Services
Why practice?
Why putting knowledge to work is worth it.
What the research says, and what you can get back.
Knowing is not the same as doing.
Most organisations hold good findings, evidence or ideas that never change what people do. Practice is how that gap closes.
Closing it can pay off in several ways at once: more from work you have already paid for, more trust, change that lasts, fewer expensive surprises and a name people remember.
Below, we set out what published research says about each, with the source named and its limits stated. Where there is no published figure, we say so and give our reasoning instead.
Return on investment
More from the work you have already done.
Good research is a real investment, and practice is what lets more people benefit from it. A report that is launched, shortened and shared keeps working long after it is published, and a workshop or a plan turns a finding into a result you can point to.
In surveys of business decision-makers, good evidence changes who they choose to work with and what they are willing to pay.
31%
of 1,611 World Bank policy reports were never downloaded, and nearly 87% were never cited by other researchers. The value of good research grows with the people it reaches.
Doemeland and Trevino (2014). One organisation’s reports; downloads and citations are imperfect measures of use.
86%
said they would be likely to invite a company to bid based on the quality of its thought leadership.
Edelman-LinkedIn (2024). Self-reported.
60%
said they would pay a premium to work with an organisation that publishes high-quality evidence.
Edelman-LinkedIn (2024). Self-reported: what people say they would do, not what they did.
Evidence: a study of World Bank reports; surveys of business decision-makers (around 3,500 professionals in seven countries).
Want to test it against your own numbers? Our ROI calculator has a section on sector reports. Its starting figures are our own cautious assumptions, not published findings.
Reputation and trust
People trust what they can check.
Anyone can say they are good at something. A clear, honest, evidence-based report, or a training offer that shows its results, lets others check for themselves. That is how a reputation is built with funders, commissioners, partners and the public.
73%
said an organisation’s published evidence is a more trustworthy way to judge its capabilities than its marketing materials.
Edelman-LinkedIn (2024). Self-reported.
Evidence: survey of business decision-makers.
These are business decision-makers. We have not found a comparable survey for charities or public bodies, so treat this as an indicator, not a measurement of your own audience.
Quality
Change that lasts, not a good day out.
Many organisations know what they would like people to do differently. The harder part is making it happen. The research on this is sobering, and it points towards how to do it well.
Putting guidelines into practice
Change is possible, but modest.
A review of 235 studies of ways to get clinical guidelines into practice found modest to moderate improvements in care on average, with considerable variation. Combining more methods was not linked to bigger effects, and the evidence on which methods give the best value was imperfect. (Grimshaw et al. (2004); healthcare.)
Training and workshops
Training can help, but results vary.
Cochrane reviews of educational meetings and workshops, the latest covering 215 studies, describe small changes in practice on average, with wide variation between studies. In a survey of training professionals, only about a third of trainees were still applying what they learned a year later (Saks and Belcourt (2006); self-reported). So the design of the training, practice afterwards and checking it worked matter as much as the training itself. (Forsetlund et al. (2021); healthcare.)
Using evidence
Evidence gets used when it is timely and shared.
A review of studies of how policymakers use research found the most common barriers were poor access to good-quality, relevant research and a lack of timely output. The most common helpers were collaboration and better relationships and skills. (Oliver et al. (2014).)
Making it stick
Treat it as a process, not a one-off.
The Education Endowment Foundation’s guidance sets out a staged approach to putting evidence into practice: explore, prepare, deliver and sustain. It advises planning, supporting staff, checking progress and adjusting as you go. (Education Endowment Foundation (2019); written for schools.)
So we do not promise that a single session or report will change everything. We design with this in mind: practical, built around real situations, planned in stages, and checked and adjusted as we go.
Evidence: reviews of studies in healthcare, policy and education settings.
Risk
Fewer expensive surprises.
Rolling out an untested idea across many teams or sites is a risk. A small pilot, a plan that says who does what, and a check on progress all catch problems while they are still cheap to fix.
So is a message that does not land. In a randomised trial of a policy brief, a brief on its own did little to change the views of readers who already held strong opinions; it worked mainly for readers with no prior view (Beynon et al. (2012)). A short briefing is a good start. Reaching the people who matter, and talking with them, is what makes it count.
Planning who needs to hear what, and testing the wording where a topic is sensitive, protects the reputation you have built. The link from planning to fewer surprises is our reasoning, not a published figure.
Evidence: a randomised trial of a policy brief (3ie, IDS and Norad, 2012), about readers of development policy briefs.
Brand and visibility
Be the name people think of when they are ready.
In many business markets, only a small share of the organisations that might buy from you are looking at any one time: as a rule of thumb, around one in twenty. The rest are not ready yet, but they remember who they have come to trust. A steady flow of useful, evidence-based work keeps you in mind.
The same applies beyond business: the funder or commissioner who already knows your name when a call opens.
1 in 20
of the organisations that might buy from you are actively looking at any one time. It is a rule of thumb for business markets: the real figure varies.
Dawes (2021), Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, the “95-5 rule”.
Evidence: a rule of thumb from marketing research on business markets. The funder and commissioner point is our reasoning.
People and culture
Teams that feel equipped, not just told.
When people are shown what to do and why, and given the chance to practise, they tend to feel more confident and less alone with a new way of working. This is why we build time to try things and ask questions into every session.
This rests on our experience and reasoning. We do not have a published figure to point to, so we make no claim about numbers.
Evidence: our experience, not a published figure.
What the difference can look like
Two reports, one difference.
Imagine two organisations that each finish a good piece of research. This is how they might differ a year later.
Without
A report that is published and filed
- One long document
- Read mainly by people who already knew the answer
- No follow-up on whether anyone used it
- The findings fade when the next project starts
With
A report that is launched and used
- A summary, slides and posts, each for a different reader
- A plan for who needs to see it, and when
- A session that turns findings into action
- A check on who used it and what changed
An imagined example, not a real client, and not a prediction.
A note on the evidence
The figures from Edelman-LinkedIn and Dawes come from surveys and research in business settings. They show what decision-makers say they think and intend, not what they were seen to do, and the Edelman-LinkedIn research was produced by organisations that sell thought-leadership and marketing services.
The Grimshaw, Cochrane and Education Endowment Foundation sources come from healthcare and education, and look at efforts to change professional practice. They apply most directly to training, guidance and implementation. The Doemeland and Trevino study covers one organisation’s reports (the World Bank’s), and downloads and citations are imperfect measures of use. The Saks and Belcourt figure is self-reported by training professionals and was not checked against the original paper. The Beynon trial tested a policy brief on readers of development policy, and measured beliefs rather than decisions. None of these tests Practice as a service, so the step from these findings to the value of our work is our reasoning.
We name every source so you can judge for yourself, and we say where a point rests on our experience instead.
Full references for every source cited on this site are on the Sources and references page.
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Whatever your size or stage, we’d be glad to discuss how we can help, including anything not listed on this page.