Working with our sister agency, Weber Shandwick, KRC engaged in a multi-phase thought leadership research approach designed to build credibility beyond competitors already active in the space and position CIT as the “go to voice” of the middle market. As part of this study, KRC and CIT established a partnership with Dr. Arnoldo Hax from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Throughout the research and also during the analysis, Dr. Hax provided counsel and an academic perspective on the middle market.
KRC began this engagement with a comprehensive scan of recent studies on the middle market to identify new topics or white space to be explored further in qualitative and quantitative research. Once white space was identified, KRC conducted in-depth interviews and a quantitative survey among key stakeholders, C-suite middle market executives from companies with revenue between $25 million and $1 billion.
The project culminated with a conference at the New York Stock Exchange in September, including with a panel of middle market executives led by Dr. Hax of MIT and an interview with John Thain (Chairman and CEO of the CIT Group) and Maria Bartiromo of CNBC. This event offered CIT opportunity to brief their clients on the data and insights flowing from the survey. To further showcase the findings from the study, CIT also created a microsite with the collateral KRC developed, which includes a full results report, white paper and infographic.
