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    james wycherley

    Explore " james wycherley" with insightful episodes like "Episode 22: Transforming Insight at Sainsbury's", "Episode 21: Driving change through communication", "Episode 20: Nudging decision-makers", "Episode 19: Influencing for introverts" and "Episode 18: Transforming Insight at Card Factory" from podcasts like ""Transforming Insight Podcast", "Transforming Insight Podcast", "Transforming Insight Podcast", "Transforming Insight Podcast" and "Transforming Insight Podcast"" and more!

    Episodes (44)

    Episode 22: Transforming Insight at Sainsbury's

    Episode 22: Transforming Insight at Sainsbury's

    This breadth of experience strengthened her ability to look at things more holistically, rather than looking at Insight in an organisation through one lens. It gave her the ability to join it all up in a powerful way, to be an important voice in organisations.

    Throughout her career, Liz has cleverly used Insight and data analysis in a multitude of ways to achieve success at Disney, PepsiCo, Birds Eye, Nestle and Sainsbury’s. 

    With her current role at Sainsbury’s, we hear about Liz’s goals for her Insight team going forward.

    Topics Discussed

    • A look back at Liz’s past roles (1:10)
    • The influence her early move into category management had on her view of Insight (6:27)
    • Combining functional knowledge with commercial context and business needs (11:11)
    • Being creative about how you get to the Insight (14:42)
    • What “good looks like” at different organisations (20:23)
    • Driving Insight at Sainsbury’s to have the right impact (23:54)

    Highlights

    • “That brought a different dimension to using data analysis, pushing it more into the commercial aspects of how you use insight and storytelling to drive solutions and opportunities for retailers and distributors.”
    • “We didn't have a huge amount of free-flowing cash to spend, but it forced you to be a bit more creative about how you got to the Insight to guide the business.”
    • “Often you have the answers because of all of the wealth of what has come before. And therefore, you can make a very educated decision of what you know, rather than needing to spend more money and commissioning more research.”
    • “The power comes from how we join the dots between all of the different aspects of what we know. We talk about having a hive mentality.”
    • “Don't be impatient. Once you've got the vision and the organization is bought in to what you're trying to do. You can start small, you can get some quick wins, you can pilot some things. But I think the transformation will not come overnight, because it is that cultural change of driving much more of an insight led philosophy through an organisation.”

    This is episode 22 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 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

    Episode 21: Driving change through communication

    Episode 21: Driving change through communication

    For the most successful Insight teams, that includes a proper communication programme; an ability to shape and share stories; and an awareness of visual communication techniques to really make an impact and leave an impression.

    So, throughout season 3 of our podcast, we hope to inspire Insight leaders to take communication far more seriously, and introduce frameworks that can help our team members to develop key skills. 

    Please listen to find out more!

    Topics Discussed

    • Does your organisation aspire to be truly customer-centric? (2.20)
    • We should stop thinking like Insight leaders (4.09)
    • Is Insight communication getting better? (8.09)
    • How do we spend our time and energy? (9.30)
    • Let’s move the goalposts (11.15)

    Highlights

    • “The way we share our knowledge is at least as important as the insights themselves. As members of the IMA’s Insight forum recognised many years ago, a great insight badly communicated will sink without trace, but a reasonable insight, brilliantly communicated, will spread like wildfire throughout your organisation.”
    • “If we are to share our knowledge and ideas more effectively, perhaps we need to forget that it’s usually our day job to run research projects and manage teams of analysts. We should stop thinking like Insight leaders altogether and think like the IMA’s six characters of Insight communication.” 
    • “There are now some brilliant pieces of Insight communication being produced, but there’s still plenty of rubbish as well. Slides that have no message, charts cluttered with lines and data points, verbose reports written like technical, scientific papers rather than compelling calls to action. It’s the frequency and consistency with which our teams adopt best practice that determines how successful they are.”

    This is episode 21 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 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

    Episode 20: Nudging decision-makers

    Episode 20: Nudging decision-makers

    An understanding of behavioural biases is critical for anyone who runs market research projects; you’ll know that there’s always been a gap between what consumers claim is important, and what they actually do when you can observe their behaviour. 

    But the IMA believes that our corporate Insight teams need to pay just as much attention to understanding senior stakeholders as they do to understanding the company’s end customers. 

    If we don’t know how corporate decisions are taken in our own head office, we stand little chance of influencing those decisions. And if we don’t influence those decisions, there was no point in doing any analysis or research on consumers in the first place. 

