they run between four and six quantitative online studies concurrently, in addition to all their other research projects. These studies vary in size from a few hundred to several thousand.

Before coming to GMI, Mindwave had gone through four other survey software tools including 2-Way, Inquisit, SPSS, and ConfirmIt seeking a solution that gives them the CATI functionality, positive user experience, and high-quality online output they need. Each package they used gave them some of what they needed but had serious drawbacks. Perhaps, the most important requirement they struggled with was keeping their servers and the software up and running reliably.

Jonathan Hilland, CEO/President of Mindwave, explains: "Data protection is a serious issue for our IT customer base. Our contracts require we run the surveys on our own servers to protect the customer data that we marry with field data. We've always run Enterprise versions of the software on our own server hardware, built to vendor specifications. Yet for years we've had to deal with crashes and stability problems. Until we switched to GMI."

"Since January 2004, we have not had one minute of unplanned downtime. Unlike some of the other software we've used, Net-MR is built for the web and is very stable. Each upgrade is carefully planned and executed – which means lots of nights and weekends for GMI to make sure everything is exactly right before we go live with a new version."

Jonathan rates the level of support he gets from GMI as "outstanding." He adds, "Recently we had a hardware failure on a NetPanel server – one of our hard drives failed. Everyone at GMI responded immediately and helped restore the machine capability, even though it wasn't a software issue. There was no talk of ‘that's outside of our responsibility.' They saw the problem and jumped on it."

After everything they had been through before GMI, Mindwave didn't expect this kind of performance. "GMI is a true partner, who truly delivers. I'm your biggest fan."

Would you like GMI to power similar successes for you? Click here to get more information.

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London named the world's number one brand in the new City Brand Index

In the first-ever ranking of 30 major international cities, the Anholt-GMI City Brands Index (CBI) ranked London as the number one city in the world. Two US cities ranked in the top ten, gaining high marks among global citizens: New York and Los Angeles. Individual city brands are rated on six components: Presence (contribution to culture/science), Place (physical aspects), Potential (job/education opportunities), Pulse (urban lifestyle), People (welcome/diversity), and Prerequisites (basic qualities). The study, which polled 17,500 respondents worldwide, was co-authored by UK-based place branding expert, Simon Anholt, who also leads the Anholt-GMI Nation Brands Index.

Here are a few fascinating highlights:

Berlin
36% of Italians and 40% of Spaniards felt it would be "very easy" to find things in the city to do for a week. Only 9% of Japanese and 21% of Chinese agreed.

New York City
New York ranked 2nd, after London, as the best city in the world to attain higher education.

Toronto
50% of people from the UK thought Toronto would be a "good"or "very good" place to do business. Only 19% of those in Japan agreed. Panel-wide, Toronto was considered the 4th easiest city in which to find a job, but the 17th most interesting city to spend a week exploring.

Download the full City Brand Report

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New Frost and Sullivan White Paper available

Despite the fact that online panel research offers quantifiable time and cost savings, some researchers are still questioning the efficacy and validity of online research panels. Issues include representative samples, duplication and motivation of panelists, and ensuring that panel members are who they claim to be. This white paper closely examines these issues and concludes that "the validity and efficacy of online panels provided by an established and respected outsourcer such as GMI has been acknowledged by numerous international companies that own familiar household brand names."

"By providing a well managed and screened global panel capable of conducting research with representative samples in 35 languages and in 200 countries, GMI has made primary domestic and international market research projects possible for large and small companies alike. When GMI Global Panels are combined with Net-MR software, the speed with which projects can be completed provides a competitive edge to smaller companies with limited resources."

Click here to download the full Frost and Sullivan White Paper

GMI understands the market research challenges companies face and is here to improve their ability to obtain high-quality market intelligence in a fast and cost effective way.

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NET-MR TIP OF THE MONTH

View and analyze the exact time people spend on each survey question.

Utilize a benefit of online research: know the exact time each respondent spent on each question. Net-MR automatically captures this information - now learn how to view and analyze these data!

Visit the Resources tab in your Net-MR account to view our helpful, process-oriented guides and simulations.

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Who's new at GMI

Five new employees join GMI this December. Happy holidays and welcome to:

Craig VandePutte, Data Storage Engineer, Seattle
Chris Peeters, Network Engineer, Seattle
Noriko Kariya, Assistant Project Manger, Sydney
Chandra Bhashah, Data Analysis Manager, India
Noriko Kariya, Assistant Project Manager/Operations, Sydney

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