All Things Insights Spends & Trends Report

INSIGHTS SPEND & TRENDS REPORT 2022

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY SPEND AND TRENDS REPORT

The TMRE and All Things Insights community completed an extensive survey covering what folks are thinking, how they’re spending and the issues they face. Per the results, the community continues to evolve the way they identify. The shift from market research, to insights towards foresights in an acute time period is due to more and more data being available and utilized. As that’s the case, the Great Upskill is upon us. Insights leaders have cited the need for new skills, the demand for harnessing data and the aspiration to help guide enterprise strategy. In order to get to that goal, teams will need to grow. But more importantly, the people will need to grow. Talent will need to be well-enough-versed not only in the Art of market research but the Science that informs predictive insights. While the community overwhelmingly feels that the state of the discipline is improving, and that leaders feel more influential, there is a delta of 20% between improvement and discipline organizational influence. This is perhaps either wishful thinking of folks that see an increase of ease-of-use tools, a disconnect on what needs to be done to ensure influence or a mix of both. “The increased speed of insights,” is considered to be the biggest strength for the community . That likely means data is being delivered quickly. That funnel of data making its way quickly to insights is a positive, but without new and skilled talent to grapple with that data, the community seems to feel that “data overload” is upon the discipline. Only one in five find “working across departments,” to be a strength. There is a delta in the 40% of “expanding influence” respondents and the 20% of collaboration partners. It seems that a

lack of collaboration limits the effect of influence. And all the while, if influence is expanding without quality data, that influence may well contract in short order. For two fifths of the community the biggest area of focus currently is to, “support the product development & innovation teams.” This points to the fact that organizations are focused on growing out of the pandemic and into the headwinds of a potential recession. Interestingly this finding showcases crossover with our Innovation Spend & Trends Report findings where Innovation leaders were asked, “How has Innovation budget changed in the last 6 months?” The top answer was an increase for “Insights. Nearly six in ten within the community find the biggest opportunity within insights to be to, “guide enterprise strategy.” “Drive revenue” is the biggest opportunity in the minds of half of respondents. The biggest opportunity being to, “predict the future,” is true for just under 50%. So insights leaders are certainly thinking big and definitely thinking long-term. But there are short-term issues that need to be addressed regarding the delta between the state of the discipline and organizational influence as well as the delta between expanding influence and collaboration in order to realize these opportunities.

Seth Adler All Things Insights

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The All Things Innovation Community

State Of The Discipline

Lessons Learned from an Insights Guru by Stan Sthanunathan

Priorities

Challenges

Connecting the Dots between What and Why by Cherie Leonard

15 14 12 16 18

Strengths

Opportunities

Considerations on Talent Turnover by Shilpa Khanna

Weaknesses & Threats

A Considered Approach to Insights Transformation by Tom Gould

22 20 23 24 26 28 27 38 34 40

Focus

Collaboration

Data, Data, Data, and What To Do About It by Michael Nevski

Budget

Spend

Continuing to Grow Insights’ Influence, by Karen Kraft Global Perspective from an AI CEO, by Kathryn Topp

Timely & Integrated Insights by Matt Gershoff

Talent & Team

ALL THINGS INSIGHTS The Community

What best describes your job function?

What industry do you work in?

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What title do you hold at your organization?

How many years of experience do you have in an insights discipline?

Which region does your organization operate in?

Nearly a quarter of respondents consider themselves to be Market Researchers. A fifth of the community consider themselves to be from consumer insights and another fifth self-identify as business insights. Nearly a third- the largest portion of the community consider themselves to be either business intelligences, data science strategy and/or analytics. Already 4% of the community identifies as a foresights person. The community is experienced- with 95% having at least three years and over half having at least five years within the insights discipline. With just under three quarters of respondents being Head/Director or above- the community is decidedly senior-level. The community is also decidedly cross-industry with only financial services representing more than 10% of the composite. That said, only 22% of the community is currently based outside of the US.

STATE OF THE DISCIPLINE

Do you feel as though the overall state of the Insights industry is improving?

