GLG’s founders created the first expert network in 1998, pioneering a now multi-billion-dollar industry. The expert network model is as powerful as it is fundamentally simple: to deliver insights based on first-hand expertise, at scale.

Since its founding 25 years ago, GLG’s core offering to clients has been direct interactions with experts (mostly via calls). While expert calls have remained a staple GLG product, GLG has innovated new ways to deliver customized and dynamic insights to cater to professionals facing an array of diverse research and decision-making needs and challenges, including with GLG Research (Surveys and Integrated Insights), Syndicated Insights (including Library content, reports, and Events), and Institute.

Today, GLG serves professionals in a wide range of industries and functions, who have integrated the expert network deep into their workflows and processes.

How do Financial Services Firms Use Expert Networks?

The expert network model quickly drew both public and private investors and financial professionals from the beginning. Investors need highly specific insights to make informed decisions with high stakes in tight time windows – the expert call offers clear value to a professional facing these needs and circumstances.

Specifically, expert networks can provide insight in real-time when investors are faced with rapid changes in the economic landscape. For example, in the uncertain times following the rapid fall of regional banks like SVB, investment managers turned to GLG who provided a coordinated virtual teleconference within hours of the SVB news breaking. The virtual teleconference with the former Chairman and CEO of Gateway First Bank allowed clients across the globe to understand the impact of the bank’s failures on their businesses and potential implications for the future. In addition to live events, investors often use the GLG Library which has access to thousands of past event transcripts as well as GLG-moderated event interview transcripts that can help them get smart on a topic quickly.

Private Equity 

Private equity firms often use expert networks to help access unfamiliar markets and accelerate their due diligence. For example, a private equity firm enlisted GLG’s help in accessing the industrial refrigeration market to help identify the competitive landscape, the portfolio company’s positioning, and top growth areas. GLG was able to help facilitate 21 expert calls with customers and industry participants as well as synthesize findings into a 75-page report that includes a detailed assessment of the refrigeration market, top growth opportunities, and more.

Public Investors

Public investors, from investment managers to hedge funds, also rely on expert networks to make smarter investment decisions. For example, a hedge fund enlisted GLG to get smart quickly on the robotic process automation (RPA) market. In a matter of days, GLG was able to connect the hedge fund with 14 RPA customers and distributors, and helped the firm dive deeper with two surveys which consisted of 150+ customers of their target vendor and 90+ integrators and distributors.

In summary, GLG works with investors in public and private markets, who engage with GLG’s expert network to execute due diligence, test hypotheses, and understand products, markets, companies, and risks.

How do Consulting Firms and other Professional Service Firms (PSF) Use Expert Networks?

Strategy and management consultants need deep insights for their clients – insight that usually extends far deeper than what any single firm has among its internal team members. This is where an expert network comes into play: consultants engage with GLG to fill critical gaps in their research or pool and analyze the insight of hundreds of industry experts.

Consulting firms and market research firms rely on GLG to connect them with leading experts who can help advise on their client’s industry and unique challenges. For example, a consulting firm looked to GLG for support as they were helping their client better understand the market for a new vaccine. GLG’s team worked closely with the client in designing a conjoint survey that matched their needs. GLG’s extensive network and access to niche healthcare populations allowed the firm to survey over 100 prescribers, well above their target sample size.
Consulting Firms may also use expert networks to source leading subject matter experts, including current or former C-Suite, to host their internal workshops or their client’s workshops. The L&D Team at a consulting firm turned to GLG when building out their internal leadership training program. GLG was able to source dozens of former C-Suite executives to join virtual workshop sessions and act as mentors, providing feedback and guidance to participants. The value of GLG’s efforts is best described in the following quote by the firm’s Head of Partner Development:

“These efforts helped us modify our market approach and can be credited with enhancing our revenues and profitability on those revenues by reducing cost of customer acquisition and cost of sale across the enterprise. We are big fans and will continue using GLG for the foreseeable future.”
-Head of Partner Development, Consulting Firm

In summary, expert networks such as GLG provide pivotal research services to professional service firms that help them optimize their strategies, enhance their client satisfaction, improve market approaches, and increase profitability.

