The rules of research are being rewritten, and Insight teams can be the answer to the complexity. That’s according to James Wycherley, Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy, and former Director of Customer Insight and Analysis at Barclays.

This is a pivotal moment. On one hand, every element of business is being called into question with rising costs at every stage. On the other, using the latest methodologies and advanced data science can increase the quality of insights and breadth of data, and AI is already showing how we can boost bandwidth, unlocking the chance for teams to relentlessly pursue their organisation’s biggest strategic issues.

In this Mindlab Academy article, James reveals the four roles he believes will be in every Insight team that excels over the coming years.

1. Growth consultant

Each of us in Insight needs to adopt the mindset of a growth consultant, using market, brand, internal, financial and customer value data to identify the biggest business issues to work on, contextualise our findings, and set goals for how much money the team is going to help the organisation make in the next 12 months.

2. Knowledge steward

Every piece of insight work generates recommendations for the organisation and adds to the store of accumulated knowledge. This enables us to see different sides of an issue and recognise the tensions and contradictions where insights lie around consumer segments, markets, categories, brands, product buyers, channel users and so on.

If you then add to that cauldron the ever-growing amount of data sourced by other teams – on brand and customer satisfaction, new product development, customer needs, web analytics, competitor intelligence – Insights is well positioned to be the BBC Verify, ensuring customer and business decisions are made based on sound data. In a world where data, information, intelligence and knowledge will be generated in a multitude of different places, being the team that draws stories together will be invaluable.

“In a world where data, information, intelligence and knowledge will be generated in a multitude of different places, being the team that draws stories together will be invaluable.”

 3. Influencer and trusted advisor

Being able to influence decisions within organisations has always been key to our function and our recent client side survey with the MRS and AURA showed this is still the case: how to influence the board and senior leaders is one of the areas Insight professionals feel they need to improve on the most.

My advice is to understand your stakeholder map: who holds power, how are choices made, and how can trust be built by positioning yourself as a strategic advisor to senior leaders? The focus has to shift from being the voice of the customer and delivering data, to driving change. Insight is the tool, not the goal.

4. Foresight pioneer 

AI is not yet great at looking around corners or projecting forward based on consumer and competitive trends because there’s a domino effect that makes it difficult to map out. Consumer behaviour has always constantly changed, so good Insight teams excel in forming opinions already: it’s just about rebalancing, focusing on serving the organisation’s biggest decisions.

Keen an eye out for an upcoming article from James on how to set yourself up to be the leader that brings a team with all these skills together.