ima insight

There’s no point developing detailed brand concepts if nobody has heard of our companies in the first place. And the same is true for our Insight teams.

So in this week’s episode, I’m going to suggest that whilst we should certainly reflect on our Insight team brand, we should also recognise that we often simply need to promote awareness of Insight as a concept and our team as a department. 

This requires an opportunistic mindset as our internal market for Insight is always changing. It’s very easy to assume that everyone knows who we are, but in a large company they probably don’t. And we have to start again every time there is a major restructure or new senior managers arrive. 

Please listen to find out more!

Topics Discussed

• An opportunistic mindset (2.12)
• The need to make deliberate decisions (5.17)
• Introducing signature pieces (7.37)
• James’s own experience of signature pieces (10.15)
• Insight managers as entrepreneurs (12.33)

This is episode 45 of the Transforming Insight podcast. 

If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team and the role it plays in your organisation, please tune in to future episodes. Not only will we explore the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams as outlined in the Transforming Insight book, we will 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 please subscribe - and thank you for listening.

To find out more about our insight forums please click here for further details.

About James Wycherley, the author of Transforming Insight

James Wycherley was Director of Customer Insight and Analytics at Barclays from 2005 to 2015 when he became Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy (IMA). A popular keynote speaker and acknowledged expert on Insight leadership, strategy, and communication, he is the author of the book Transforming Insight: the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams, and over 35 IMA publications. He has provided thought leadership in the UK, Western Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, India, and the Middle East, and regularly hosts the IMA’s Insight forums - London, Manchester, UK Online and US Online.

The Insight Management Academy is the world’s leading authority on transforming Insight teams.

Resources: 

If you would like more information on any of the ideas discussed in this episode of the Transforming Insight podcast, please visit www.insight-management.org

Copies of James Wycherley’s book Transforming Insight: the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams can be purchased direct from www.transforming-insight.com

Disclaimer

The Transforming Insight podcast is published by the Insight Management Academy and produced by Zorbiant.

All rights reserved               

Topics Discussed

• Renate's journey to leading the Insight Team at TFL (1:50)
• Navigating the team through a re-org (4:21)
• Annual goals, priorities and team collaboration (10:04)
• What is Renate most proud of her team achieving? (14:15)
• Maintaining the heightened profile for the Insight team post-pandemic (17:05)
• Challenges and success of a leadership role (19:58)

Highlights

• “This year, 2023, is the year of communication… That year everybody has an objective linked to that one thing. On top of the day-to-day and the project delivery, that everyone has objectives within their own development plans that is also speaking to that objective. That it's not my priority, it's a team priority. And that everybody understands how everybody kind of contributes to that.” (10:17)
• “That's how you get a seat at the table is by helping people out when they asked you. But obviously there's a balance in there. We can't then say yes to everybody, at all times. And how you continue to build that good reputation and that helpful reputation, without just doing other people's admin for them.” (12:53)
• “Suddenly, wanting to know what customers were thinking and doing and going to do next was the organization's number one priority and suddenly we were under pressure to deliver almost daily Insights and figures and facts.” (14:28)
• “It was a really useful exercise to review absolutely every single thing you do as a team and I think, by nature of doing that, I think it made us more focused and more kind of specific and deliberate in what we did and what we didn't do” (17:27)
• “It was realising that they don't need me to be the most experienced researcher. They need me to provide direction and vision and challenge, and that's my role.” (20:35)

This is episode 44 of the Transforming Insight podcast. 

If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team and the role it plays in your organisation, please tune in to future episodes. Not only will we explore the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams as outlined in the Transforming Insight book, we will 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 please hit subscribe - and thank you for listening. 

About James Wycherley, the author of Transforming Insight

James Wycherley was Director of Customer Insight and Analytics at Barclays from 2005 to 2015 when he became Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy (IMA). A popular keynote speaker and acknowledged expert on Insight leadership, strategy, and communication, he is the author of the book Transforming Insight: the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams, and over 35 IMA publications. He has provided thought leadership in the UK, Western Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, India, and the Middle East, and regularly hosts the IMA’s Insight forums - London, Manchester, UK Online and US Online.

The Insight Management Academy is the world’s leading authority on transforming Insight teams.

Resources: 

If you would like more information on any of the ideas discussed in this episode of the Transforming Insight podcast, please visit www.insight-management.org

Copies of James Wycherley’s book Transforming Insight: the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams can be purchased direct from www.transforming-insight.com

Disclaimer

The Transforming Insight podcast is published by the Insight Management Academy and produced by Zorbiant.

All rights reserved               

According to the entrepreneur.com website: 

‘Simply put, your brand is your promise to your customer. It tells them what they can expect from your products and services, and it differentiates your offering from that of your competitors. Your brand is derived from who you are, who you want to be and who people perceive you to be.’ 

In our world of corporate Insight, we might rephrase that paragraph as: 

‘Simply put, our Insight brand is our promise to other departments. It tells them what they can expect from our products and services, and it differentiates our offering from that of other functions. Our brand is derived from who we are, who we want to be and who senior people in other departments perceive us to be.’ 

All Insight teams already have a ‘brand’ of some sort whether we realise it or not. But do other departments’ views of our team align with our views of Insight? And do they help us to optimise our team’s position in the hearts, minds and decision-making processes of our organisation?

Please listen to find out more!

Topics Discussed

• What does brand mean for an Insight team? (1.58)
• Leveraging our knowledge of brand development (4.42)
• The role of personal brand (7.03)
• How do we become good influencers (8.57)
• AI and its impact on the Insight brand (13.00)

This is episode 43 of the Transforming Insight podcast. 