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How has the organizational view of the Insights discipline changed in the past two years?

Over 80% of the community feel that the state of the discipline is improving. And only 5% feel that it’s not. More specifically nearly two thirds of respondents feel that the insights discipline has increased in influence. Another one in five see influence remaining steady. And 17% find that the insights discipline has decreased in influence throughout the pandemic to our current state of affairs. There’s a delta of 20% between state of discipline improvement and discipline organizational influence . This is perhaps either wishful thinking of folks that see an increase of ease-of-use tools, a disconnect on what needs to be done to ensure influence or a mix of both.

LESSONS LEARNED FROM AN INSIGHTS GURU

Stan Sthanunathan in his inimitable way shares thoughts on the best way to lead a horse to water, how much budget size matters and his theory of data relativity.

I’ve got three main areas of feedback for my colleagues regarding their responses to the spend and trends survey- what they describe as Weaknesses, what they describe as threats and how they’re thinking about Budget. The responses around Weaknesses and leaders feeling they do not have control over the activation of insights are interesting. You would never have control over activation of insights, but you can play a different role. It makes me think of a metaphor. The slightly more enterprising Insights people will walk the horse to the source of water and say, hey, can you see it is close to you? And an even more enterprising person would take the horse’s mouth and put it in water and say please drink. And the one who is really brave would kick the horse

“On budget; size is not everything. No, it is what you do. The budget is important and there are a lot of clever ways in which you can make your budget have an impact.” and command it to drink. But kicking a horse requires guts because the thing will kick and when it kicks you, it hurts. It makes me think of Henry Rak who used to be head of insights for Kraft. Henry Rak was considered to be a legendary provocateur. Legendary. He created unique approaches. He used to tell the businesses what to do. Regarding the responses around Threats , relatively speaking, there is no more data overload today than what it was 40 years ago. The reason why I use the word relatively, is because it is relative to the computing power. In the good old days, we used to have 8 KB, 16 KB and 64 KB machines and they could only process so much information. Computing power has gone way up, so there is more than enough power to process data. You know this phone that we all carry around that has got more computing

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“But you should not do more with more. You should do much more with more. And ideally more with less.”

power than the machine, the computer that put man on the moon. So please don’t BS about data overload. On budget; size is not everything. No, it is what you do. The budget is important and there are a lot of clever ways in which you can make your budget have an impact. Budgets going up does say to me that businesses see the value in whatever the insights functions are doing, and therefore they’re giving them more money to do it. Therefore, as a report card on the industry, this is a good sign. This kind of ties in with the 62% that you said, you know, having more influence . But you should not do more with more. You should do much more with more. And ideally more with less. The end objective is to do something, create a bigger impact. So bigger impact with

less should be your mantra and in the process if you do different impact with the same or a little bit more that’s fine.

Stan Sthanunathan Retired Executive Vice President CMI, Unilever

PRIORITIES

What is your current top business priority?

The top business priority is very clearly market research- which of course does make some sense. But it feels short-sighted. There’s the ongoing discipline evolution to insights which isn’t coming through as well as the continuing evolution to a data-centric, data-based decision-making discipline which doesn’t shine through either. That said, this is a question about the current top business priority. So maybe it’s not short-sighted as much as it is that teams are needing to grow with new talent to realize the promise of the discipline.

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CHALLENGES

What are the top challenges in your company/Insights function?

And right on queue, “Talent/Hiring The Right Skill Set” is the top challenge for nearly two fifths of the community. Leaders in the space were reared as market researchers. There is an art to market research which can be taught- but that learning comes with experience. With the addition of rich data sets not possible to attain even a few years ago, the discipline must now add talent to produce true insights that answer business challenges and objectives. As highlighted on page 23 harnessing data is the skill set most needed at the moment.

CONNECTING THE DOTS BETWEEN WHAT & WHY Cherie Leonard shares how the evolution of the Insights discipline can directly affect the expansion of influence across the enterprise. She also provides thoughts on the talent needed to grow the function through data and analytics understanding.

