Yellow Window is a management consultancy founded in 1989.The company grew from a small team of consultants working in large European consultancy firms. In January 2001, Yellow Window merged with Enthoven Associates Design Consultants , and is a division of a medium-sized multi-disciplinary consultancy group offering decision-support services linked mainly to innovation and international marketing.

The core team actually consists of 15 professional consultants. Staff is multicultural and is accustomed to working in different countries. Office staff is capable of working in six of the official EU languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese).

As far as the profile of Yellow Window staff is concerned, most of our consultants are economists, but we also use and have in the core team consultants with a different profile, as there are psychologists, combinations of law and economics or more creative and technical backgrounds.

However, through our membership of Growth International EEIG and of the network with which the European Commission has concluded a Framework Contract for Qualitative Research (see further), Yellow Window can offer its services in any of the official EU languages and in all EU Member States.

Yellow Window is positioned as a specialist consultancy with expertise in strategic planning, international marketing, transnational co-operation and new product development.

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Private clients:

For private clients we offer consultancy and market research services in the following domains:

Consultancy services:
- International marketing
- Innovation management
- Feasibility studies
- Qualitative research
- Strategy planning and development

Market research services:
- Marketing, communication and image studies
- Business-to-business surveys
- Internet research
- Qualitative research

We work for large and medium-sized companies. Typical assignments are to assist in strategy re-definition, e.g. with technological innovations or market mutations. We assist through decision support studies in general, market research and customer satisfaction studies or monitoring of organisational change.

Public clients:

Amongst public clients, the European Commission is our largest client. This work is linked to development, implementation and evaluation of public policy measures.

Within the European Commission, we have been working with the following Directorates General :
- Education and Culture,
- Research,
- Information Society,
- Enterprise Policy,
- Regional Policy,
- Health and Consumer Protection.
- Justice, Freedom and Security.

Yellow Window also work for other European Institutions:

- the European Parliament
- OSHA (Agency for Occupational Safety and Health, in Bilbao, Spain)
- OHIM (Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market, in Alicante, Spain) .
- Cedefop ( European Centre for teh Development of Vocational Training )
- European Court of Auditors

We have a proven track record in assisting public institutions in planning, implementation and evaluation of policy instruments, including in major information and communication schemes. In addition, we have extensive experience surveying the needs of the 'customer' and the measurement of the impact of instruments.

We have assisted with the set-up and implementation of programmes and policies of the European Commission on a number of occasions, including through :
·- feasibility and evaluation studies of large-scale initiatives (projects, campaigns,…) of the European Commission;
·- analysis of public sector measures, e.g. those applied to the business sector;
·- monitoring the customer satisfaction of EU programmes;
·- development of methodological tools, e.g. for the evaluation of support measures, identification and definition of good practice;
·- monitoring of change processes.

Beyond the execution of decision-support assignments, Yellow Window acts as a co-ordinator of programmes implemented by the European Commission and provides training to public sector organisations as well as consultants.

Most of our assignments are decision support studies taking the form of:
·- Evaluation and impact assessment studies
·- Best practice identification
·- Qualitative research
·- Feasibility studies

The studies performed for public clients are in the following areas :
- Consumer protection
- Education
- Enterprise / SMEs
- Environment
- European Research Area / Innovation
- Gender equality
- Institutions, political systems, and citizenship
- Internal market
- Marketing, communication and image studies
- Regional policy
- Working conditions

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Countries covered in our international research coordination experience are :
·- In the present EU's 27 countries and in Turkey, Norway, Iceland and Liechtestein.
·- In the 13 candidate countries - all Candidate Countries
·- Elsewhere in Europe / the world: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Syria, Occ. Territories, Tunisia, UAE.

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Yellow Window is a founding member of Growth International EEIG. Growth International is a European marketing research and management consultancy network specialised in assistance to companies, small and medium sized enterprises. Growth International also provides consulting services to the European Commission on many studies regarding problems linked to European integration.

Cooperation agreements exist between the members of this network, and are based on a Code of Conduct which ensures the quality of the work to be carried out.

Through its members, Growth International is present in every EU Country, and provides assistance all over Europe. Moreover, through the links of the single members with similar international structures/groups, Growth International services are also available in America, the Middle East, the Far East and Africa. Hence, next to our own staff, Yellow Window can call upon the expertise of staff from the other member companies.

