South Africa, Feb. 23 -- What began at a dining room table has grown into a company that has partnered with clients across industries, continents and eras of change. Looking back, we asked ourselves: What has changed? And just as importantly: What has stayed the same?

Even though the last 25 years has seen change with the digital revolution, high-speed fibre connectivity, paper questionnaires to digital platforms, dusty storage rooms to limitless cloud archives, we have seen five fundamentals have remained central to how we work.

Meaningful research begins with understanding a client's world - their challenges, their ambitions, the realities of their business and why they need the research. Valuable work is built on good relationships a...