In looking at how the community identifies, there’s a very data-driven part of insights that’s gaining traction relative to more of the maybe traditional way that we’ve looked at market research and consumer insights. Knowing where that data sits, where to go internally is now table stakes. So, a piece of this certainly is the increased usage of agile tools throughout the insights side of the business. But even given an analytics perspective- breaking down the silos internally and having a better understanding or exposure to different teams contributes to increased speed of delivering insights. Knowing where to go for business insights, versus sales analytics, versus RGM is, I think, also contributing to this increased speed, because we’re able to connect the dots more quickly internally. The ultimate goal is to

“The ultimate goal is to build a more comprehensive picture, which leads to the point of expanding influence on the business.”

build a more comprehensive picture, which leads to the point of expanding influence on the business. The community data outlines a few different types of roles that are being created or coming to fruition. I think as analytics continues to grow as a skill set, as a focus area, Insights’ expanding influence is only going to continue. Also, it was a small percentage, but I noticed because it’s close to my heart- the foresight was 4% of people, and I would guess that it’s actually a bit higher already- it was probably a single punch option. I think I’m seeing more and more Foresights being incorporated into certain job descriptions, or people at least are trying to have more of a foresight, future-focused mindset, even if they’re doing something in the day-to- day, more traditional insights. And that speaks to the evolution of the teams within our companies.

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“I think as analytics continues to grow as a skill set, as a focus area, Insights’ expanding influence is only going to continue.”

You see the data-driven roles that are increasing and the job titles that are being created. But I think there’s also a sense that the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ are coming together. There’s a recognition that the ‘why’ still has a place, and the more people-centric Insights type of person or type of skill set still needs to be there, because data science won’t be able to take over without the why. That gives you a really important piece that we probably haven’t had visibility into in the past- but the ‘what’ is not going to be enough on its own. The ‘what’ and the ‘why’ have the most power as they come together. Respondents are sharing that data overload is a threat because we’re all getting data from everywhere. There are more and more data sources that are emerging- especially as you build out direct-to-consumer businesses. So, the questions now are, “What do we do with

this? How do you do it? How do you use it for innovation or for more than just kind of optimizing the user experience in the last mile of the journey?” I think those questions will begin to be answered in 2023.

Cherie Leonard Director North America Insights Colgate-Palmolive

STRENGTHS

What are the biggest strengths within the Insights function, in your opinion?

The two biggest strengths the community perceives are, “increasing speed of insights” and “expanding influence on the business,” This corresponds with the findings cited on state of discipline in that the community feels that the state of the discipline is improving and that the insights discipline has increased in influence. That said, data quality is listed as a strength for only 11% of the community. This may be a canary in the coal mine- speed is increasing but quality is not. Also, only one in five find “working across departments,” to be a strength. There is a delta in the 40% of “expanding influence” respondents and the 20% of collaboration partners. It seems that a lack of collaboration limits the effect of influence. And all the while, if influence is expanding without quality data, that influence may well contract in short order.

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OPPORTUNITIES

What are the biggest opportunities within the Insights function in your opinion?

Nearly six in ten within the community find the biggest opportunity within insights to be to, “guide enterprise strategy.” “Drive revenue” is the biggest opportunity in the minds of half of respondents. The biggest opportunity being to, “predict the future,” is true for just under 50%. So insight leaders are certainly thinking big and definitely thinking long-term. But there are short-term issues that need to be addressed regarding the delta between the state of the discipline and organizational influence , the delta between

expanding influence and collaboration in order to realize these opportunities.

CONSIDERATIONS ON TALENT TURNOVER Shilpa Khanna shares thoughts on the changing dynamics for Insights talent and what those changing dynamics mean for talent, management and the overall organization. She focuses on this moment of change and how to harness this pivotal point moving forward.

