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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