By David Almy, CEO >> Insights Association
Late last year I had one of those rare conversations that changes your life. It was with Alyssa Rodrigo, director of insights for Labatt Breweries of Canada, a division of AB InBev, the world’s largest brewer.
My call with Rodrigo was an introductory one, which is common as I talk to a lot of insights and analytics leaders, so I began by asking about her professional life. What’s her role? What does she do at Labatt? It had been a bit of a challenge setting up the call so I suspected that she was unusually busy.
“I spend 75 percent of my time implementing the insights from the research that I spend 25 percent of my time directing. We outsource a lot of the research,” I recall her saying. “My greatest joy is seeing positive, bottom-line results for our company from the implementation of those insights. It’s what gets me excited every day.”
Mic-drop moment.
I’ve talked to hundreds of researchers over the years. My rule of thumb is that most of those conversations trend toward research methodologies and tools. Rodrigo was on another page, in another place.
“Do you know how rare you are?” I asked her. “The number of insights and analytics people I talk to whose main focus is the implementation of insights is in single-digit percentages. You are exceptional.”
“I’m blushing,” she replied, explaining that, in her company’s culture, she had a team leadership role, gathering and leading groups to implement actionable insights in concert with her management. She was acting, in effect, as both a source of consumer-centricity and a management consultant.
I don’t know what she’s paid, but it’s not enough; she’s a bargain.
My mind flashed to the urban myth that, aerodynamically, a bumble bee should not be able to fly but does so in spite of itself as nobody has informed it otherwise. Rodrigo is changing Labatt for the better because she believed she could and had leaders and a corporate culture that supported her.
I later asked one of the insights industry’s icons about the implementation of insights and its prevalence today. He smiled and said that most in our community do not see themselves as implementers of insights. “Most of the time, we do research, story-tell and walk away,” he said.
But there is a trend at the highest levels of the industry, he reported, as the best and the brightest have realized that success is broader and bigger than the use of methodologies and tools. In recent years, the McKinseys of the world have started bundling research, actionable insights and implementation by playing the role of management consultants, while billing at rates around four figures per hour. Smart folks.
Source of strategic value
Economic incentives aside, many of the top insights departments within companies have adopted a similar model, seeing a broader leadership picture and a path to permanency via the development of competitive advantage amid customer-centricity.
So, we’re talking about fringe behavior, technically, but one that represents the leading edge of the insights and analytics profession. The most advanced players redefine themselves, seeing and mastering a broader view, not as a support function but as a leadership function and a source of strategic value.
In thinking about this, I began to observe what I’m now calling the Insights Association (IA) insights value topology in four steps.
The first is the business problem or purpose or use of research. This is not news. What may be news is that pulling from a variety of sources, the Insights Association has identified about 70 unique use cases by category, a list that is now undergoing peer review to refine what I’m calling an “inspiring menu of ideas” for benchmarking and pondering of what’s possible.
What, I wondered, might we be doing that I’m not seeing today?
In these peer-review sessions to refine the list, our goal is not brevity but clarity. Clarity is tough in that many of the 70 contain words common to veteran researchers but alien to those less gifted with that experience, like me.
So, our next steps are to group the 70 into digestible buckets and provide common-language explanations so that the C-suite, which writes checks, can understand fully what’s possible. We should publish this list shortly to our members as a first draft, as I suspect we’ll have missed a couple of dozen.
The second is the actual research process involving methodologies and tools. On first cut, we identified 214 of these and we’re in the process of culling and deduping the list to make it more manageable and real. It can include research using primary or secondary data (or syndicated), or a hybrid, but always should use “the right tool for the job” whatever that may be.
The IA Code of Standards and Ethics for Marketing Research and Data Analytics is a good overlay here, setting boundaries for quality, integrity and fidelity. It’s also where the business of insights has been built in earnest over the past 75 years.
The third is the outcome of the research process – the implementable insights into the markets or marketing for products, services or ideas. This is secret-sauce stuff, the answer to what to make, provide or have the marketing folks promote.
I have not begun the task of harvesting and publishing a compendium of perhaps deidentified insights, but my dream is to see exactly what insights look like at many organizations to get a sense of the rhythms of our business. I can guarantee that there will be surprises in that list. It is the glimpse of the highest strategies at play in business and it’d be oh-so-fascinating to study the tone and texture of those suggested actions. More to come…
The fourth and final step is implementation, which yields impact – and thus benefits – for the research sponsor. This is where ROI is witnessed and calculated, where we create competitive advantage around customer-centricity.
(It may be of note to mention that Pearson defines the research process in six steps, with the first being the business problem, steps two through four being slices of actual research activities and step six being report generation, which I’ll liken to outcome/insights. Implementation isn’t mentioned.)
If all four of these steps are optimized – purpose/problem/uses; process/research/methodologies/tools; outcomes/insights/actions; and implementation/impact/benefits – the fourth step, implementation, should directly address the first step, purpose, resulting in great value to the sponsor. The loop comes full circle; benefit is maximized.
Another industry veteran, when I laid this all out, said, “But David, researchers don’t think of themselves that way,” and I thought and said, “Most don’t. You’re right.”
Seeing the whole picture
But some do. And more are doing so every day as the industry evolves and grows more sophisticated. McKinsey, and our best and brightest, are seeing the whole picture and figuring out how to provide the most value.
News flash: This also is how the C-suite likely sees the research process and the true value and opportunity of insights realized. They are our customers.
At a recent visit to Michigan State University I talked with a class of graduate students not yet bruised by the real world. Their professor, Michael Brereton, former CEO of Maritz, had implored the class to be leaders in the research space.
Toward the end of an intense session, one of the students raised a hand and quietly asked, “But can I have a good life if I only do the actual research?” It was a poignant moment as she was rejecting her professor’s vision in favor of a less risky and challenging role. “You absolutely can,” I replied, undercutting him in front of his students, which I regretted, a bit, the instant I said it.
I thought about this later and pondered the difference between people. Some are cut out to be leaders, some not. You can have a happy life being a person who supports others.
But for our industry and profession, the surest and best path to growth lies in the quality of what we do as leaders delivering on the promise of creating competitive advantage and truly delivering customer-centricity. This vision really is a) not easy and b) at the heart of the most successful companies. It’s also a choice, and companies can go in a different direction not driven by facts. There are many paths to success and ~70 uses, ~200 methodologies/tools and who knows how many insights and implementation strategies.
Leadership, then, equals growth for our industry and profession and its sponsors. That may require a rethinking of our role and its limits, in which inertia is our enemy. Think whole picture, whole process, from inception to profit.
For inspiration, perhaps you should buy your team a case or two of Labatt Blue Canadian Pilsener. It may make the evolution a little more enjoyable. Cheers!