I’ll take the opportunity to mostly focus on talent . The Insight’s role has changed from being just a researcher. Now you need to be a researcher, a business partner, a holistic thinker, an innovator. So, that’s how I define myself. Even though I’m in research, I’m an innovator because I got to think about the 360. So, respondents saying they need the right talent makes sense to me because the role has just become a lot more demanding, and we cannot play by the book anymore. You’ve got to have more dynamic, more engaged, and actually creative folks. Re-skilling sounds great, and people feel like they turn into more robust people. But it puts a lot of stress on the person, management, and the overall environment. I do feel up- skilling is a better strategy because you leverage what your people’s

“People are becoming more and more open to change. So I think high turnover is now a continuing truth for organizations.”

assets are and then you push up from there. So I’m pleased to see that respondents feel this is the way the industry should go. As we go into 2023, kind of continue that re-skilling and up-skilling as opposed to recruiting new because it’s tough to find those new skills and there’s only a few that are reducing staff. I think this is completely accurate. And it’s consistent with what we’ve read so far. The annual turnover rate for insights employees might feel high if you take the industry average as of today, but I do think that’s what the future is going to be. People are becoming more and more open to change. So I think high turnover is now a continuing truth for organizations. Within an organization- or many I’ve seen- the marketing function, even though Insights might be part of the marketing function, has more power and is seen to be a superior function than that of Insights. So, whenever

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“...we cannot play by the book anymore. You’ve got to have more dynamic, more engaged, and actually creative folks.”

Insights, whether it’s asking for budget for research or for people or for skill development- all of that is always considered secondary. And that’s why you end up seeing high turnover within the Insights discipline. Some people can operate under not being given that value, but some people don’t. So, the turnover comes from whether the person can adapt to that culture combined with how they see their perceived value within that organization. Overall, I do think it’s a time of change. So, there are going to be a whole bunch of changes happening. Both to the ways we do the research, but also in how we integrate insights into the business. I feel now is this pivotal point where that’s going to change and it’s going to take inside folks a lot more rigor to be able to stand your ground and push that through the right channels because literally the paths that don’t exist anymore. I think that’s going to be interesting and challenging. It’s not as

straightforward as it used to be. We’re not a service only organization. It’s not just a pull, there’s going to be a lot of pushing that we must do. So of course, developing the confidence in the right methodology that has both speed and conviction is going to be key.

Shilpa Khanna Associate Director Transformational Growth Insights Clorox

WEAKNESSES & THREATS

Within the Insights function in your organization, which of the following are your biggest weaknesses?

What are the biggest threats to the insights discipline, in your opinion?

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How often do the following cause Insights issues at your organization?

The results don’t showcase a particular uniform weakness within the community. But “speed to deliver insights” and more so - “not enough influence on the business” are reportedly areas of least weakness which corresponds directly to the strengths findings . The two threats that rise above 30% for the community are “lack of new and skilled talent” as well as “data overload.” These threats seem to dovetail. “The increased speed of insights,” is considered to be the biggest strength for the community. That likely means data is being delivered quickly. That funnel of data making its way quickly to insights is a positive, but without new and skilled talent to grapple with that data, the community seems to feel that “data overload” is upon the discipline.

A CONSIDERED APPROACH TO INSIGHTS TRANSFORMATION Tom Gould shares his thoughts on how to evolve the Insights discipline moving forward. He notes that unifying insights with data and analytics is certainly the way forward. But to also consider how best to utilize teams and talent along the way.

The pandemic has helped organizations with thinking around resilience and a more dynamic future. I understand that there’s a desire to transform the insights function. As I talk to other folks in other companies, it really seems to be focused on how do we get to something that’s actionable and how do we move fast? To that end, on Spend , I think base budgets are probably staying relatively flat, but there does seem to be more appetite for building a business case to get funding outside. The Insights transformation that is happening across companies and as they bring in management consultants who all tend to speak from the same playbook. The thinking seems to be creating a structure with subject matter experts. And you have them all the subject matter

