Consumer insights and focus groups with Daxue Consulting

I recently talked with one of my friends who is working in market research and she told me they requested the services of Daxue Consulting. She was saying that the cost of the focus group was half the ones of other firms. After some hesitation on the quality as the prices were low, she decided to hire them for 4 focus groups. She told that they can reach these prices in fact because they ask for free lancers to come on and moderate the FG. The one who did the FG is an MBA from Beida (certainly because the company has tight links with Beida and his founder is an alumnus). Overall, the rest was fine, nothing special and different from other FG firms. But generally speking, that is an interesting trend that many market research firms are following: hiring part times and free lancers to assist their research. I link that trend to the concept of Taleb: anti-fragile. You need to be specilized to survive and as you are receiving deals on things you are not specialized, you need to share your contracts with other part timers or companies. See the book of Taleb: http://www.amazon.com/Antifragile-Things-That-Gain-Disorder/dp/1400067820