Transforming Insight Podcast

In this episode, James is joined by Lisa Dutton, Senior Adviser at the IMA, and an expert on influencing skills. Lisa provides her top tips for choosing which stakeholders we should influence, understanding what it feels like to do their role, and the importance of understanding individuals’ communication preferences. Please listen to our podcast if you have the ambition to transform your Insight...

An Insight team needs to solve problems and identify value opportunities for its company, but then it also needs to drive the corporate changes necessary to profit from those opportunities. So how do the most successful corporate Insight teams influence decision-makers? Please listen to our podcast if you have the ambition to transform your Insight team! Topics Discussed Sharing knowledge is as im...

In this episode, Jan describes what it was like to lead an Insight team at an organisation that had to close its global operation during the pandemic, and how, despite the tragedy, he managed to seize the opportunity to make Insight ‘the lead huskey’. Please listen to our podcast if you have the ambition to transform your Insight team! Topics Discussed The importance of being yourself (4.45) The v...

The smartest systems are no replacement for developing an acute understanding of Insight’s purpose and role in your company; acting as consultants to nail and map key business issues; approaching Insight investigations like forensic detectives, and farming insight to cultivate knowledge.   Systems are a means to an end, and in this episode, we consider some top tips for developing them. Please lis...

In this episode, James is joined by Emma Jones, Senior Insight Manager at the IMA, and an expert on Insight farming. Emma provides her top tips for Insight teams who want to develop as knowledge farmers and create a knowledge-sharing culture. Please listen to our podcast if you have the ambition to transform your Insight team! Topics Discussed Compiling a greatest hits presentation (1.34) The hear...

In this 16-minute episode, we’ll begin with Sowing the seeds – crystallizing and recording our findings. Topics Discussed The practical steps to take (2.25) Who should do the work? (5.41) The Insight manager skillset (6.52) Taking your time (9.23) The need for effective processes (10.58) Highlights “Insight farming appeals to many on a cultural level, as well as offering obvious cost savings by cu...

We need to move away from a world where we spend all our days hunting for new insights, because wise Insight teams know that Insight farming is more valuable to their organisations and more sustainable for the team itself.  Topics Discussed Do senior people care about individual insights? (1.52) What sets the most effective teams apart? (3.58) Cutting out duplication and responding in an agile way...

What happens next in an Insight project will depend on the question you have identified and the sources of information and data collection available to you. However, effective Insight teams tend to adopt a common mindset regardless of whether they are data analysts or market researchers. It’s the mindset of the detective.  Topics Discussed The importance of hypotheses? (1.54) Joining up across mul...

The really important questions when you join any company are ‘How does this organisation make money?’, ‘What are its drivers of success?’ and ‘Who makes the key decisions?’ Debra has enjoyed a career spanning market research agencies and big brands, but she thinks she is happiest working in corporate Insight. She has worked for Safeway, Homebase, British Airways, British Gas and Saga before her cu...

Einstein said that if he had an hour to solve a problem, he would spend fifty-five minutes thinking about the underlying problem and five minutes thinking about the solution to it so in this episode we consider how Insight teams can act like consultants to nail the underlying business issue, and in a subsequent episode we’ll look at how we should investigate it. Topics Discussed How can we generat...

Does the idea of making up the numbers fill you with horror?  It shouldn’t… making up the numbers, in other words becoming comfortable with estimation techniques and focusing on accuracy rather than precision, is actually a critical skill for everyone in Insight. It supports agile decision-making, forces you to explain your assumptions, and facilitates constructive conversations with others who ar...

To produce insights, we need to reframe our approach to Insight activity. We should move away from a focus on functional disciplines like market research, customer analytics and competitor intelligence, and instead, see each as input to the creation of a holistic story – a story about how consumers in our market become customers of our organisation and create value for it.  Topics Discussed Organi...

Sandra talks candidly about the challenges she faces and the lessons Insight teams can learn from Finance, and she also recommends a book that has changed her working life. Topics Discussed Insight and Analytics at ASOS (1.45) Creating a joined-up Insight team (5.45) Sandra’s day job and diary (10.02) The book that changed Sandra’s working life (15.15) An Insight team creating value for the busine...

Insight is an expensive business so we have a collective responsibility to make sure that our organisations are getting the best possible return on their investment, otherwise there’s a good chance that those resources would be better deployed elsewhere.  The 2nd secret of successful Insight teams is that they recognise an underlying purpose: to identify value for their organisations and to drive...

The 1st secret of successful Insight teams is that they agree on a more progressive definition of insights and insight as a basis for all their subsequent activity. Topics Discussed The IMA’s definition of insights (2.06) The many sources of customer and market insights (3.19) The importance of actionability (5.47) The difference between insights and insight (7.00) The danger of narrow definitions...

But, be honest, do you work in an Insight-driven organisation? Very few of us can say that we do, in fact Insight teams across every sector in Europe and North America often report that it is actually getting more difficult to do their job. If, as Insight leaders, we want our organisations’ performance to be transformed by Insight, we first have to transform our Insight teams and the role they pla...

 In the Transforming Insight podcast, we not only explore all 42 secrets outlined in the Transforming Insight book, but we also talk to senior corporate Insight leaders, delve into books that have inspired us, and discuss new best practice research carried out with the IMA’s corporate members. You won’t want to miss this! So hit subscribe!