“I understand that there’s a desire to transform the insights function. As I talk to other folks in other companies, it really seems to be focused on how do we get to something that’s actionable and how do we move fast?” experts meet together- it’s the agile way of working. And the playbook says, if you get all these people who are very specialized together- magic happens. While that’s one way to do it, my understanding is that value lies with folks who have more general experience understanding how analytics can inform insights and how those insights can deliver impact for an organization. Rather than have federated decision making through a group and hoping for the best, relying on individuals who can quickly make those connections and individually make the magic happen. Yeah, I’d say maybe the surprising thing in hindsight it’s not but is just the focus on data for lack of a better word, because it could mean multiple things, but the need for companies to almost do the blocking and tackling for the organization. And if I’m speaking a

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“And the playbook says, if you get all these people who are very specialized together- magic happens.”

little too freely, it feels like that’s also the one that will be easiest to cut, because it’s the least sexy. Except we give them sexy names because management consultants come in or whatever it is and we call them X, Y, Z, or whatever to give them bigger names, data lake or whatever. That’s not extremely sexy per se, but it’s better than just a data platform. But I feel like that is the thing that’s a little bit, probably the most surprising or I probably would’ve arrived at it if I put enough thought into it. But it’s pretty clear that is a huge area of focus for the insights community. Yeah. I think it’s always been there, but I think the way that it’s being framed and prioritized and it’s all around again, that blocking and tackling than it is about finding the coolest new data source or the coolest new methodology or approach or it’s basically, let’s make sure that we have something

that’s usable, that’s quality that we can connect different pieces together that we can make it easy for people to use and visualize.

Tom Gould Director Constellation Brands

Which of the following have been an area of focus for your organization, whether throughout the pandemic or currently? FOCUS

For two fifths of the community the biggest area of focus currently is to, “support the product development & innovation teams.” This points to the fact that organizations are focused on growing out of the pandemic and into the headwinds of a potential recession. Interestingly this finding showcases crossover with our Innovation Spend & Trends Report findings where Innovation leaders were asked, “How has Innovation budget changed in the last 6 months?” The top answer was an increase for “Insights.”

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COLLABORATION

What is your biggest challenge when working with external partners?

Taking a few steps back, “Data,” “Trust” and “Communication” make perfect sense as the biggest challenges when working with any partner. And zooming in, this might be a positive sign that Insights disciplinarians are aligned on solving business challenges and objectives. But based on myriad conversations with leaders in the space, we know that not to be true. One might like to see those initiatives- solving business challenges and objectives as the focus for collaboration.

DATA, DATA, DATA AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT Michael Nevski commiserates with his colleagues on the fact that data must be grappled with, value must be identified, new still sets need to be realized to ensure that the organization can move forward through research.

My colleagues noted at an 82% clip that they feel the overall state of Insights is improving. I think I’m cautiously optimistic because with the GDRP and third-party cookies being sunset, the industry has come up with new approaches, innovations, on how to do cross-channel attribution. We’re coming up with new panels and communities where you can track behavior more reliably. With these new innovative techniques and innovations from technology to software to data collection and processing and reporting, I think that’s why overall respondents are more positive about the outlook right now. I can totally understand, despite the overall dynamic global geopolitical economic situation. But in terms of what we can accomplish, what we can do, you have many more possibilities nowadays.

“Things are changing and that’s why it dictates new skill sets. It dictates new approaches to insights, and it dictates to new approaches to execution on supporting the company as a function.” On the area of focus for Insights, times change, consumer preferences change, technology changes, legal and privacy laws change. So, transforming the insights function is very important. We must adapt constantly to be ahead of trends. Gen Z is influencing how business is done. Things are changing and that’s why it dictates new skill sets. It dictates new approaches to insights, and it dictates to new approaches to execution on supporting the company as a function. My colleagues have pointed out that within the last 18 months, data solutions have been the biggest priority . You need to tell the story. You tell the story by visualizing the data and by having the correct data. It goes back to how we collect and process and store the data and then how we report the actual research and insights. Everybody likes the stories, right? You don’t do a data dump, you tell them the story, what

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“...data solutions have been the biggest priority. You need to tell the story. You tell the story by visualizing the data and by having the correct data.

