What's Going on with Strategic Research in Big Tech?

For years big tech was one of the major employers of, and training grounds for, industry ethnographers focused on solving complex, longer‐term strategic problems. But the wave of layoffs that hit white‐collar workers beginning in 2022 prompted many in the research community to question their historical value to companies and their offerings to them in the future. Many participants in this discourse arrived at the same conclusion: Researchers need to do more strategic research—but what does that mean? And does the core of the issue lie with research, tech, strategy, or some combination of the three? After surveying shifts in the macro context that have upended the status of researchers within businesses, specifically large technology companies, we apply Roger Martin's strategy playbook to develop a strategy for ourselves. We argue that to meet the moment, researchers should grow the strategic muscle of their companies by shifting their focus from how users interact with products to how their businesses interact with a wider world. By repositioning our offering to companies in this way, we argue that researchers can apply ethnography's unique capabilities to the most pressing strategic questions facing businesses today.