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Tech companies: the Lucky Hunter IT Research

As you know, we at Lucky Hunter aren't only looking for IT specialists for companies from all over the world, but also conduct a variety of research in the tech sphere. It can be HR analytics, analysis of client's employees' skill and salary levels, investigations of international tech markets.
Today sharing with you one of our latest cases: recently, for one high-profile client, we found out what needs IT companies have in terms of location, infrastructure and configuration of office space.
To solve the task and make the research as accurate as possible, we collected data on IT companies, and also conducted a large-scale survey among HR specialists.
  • In our new article telling you how we collected data, what difficulties we faced during the research process and what conclusions we've come to.
ThE task
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In May 2021, an agency, conducting a study of the IT market together with a big investor, contacted Lucky Hunter.

Our clients wanted to open a new cluster for IT companies, giving the possibility for employees from different companies to exchange experiences, participate in joint events, and spend leisure time within the walls of a common but functional and convenient workspace.

  • To determine what infrastructure IT companies would like to add in the new cultural and business complex, together with the client, we set several tasks:
  • Data collection
    We had to identify the total number of IT companies. These companies should've had a specific turnover. The first group are the companies with a turnover from 72 to 200 million rubles per yea, while the second one are the companies with a turnover of more than 200 million rubles a year.
  • Respondents Survey
    We had to determine the number of companies (sampled population) from both groups to participate in the question. Concurrently, due to the questions' specifics, only HR specialists of the understudy companies could complete it.
Сuriously, our client was interested in collecting data only from the employees of the companies founders of which are just planning to open an office in the next 5-7 years!
It's also noteworthy that we had to carry out the research within a short time - within just 20 working days. The task was really challenging that's why we started to work on it with enthusiasm :)

Сhallenge implementation:
data collection

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To determine how many companies fit into the selection, we analyzed several sources, including the SPARK service (Interfax) and the Official State Statistics.
  • According to the results obtained, about 9.5 thousand IT companies are registered.
Using standard statistical formulas for calculating the sampled population (with the required confidence level and sampling bias for making business decisions), we concluded that a total of 729 companies should complete our survey.
It is noteworthy that the criteria for the annual turnover of companies, determined by our client, didn't correspond to the standard classification. This factor significantly complicated the determination of the total number of companies we were interested in: due to the fact that the customer's criteria weren't standard, we could calculate the general population (and, accordingly, a sampled one) approximately.
In addition, not all companies' turnovers are publicly available: for many IT companies, this information is covered under NDA, while the data on the turnovers of some other companies were outdated or approximate.
This complicated the selection process, but nevertheless, thanks to our knowledge, many years of experience working with statistics and possession of some "magic" formulas, we were able to obtain data sufficient to enter a new phase of our study - the distribution of the survey among HR specialists of the selected companies.

The Survey Distribution

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Even before we started to distribute our survey, we foresaw a series of difficulties that were associated with the following features of the study:
1
We were interested in interviewing only the HR specialists of companies, which implied a selective distribution of the questionnaire.
Most often, it's very difficult to find contacts of such employees, as it's possible to find only the general email of the company or HR department on company websites.
Note
Nevertheless, given that we work in the sphere of recruiting, we can find any contacts, even if it is the private directory number of Queen Elizabeth :)
2
The questionnaire turned out to be quite large since it was important for the customer to cover a wide range of issues at once and obtain detailed information.
You must admit that, in the conditions of a frantic rhythm of life, not everyone can find 20-30 minutes to complete even potentially useful for future work research.
As a result, we were able to interview 35 specialists, and 100% of them are HR-s, whom we already worked with in the past. This low response can be explained by several reasons. We were pressed for time, had a specific target audience, couldn't change the structure and content of the questionnaire.
Knowing about these limitations in advance, we warned the client about the possible consequences, while ensuring that we will do our best to achieve the best possible result.
In addition, facing extremely law responses from companies, we decided to talk over with the customer ways of respondents' motivation. Realizing the complexity of the situation, the client agreed to our offer, promising, thus, to invite respondents to a hushed meeting in honour of the cluster launch.
This offer seemed to some of the respondents quite attractive, that's why it slightly increased the percentage of those who completed the questionnaire, but due to the before-mentioned limitations, it did not allow collecting data from all the intended companies.
The result
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In total, we interviewed 35 companies and, despite the fact that the response was rather low, our client was satisfied with the result: we managed to collect responses from the largest IT companies and the world, which, of course, showed the situation in the IT market.
In addition, it is important to note the principle of partnership, which we adhere to when providing any Lucky Hunter service. We were constantly in touch with the client, giving feedback on each stage of the research.
It's also important that the client was flexible and was ready to adjust the work process so that we eventually managed to collect the necessary data.
This proves once again that mutual work on solving any task is always the key success factor.
Want to conduct IT research but don't know who to contact? Well, we suppose, now you know :) We are waiting for your requests! P.S. We love to work on non-trivial, challenging, inspiring tasks :)
What else to read
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