it really means, what’s going on with the market. Especially in large organizations, transactional data is separate from research data. Which are both separate from contact data. That separation creates challenges for organizations. That’s why the platform where you do this whole thing from soup to nuts is very, very important. So, it is very good to see the ‘data, data, data’ results. Respondents are saying there is a big and very comprehensive focus on data now. Top six priorities, right now, all on data and how the research can support it. Overall, my biggest surprise in seeing these results is that I expected that many companies would be pulling back on their discretionary research budget. To me, it indicates that business is still good in spite of the talk ‘on the street.’ We hear about inflation and

that we are getting into a recession. But actually, with full employment and more people stepping off the sidelines and higher employment participation rate, it tells me that companies have more opportunities to increase their bottom line to be more successful. So, we see cautious optimism. We see folks proceeding with increased budgets and continuing to build opportunities.

Michael Nevski Director, Global Insights Visa

BUDGET

What is your Insights Technology & Services Budget?

Just under two thirds of the community has a budget of $500K or more. Nearly half has a budget over $750K. And nearly a quarter of the community has a budget of $1M or more. In the coming months, we will re-ask this question of the community and with greater clarity.

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SPEND

SPEND: 2022 & 2023

Did your insights budget increase or decrease in 2022?

Over half of the community had budgets increase in 2022. Just over a third had budgets remain the same and a mere one in ten had budgets decrease. A note,

these questions were asked after inflationary winds began blowing and recessionary vernacular entered the discourse. And while it is aspirational, two thirds of the community feels that budgets will increase further in 2023. Nearly 30% are looking at a flat budget future and only 8% see a decrease coming down the line. We’ll be following-up with the community throughout the year to showcase the realization of budgets.

Do you plan to increase or decrease your Insights budget in 2023?

CONTINUING TO GROW INSIGHTS’ INFLUENCE Karen Kraft relates to the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats highlighted by her colleagues. But also takes pause and shares that the Insights function has always faced similar issues and that experience can help guide the way.

I’m pleased to see my colleagues being so optimistic especially considering the direction of the overall economy is in question. The pandemic really showed how Insights is important and that’s reflected in these results. There are a lot of people that feel that Insights is very influential. They may want more influence, but they’re already getting a lot now today. And the fact that people want to be driving more revenue is exciting and that they’re not just wanting to just be data providers. They want to know the data and it seems like the industry is investing so heavily in understanding data. We all have so much data that we’re not using. So, respondents are saying, let’s get our house in order so that we don’t have to keep getting more data because we have so much.

“...you can have your data geeks and that’s valuable. But then you still must have the people that can communicate to the rest of the organization. Those are usually not the same people.” Let’s just use what we’ve got. And that’s where the community is saying we need help because the data is just sitting there. No matter if the data and analytics people are within the Insights team or outside, the function has to be intimately connected. But you can have your data geeks and that’s valuable. But then you still must have the people that can communicate to the rest of the organization. Those are usually not the same people. On talent , I have always had better talent, better luck recruiting talent from within my company, and training them up rather than recruiting from the outside and hoping for the best. I think that’s especially true in the insights world. When you can upskill somebody, they have the base knowledge about the business- they know something about what’s going on already. When you’re recruiting someone fresh, they must learn the category, they have to

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“It’s great to see that we’re in an industry where we’re exerting more influence. We want to take on more responsibility for driving the everyday, day-to-day business.”

learn everything, whereas when you’re upskilling, they have a lot of knowledge already and you’re just teaching them, you’re just improving them. So, I think that’s why people are preferring to upskill. Plus, recruiting in today’s market is a nightmare. I’m seeing confidence which shows that our industry has a future. Things can be off shored, and budgets can be cut, and various things can be deprioritized in downturns. It’s great to see that we’re in an industry where we’re exerting more influence. We want to take on more responsibility for driving the everyday, day-to-day business. And if we’re aspiring to that and we already started achieving it, it’ll lead to more and more influence. We’re already invaluable to the business world that it will continue to make us invaluable and insulate us from going by the wayside.