How do Corporate Firms Use Expert Networks?

Corporate executives and research teams increasingly rely on expert networks. The practice began when GLG users from consulting and financial firms started moving into corporate strategy and development roles and brought an appreciation for GLG’s value to their new teams and organizations. GLG’s end-to-end research solutions are a key differentiator that sets them apart from other expert networks, and leading corporations in tech, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, industrials, consumer goods, and payments now use GLG as part of the primary and secondary research. Corporate leaders from various teams including customer & market insights, strategy, product, and marketing all utilize GLG in different ways to support their research strategy.

Customer & Market Insights

Customer & market insights teams are tasked with being the standard bearers for bringing the customer perspective into other groups, and they require extensive research to bring strong insights that enable data-driven decisions. These teams often use GLG’s research offerings for market sizing, competitive intelligence, product & brand equity tracking, customer analysis, and persona building. For example, a corporate firm used GLG’s research solutions to uncover the customer base for healthy snack foods in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) to validate its own branding and marketing strategy. GLG conducted a survey with a panel of over 1000 ANZ customers and managed the product end-to-end, staffing a consultant with more than six years of experience to distill the findings. The report reinforced the brand’s overall messaging and brand efforts and ultimately helped steer new product development decisions.

Strategy

GLG plays a key role for strategy teams at major corporations and can help assist with market and competitive assessment, M&A due diligence and target scanning, internal organizational improvement, and benchmarking.

Product

Corporate product teams also utilize GLG to get an intimate understanding of customer needs to translate them into features and products users want or need. They often use GLG’s support for concept testing and development, competitive intel, and pricing research. As an example, a product team within a chemical company wanted to gain a deeper understanding of customers’ willingness to pay for several alternative agreements compared with traditional elements. GLG’s Price CheX simulator was not only able to test various what-if pricing scenarios to determine the perceived price premium for alternative products but also helped reveal customers’ switching behavior in hypothetical cases where certain products are no longer available. With the help of GLG’s survey team and pricing research solutions, the team was able to successfully inform the team’s product development and pricing.

Marketing

Product marketing professionals also often turn to GLG to gather a deeper understanding of their customer base to better inform marketing strategy and go-to-market decisions. For example, GLG helped a product marketing team at a global technology firm prepare its go-to-market strategy by putting it in touch with more than 30 individuals who represented its ideal customer profiles.

In summary, various roles at corporate firms across multiple industries need access to GLG’s high-quality expert populations and expansive research offerings – to research and develop new products, understand customers, and define strategy.

How do Law Firms Use Expert Networks?

Law firms engage with expert networks to bolster their cases, better understand their clients, and grow their businesses. More than learning from experts, legal teams often need experts to play a direct role in cases as expert witnesses.

The right expert witness can be pivotal, but extremely rare and hard to find. With GLG, Law clients can pinpoint witnesses with precisely the right knowledge and background from the world’s broadest expert network to put forward the strongest case possible. GLG has helped law firms secure expert witnesses in various specialties from orthopedists to electrical manufacturing.
Today, GLG serves leading technology, life science, and industrial companies, including nearly half of the Fortune 100 and seven of the top 10 global technology companies; leading investment and financial firms; top professional services firms; and hundreds of nonprofits and social entrepreneurs around the world.

The world’s leading expert network, GLG continues to lead the industry in scale as well as high standards of service, qualified experts, and compliance rigor – and continues to expand and evolve. GLG’s product and service teams are continuously honing the tools and processes by which clients can tap into expert insights – and develop new ones. And with rapid changes to the world prompting more questions, GLG recruits hundreds of new experts each day, deepening its expert network in the high-impact areas where insight is needed most.

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Looking to learn more? Check GLG’s other articles on the expert network space below, or read GLG’s case studies for more examples of how GLG has helped companies across various sectors.

Why Work with an Expert Network 

What is an Expert Network