Does it feel like you’re pushing water uphill right now? You’re not alone, according to James Wycherley, Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy and author of two books: Transforming Insight: the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams and The Insight Leader’s Playbook. James believes most senior leaders are at an impasse, struggling to find the time, brain space or energy to plan ahead, while AI and technology reshapes the industry around us. But, based on his own experience at Barclays, at the IMA and research amongst senior Insight leaders, James has a way to cut through.

Is it possible for Insight leaders to forge ahead when something is up in the air? 

I understand why people are struggling. At a recent forum we held on AI, 70% of corporate Insight leaders said they’re still in the early stages of adopting AI. Every month that passes, it appears more can be done with it, so I suspect people may feel like that for some time. But there is no time to wait. If we don’t step up and lead Insight into the future, what will happen to the industry? The world is going to move on. Very quickly, management consultancies will be brought in, the chief executive will be inspired by an article in the Harvard Business Review, or other teams will imagine they can do the work of Insight and their agencies. There’s a real danger that the skills built over the last 20 years will be thrown out if we fail to show how we’re embracing AI and using it to help our organisation get ahead. 

“We become the drivers of change,
not the people change happens to.”

So, what do you recommend to Insight leaders? 

My recommendation to Insight leaders, whether they’re in their first 100 days or 10 years in, is to write their own playbook to document, develop and share your ideas with vendors, suppliers, senior managers and other departments. It can be shaped around what I call the 9Ps. 

1. Purpose

Your vision for how insight can transform your organisation and its success.

2. Profile

How you will raise the team’s profile in line with that purpose. 

3. People 

How you will develop and recruit the right Insight team for the future you envisage.

4. Partners 

How you will improve relationships with partners internally and externally with market research vendors by building a strategic roster that truly understands you. 

5. Prioritisation 

How you will make sure you relentlessly focus on essential business issues, balancing that with the latest tracker research, ongoing studies or ad hoc research.

6. Product 

How often you will review your Insight team’s output – its products and the way they are packaged and consumed. 

7. Process 

The systems that you will map out so even the least experienced analyst or market researcher can adopt best practice principles.

8. Performance 

What the return on investment of the team is proving to be, how you are performing against set measures and how that forms plans for the next period.

9. Personal 

This is your own plan: what you want to achieve beyond every day management, from being the best researcher, analyst or communicator and a pivotal asset.  

Yes, the data environment within which we form opinions is evolving. But this moment can be positive if we place ourselves at the forefront of organisational thinking. As the function responsible for pooling strategic understanding on how consumers become customers now and in the future, and with new platforms and tools at our disposal, we should feel empowered to go to decision makers with ideas and evidence for change. Thinking like this, and with a roadmap we believe in, we become the drivers of change, not the people change happens to. 

Get in touch to find out how Mindlab can help your Insights team get to the core of what makes your customers tick in these fast-moving times.

If you would like to know more about the IMA’s work to transform the impact of Insight teams, tune into the Transforming Insight podcast. They are currently offering complimentary copies of The Insight Leader’s Playbook to client-side leaders who participate in their Insight forums.