Because, if it’s good times, the organization says let’s go innovate. And if it’s bad times, the organization is looking for you to tell them what to think and how to hunker down. What are the most important things to keep and how do we keep our brand relevant to people, even in bad times? So the insights discipline is much like the spirits industry- people just shift what they’re drinking. They don’t stop.

Karen Kraft Consumer Insights & Analytics Johnsonville

SPEND: LAST SIX MONTHS

How has your insights spend changed over the last six months?

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A third or more of the community saw the biggest changes in; Business/Product Development, Consumer Research, Data Processing, Promotion Research and Usability Training. Of note, the business/product development spend reads true in concert with focus findings . Data processing reads true in relation to the data quality findings on the strengths page.

Within the last 18 months, which of the following solutions have been the biggest priorities for you? SPEND: LAST 18 MONTHS

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SPEND: USAGE NOW

Describe your usage with the following technologies?

Six of the top seven biggest priorities have all been with data and six of the top eight technologies in use now are all with data. While this is not surprising, it’s fascinating. The discipline is clearly grappling with a new identity. The discipline- like any discipline- has always been in a state of evolution. But going from market research, to insights towards foresights in an acute time period is due to more and more data being available and utilized. This speaks directly to the Challenges cited. And incidentally, we’ll likely see growth in our next Report of the 4% who identify as Foresights

leaders cited on the Community breakdown .

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE FROM AN AI CEO Kathryn Topp shares that you are not alone in thinking that data overload is leading to a lack of data quality which is leading to the need for talent and a more straightforward approach. She shares thoughts on the fact that the data quality issue is in fact ubiquitous and it is in fact global... and in fact solvable.

The expanding base of job functions featured in the survey respondent community is consistent with what we’re seeing when we are interacting across the world with different research markets. The growth in analytics is commensurate with more data coming on board. So you’ve got traditional consumer research teams all of a sudden dealing with a lot more diverse data. And with that comes the need for not only new and different types of tools for analysis, but also a slightly different skill set for the team. There is a real desire to start exploring different data and also bring in new tools to do that. So, from that point of view, I think the industry is starting to embrace new and different ways of thinking, which historically it has been quite a conservative industry, so it’s nice to start to see it open up and think differently.

“There is a real desire to start exploring different data and bringing in new tools to do that. So, from that point of view, I think the industry is starting to embrace new and different ways of thinking...” Any business that’s growing and is serious about improving its delivery to customers and its products needs to be data-driven and customer driven. Organizations that are really focused on understanding and listening to their marketplaces are the ones that will be growing. The shortage of talent is universal across multiple industries. It’s not unique to the insights industry, but what I would say is I think the growing and fostering of the next generation of researchers is really important and is something as an industry we need to invest in. Also, diversification, as the role of the insights team diversifies, we need to diversify with it and that’s all about the new types of data. Speed to deliver insights being a challenge is consistent with everything we see in a lot of the market development we do in talking with our customers and it’s obviously one of the key reasons why we developed the technology we developed.

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“Organizations that are really focused on understanding and listening to their marketplaces are the ones that will be growing.”

We are seeing a lot of data overload actually coming from internal data sources, as well as new external sources, and with this there is a greater challenge with quality of data. There’s an inherent cautiousness around quality of data both internal and external. Ultimately, it’s about making sense of the data, organizing it and working out how to analyze it effectively. The overall response showcasing an increase in budget was probably higher than I expected, but positive, I think it reflects the growth in the industry and also the importance of the function within an organization. So that’s exciting. The other parts probably confirm what we’ve seen in our own research and reinforcement that the work we’re doing to develop tools that allow researchers to be more efficient

and unlock insights more easily out of new and different data sources. This confirms that we’re on the right path, which is equally as exciting.

Kathryn Topp CEO Yabble

Which solutions do you expect to be priorities for you in the next 6-12 months? SPEND: NEXT 6 TO 12 MONTHS

One couldn’t hope for a clearer visual representation of the fact that over the next 6-12 months, insights leaders are focused on data analysis. This directly follows the findings in Challenges and Usage .