The services provided by Growth International to private businesses are divided into four areas :
a - Business-to-business marketing studies;
b - Innovation and business development;
c - Mergers & acquisitions and financial management;
d - Technology management.

a - Business-to-business marketing studies
o evaluation of potential markets;
o new product / new concept testing;
o marketing strategy studies;
o distribution studies;
o quality measurement / client satisfaction studies;
o evaluation of communication campaigns;
o corporate image;
o European Union related policies.

b - Innovation and business development
This area includes consultancy on projects for development and innovation of companies' activity in the international field with regard to:
o design and implementation of new products and services;
o definition and assessment of sales, marketing and communication strategies;
o creation and assessment of distribution and sales networks;
o search and selection of trade partners;
o search and selection of partners for the development of technical co-operation projects;
o planning, co-ordination and supervision of technological co-operation projects;
o analysis of economic-financial feasibility, to assess the opportunity and validity of the development projects;
o plant location studies.

c - Mergers & acquisitions and financial management
Services in this area include:
o intermediation with firms in case of mergers or acquisitions;
o company evaluation (financial and management audits);
o assistance to access European funding for the creation of joint ventures in non-EU Countries.

d - Technology management
Services in this area concern:
o technology assessment;
o assistance to access European financing programmes for technological research;
o project evaluation and management;
o technology transfer.

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The European Commission (DG Education and Culture) has concluded a Framework Contract for Qualitative Research with a network of research organisations (one in each Member State). Yellow Window is the Belgian member of this network.

In this position, we have performed numerous research studies for the Commission, e.g. about SME matters.

Examples of studies include :

• Qualitative research into attitudes and expectations regarding precontractual information for financial services (2007, DG Health and Consumer Protection)
• Qualitative study on company restructurations and employment, aiming at identifying ‘horizontal skills’ that help employees who lost their job as a result of restructuration to find a new employment (2007, DG Employment and Social Affairs)
• Qualitative study on discriminations in employment (2007, DG Employment and Social Affairs)
• Qualitative study on the European Employment Strategy (2007, DG Employment and Social Affairs°
• Qualitative study on ‘safer Internet for children’ (2007, DG Information Society and Media)
• Qualitative study about citizens’ television viewing habits, attitudes, opinions and expectations, in order to provide comprehensive insight into the issue of adding ‘European content’ to television programmes (2007, DG Communication)
• Qualitative study about the awareness and functioning of the Europe Direct information relay service of the Commission (2006, DG Communication)
• Qualitative study to investigate consumers’ needs regarding services of general economic interest and to assess consumers’ attitudes regarding the possibility of choice between several suppliers, in markets that are increasingly being opened to competition (2006, DG Health and Consumer Protection)
• Qualitative study on culture and cultural values, with the aim to understand what culture means to ordinary citizens, whether and how they perceive a ‘European culture’, their interest for the cultural diversity of Europe, their knowledge of  and attitudes towards the role of Europe in the domain of culture (2006, DG Education and Culture)
• Qualitative study to understand citizens’ views regarding future enlargement of the EU (2006, DG Enlargement)
• Qualitative study on the ‘Future of Europe’ (2006, DG Press and Communication)
• Qualitative study to contribute to the assessment of the publications policy in general, and to evaluate the communication instruments (brochures) in terms of contents and form in order to help improve them (2005, DG Press and Communication)
• Study to collect information on the existing European parliamentary television channels and audio-visual services and their plans for future years; to know the European content of their activities and programmes and their attitudes and expectations towards the EU institutions (2005, DG Press and Communication)
• Qualitative study to assess EU citizen’s perceptions of the issue of European competitiveness; what they know, understand and feel about it; and how they react to the Commission’s action plan for relaunching the Lisbon Strategy (2005, DG Press and Communication)
• Qualitative study on product labelling to explore to what extent consumers actually look for information when they do their shopping; whether and where they expect (more) information to be available (2005, DG Health and Consumer Protection)
• Qualitative study to explore the knowledge about and attitude towards the European Constitution of different categories of citizens (2005, DG Press and Communication)
• Qualitative study about citizens’ television viewing habits, attitudes, opinions and expectations, in order to provide comprehensive insight into the issue of adding ‘European content’ to television programmes (2004, DG Press and Communication)
• Qualitative study about citizens’ knowledge and understanding of the external policy of the European Union, in preparation of an information campaign on the external action of the EU (2004, European Commission, DG External Relations and Council of the European Union, General Secretariat)
• Qualitative study to investigate consumers’ experience and opinions regarding cross-border shopping (2003, DG Health and Consumer Protection)
• Qualitative study to investigate consumers’ views, expectations, experiences, fears, satisfaction and dissatisfaction regarding services of general economic interest, following the liberalisation of these markets (2003, DG Health and Consumer Protection)
• Qualitative survey on the perceptions of and the attitudes towards the European Union by European citizens (2001, European Commission)
• Qualitative survey on the perceptions of energy problems and the images of the different types of energy by European citizens (2000, European Commission)
• Qualitative survey among different categories of European citizens (‘average’ people, elderly and people with serious social and economic difficulties) to explore their attitudes with regard to the introduction of the Euro (2000, European Commission)

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ESOMAR:

Our core team members are members of ESOMAR , which is the World Association of Research Professionals. Yellow Window strictly adheres to the code of conduct of ESOMAR in all its assignments where market research techniques are used.

ICC/ESOMAR International Code of Marketing and Social Research Practices

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YELLOW WINDOW STUDIES:

HERE are some links to reports that are publicly available.