If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team and the role it plays in your organisation, please tune in to future episodes. Not only will we explore the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams as outlined in the Transforming Insight book, we will 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 please subscribe - and thank you for listening. 

About James Wycherley, the author of Transforming Insight

James Wycherley was Director of Customer Insight and Analytics at Barclays from 2005 to 2015 when he became Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy (IMA). A popular keynote speaker and acknowledged expert on Insight leadership, strategy, and communication, he is the author of the book Transforming Insight: the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams, and over 35 IMA publications. He has provided thought leadership in the UK, Western Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, India, and the Middle East, and regularly hosts the IMA’s Insight forums - London, Manchester, UK Online and US Online.

The Insight Management Academy is the world’s leading authority on transforming Insight teams.

Resources:

If you would like more information on any of the ideas discussed in this episode of the Transforming Insight podcast, please visit www.insight-management.org

Copies of James Wycherley’s book Transforming Insight: the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams can be purchased directly from www.transforming-insight.com

Disclaimer

The Transforming Insight podcast is published by the Insight Management Academy and produced by Zorbiant.

All rights reserved     

An Insight team looks outwards to an organisation’s customers and markets and shines a light on issues of strategic importance. 

In stormy weather, it is there to pinpoint rocks upon which the organisation might founder, and competitor companies with which the company might collide. 

Many Insight teams pride themselves on their ability to understand customer behaviour and its drivers. They have developed a powerful light to shine upon market issues, and they aspire to serve as a lighthouse, a beacon to guide their organisation as it navigates the market. 

However, a lighthouse helps nobody if it is not in a position to be seen. Positioned inland, or hidden by cliffs, its light cannot help shipping. 

Likewise, there is little point in building an Insight capability to identify issues and guide management teams along the best route if our Insight teams are not well positioned within our companies. 

Effective Insight teams succeed in identifying and occupying an optimal position in the hearts, minds and decision-making processes of their wider organisation. And that’s never been more important than this year with the AI tide just starting to come in.

Please listen to find out more!

Topics Discussed

• Are you pushing water uphill? (1.27)
• Insight as a lighthouse (3.56)
• An improvement in benchmarking scores (6.17)
• Positioning Insight teams for success through 4 pathways (7.49)
• AI – a profound positioning challenge for Insight teams (10.07)
• Learning from the mistakes of big data (12.19)

This is episode 42 of the Transforming Insight podcast. 

If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team and the role it plays in your organisation, please tune in to future episodes. Not only will we explore the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams as outlined in the Transforming Insight book, we will 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 please subscribe - and thank you for listening. 

About James Wycherley, the author of Transforming Insight

James Wycherley was Director of Customer Insight and Analytics at Barclays from 2005 to 2015 when he became Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy (IMA). A popular keynote speaker and acknowledged expert on Insight leadership, strategy, and communication, he is the author of the book Transforming Insight: the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams, and over 35 IMA publications. He has provided thought leadership in the UK, Western Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, India, and the Middle East, and regularly hosts the IMA’s Insight forums - London, Manchester, UK Online and US Online.

The Insight Management Academy is the world’s leading authority on transforming Insight teams.

Resources:

If you would like more information on any of the ideas discussed in this episode of the Transforming Insight podcast, please visit www.insight-management.org

Copies of James Wycherley’s book Transforming Insight: the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams can be purchased directly from www.transforming-insight.com

Disclaimer

The Transforming Insight podcast is published by the Insight Management Academy and produced by Zorbiant.

All rights reserved                         

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

• Organisations need joined-up Insight to succeed (1.10)
• Reframing our approach to Insight activity (3.30)
• The MADE in Insight model (3.53)
• Should we start with the market or the money? (8.05)
• Engineers without a blueprint (9.34)

Highlights

• “A key problem for Insight teams is that we behave like engineers without a blueprint. If you think about an engineer – a heating engineer for example, or a mechanic working on aircraft – they will always have a blueprint that describes the key components in a system and the way in which those components work together when the machine operates.”
• “If you work as a corporate Insight manager, analyst or market researcher, the machine you are working on is your organisation. You are researching and analysing the way that consumers in a market interact with your organisation and how that creates or destroys value for your organisation.”
• “The MADE in Insight model was developed to help my Insight managers at Barclays appreciate the four broad categories of our eco-system: the market environment, consumer choices, customer behaviours and financial outcomes, and to encourage analysts and researchers to map from the market to the money every time they were engaged in a new piece of work.”
• “So here’s an interesting question… is it really MADE or EDAM... Where should we start? We can actually start at either end, depending on the nature of the business issue we are looking at.”

This is episode 5 of the Transforming Insight podcast. 

If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team and the role it plays in your organisation, please tune in to future episodes. Not only will we explore the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams as outlined in the Transforming Insight book, but we will 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 please hit subscribe - and thank you for listening. 

About James Wycherley, the author of Transforming Insight

James Wycherley was Director of Customer Insight and Analytics at Barclays from 2005 to 2015 when he became Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy (IMA). A popular keynote speaker and acknowledged expert on Insight leadership, strategy, and communication, he is the author of the book Transforming Insight: the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams, and over 35 IMA publications. He has provided thought leadership in the UK, Western Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, India, and the Middle East. Over the last five years, over 20,000 Insight professionals worldwide have received his 5 Minute Insight emails.

Resources:

If you would like more information on any of the ideas discussed in this episode of the Transforming Insight podcast, please visit www.insight-management.org

Copies of James Wycherley’s book Transforming Insight: the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams can be purchased directly from www.transforming-insight.com

Disclaimer

The Transforming Insight podcast is published by the Insight Management Academy and produced by Zorbiant.

All rights reserved