TIMELY & INTEGRATED INSIGHTS

Matt Gershoff dives in on the fact that the moment is upon us to combine what and why into actionable short and long-term business impact.

These results for the survey are entirely consistent with what our customers have been telling us. Our clients have told us that they: 1) need to tightly integrate insights from analytics and experimentation with those from market research; and 2) collapse the time between insights and delivering actionable experiences. In order to realize the promise of customer experience optimization, brands will need to jointly answer both ‘what’ experiences customers respond to - which traditionally has been the strength of experimentation - with ‘why’ - often best answered by market research. In order to jointly answer what customers respond to and why they do at scale, the marketing stack will need to include the ability to both evaluate digital experiences based upon customer

“The convergence of market research with AB Testing and personalization will also allow companies to respond in real time to real-time customer feedback.”

behavior - like sales conversions - and also on attitudinal feedback, such as NPS and satisfaction. As the share of brand experiences shifts towards digital, it becomes even more necessary to understand how these digital experiences are received by customers, not just in the short term, but also the longer term impact on loyalty and relationship with the brand. This convergence of market research with AB Testing and personalization will also allow companies to respond in real time to real-time customer feedback. Integrated solutions that blend research with behavioral analytics and personalization will reduce the time within the iterative process of insight to action back to insight. These integrated capabilities will soon be tablestakes for delivering digital customer experiences that both optimize for short-term goals and enhance customer loyalty for the long term. We need to respond in real

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“Ultimately, insights is about trying to understand someone else. It’s about empathy. It’s not about analytics, predicting or data science.”

time with experiences and content that is directly related to how customers have responded to surveys. For example, a customer that responds with a low NPS score during a site visit should be immediately, in session, presented with content and outreach to help address their concerns and dissatisfaction. There are already tools, like Conductrics, that enable these personalized digital experiences based directly on real- time customer feedback. Having these solutions helps deliver to the customer the content and experiences that they want and addresses the need for actionability which we see in the reports results. Ultimately, insights is about trying to understand someone else. It’s about empathy. It’s not about analytics, predicting or data science. It’s about caring for the wellbeing of your customer and having a service

mindset. In order to do that effectively, it is necessary to have the tools to both listen and observe so that you can be empathetic and act in such a way to provide proper service and hospitality. It is not easy, but you can build loyalty and relationships in the digital space. It does however require the ability to respectfully ask your customers for feedback and to close the distance between effective insights and actions.

Matt Gershoff CEO, Co-Founder Conductrics

TALENT & TEAM

How many Insights members are on your team?

How many Insights professionals do you think are in your overall organization?

One third have 50 or more members, four fifths have 20 or more members. In the coming months, we will re-ask these questions of the community to gain greater clarity.

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What is your insights talent strategy?

Half will upskill, just over a quarter will recruit. Only 6% expect to cut. The Great Upskill is upon us. Insights leaders cited the need for new skills, the demand for harnessing data and the aspiration to guide enterprise strategy. In order to get to that goal, teams will need to grow. But more importantly, the people will need to grow. Talent will need to be well-enough-versed not only in the Art of market research but the Science informing Foresights in short-order.

REPORT PRESENTED BY:

Each year, TMRE unites hundreds of insights executives with a common goal - advancing the insights practice, developing as respected leaders and driving bottom line impact with insights. It’s the 20th anniversary of TMRE: The Market Research Event. We’re celebrating with a renewed focus on what matters most to the insights community – Connecting Insights to Business Growth. As the world’s #1 insights and analytics event, TMRE features fresh and relevant content from over 150+ speakers who share their stories, wisdom and watch outs.

With a consistent cadence of content, All Things Innovation is a year-round resource for Insights leaders. With constant connection to new content and new perspectives, you get the tips and tricks you need to stay agile and opportunistic in your approach. The answers today look a lot different than the answers a year ago. All Things Insights is designed to ensure our global network becomes your global network. Connect with a diverse member community in real time to forge new relationships, spark conversations and create tomorrow’s best practices.