    So how can Insight teams use an understanding of behavioural biases to nudge decision-makers? Please listen to find out more!

    Topics Discussed

    • The trouble with market research (4.02)
    • The connection to corporate decision-making (5.38)
    • Do we all need to be experts on behavioural biases? (7.43)
    • Making the use of Insight socially acceptable (11.18)
    • Embracing behavioural economics (12.56)

    Highlights

    • “As David Ogilvy is reported to have said, ‘The trouble with market research is that people don’t think what they feel, they don’t say what they think, and they don’t do what they say’
    • “A knowledge of behavioural biases can be just as useful to Insight teams who want to influence their stakeholders as to those who want to learn more about the drivers of consumer choice. It can help us to develop a list of handy tactics which we can use, almost irrespective of how well we know the decision-makers concerned. 
    • “The UK Nudge Unit have used the EAST framework to categorise behavioural biases, but there is a lot of merit in keeping things simple to start with and just using the four EAST factors themselves. If we want Insight to be influential, we have to make adopting our ideas Easy, Attractive, Socially acceptable and Timely.”

    This is episode 20 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

    Episode 19: Influencing for introverts

    Episode 19: Influencing for introverts

    Several years ago, the IMA’s Julia Joskey looked at ways we could all harness the power of our introverts. More recently, at the November 2022 Insight forums, Lisa Dutton explored the broader but related topic of managing Insight people in a post-pandemic world.

    In this episode we draw from both pieces of research - please listen to find out more!

    Topics Discussed

    • The mix of introverts and extroverts in Insight teams (1.58)
    • Corporate life isn’t easy for introverts (3.28)
    • How do we square these issue with the demands of influencing stakeholders? (5.30)
    • Varying attitudes to in person and online events (8.27)
    • The roles which effective leaders are playing in a post-pandemic world (10.51)

    Highlights

    • “Psychologists think that about one in three of the population are more introvert than extrovert, and informal surveys and discussions at the IMA’s Insight forums suggest that it’s probably a far higher proportion of Insight specialists.”
    • “Corporate life isn’t always very comfortable for introverts. The problem is not us; the problem is that many of the working practices that have developed in our offices over the last few decades implicitly favour extroverts over introverts.”
    • “A noticeable issue in recent months has been the varying degree to which leaders have grabbed the chance to come back to face-to-face forums or still prefer to sign up for online events; and another, the social awkwardness we sometimes see in more junior team members who have often joined their organisation during the lockdowns.”

    This is episode 19 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

    Episode 18: Transforming Insight at Card Factory

    Episode 18: Transforming Insight at Card Factory

    Liz talks about the transformation she’s been on throughout her career and how she takes her learnings and “Blueprint” for what a successful Insight team looks like with her to each new role.  

    Liz tells us about finding her dream role at Card Factory that challenges her, has a culture that aligns with her values, and gives her a work-life balance and the ability to control her own destiny.

    We hear about the transformation Liz is striving to bring about at Card Factory, just as she has with her other roles in Insight teams.

    Topics Discussed

    • A look back at Liz’s career in Insight (1:18)
    • The triangulation of data, research, and commercial finance figures. (6:00)
    • Speaking the language of the business to get traction with the Insight (15:57)
    • Her current role at Card Factory and how it ticks all her boxes. (20:00)
    • The challenge of a blank sheet of paper (22:05)
    • Collaboration and the Power of 3 (27:35)

    Highlights

    • “It was a time when things were being triangulated. Data was coming together with research and coming together with some of the commercial finance figures. It was brilliant to see that side of bringing pieces of the jigsaw together.” (6:00)
    • “It is the commercial understanding, but it’s also applying the customer lens to that. You’ve got the pricing analytics of course, but how can we ensure that we are investing in the right areas, giving the customers the prices that they want and need, whilst still making money.” (13:48)
    • “You’ve got to speak the language of the business, there’s no two ways about it. I think it’s the only way that you get the traction with the Insight.” (15:57)
    • “There was no foundational knowledge. There was no real sense of customer. Data analysis happened in pockets but didn’t come together as a whole. First job: establish what we do have, what that’s telling us, and where are the gaps.” (23:00)
    • “Talk to your stakeholders. Get an understanding of what’s important to them, where the business is going and how can you help achieve that ambition. With that foundational knowledge that you’ve got, you’ve also got the piece that says ‘does that reflect of what we’re seeing from a customer point of view? What do we need to deliver to the customer? Where are some of those gaps? Do those two things align?’” (26:23)

    This is episode 18 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

    Episode 17: Improving stakeholder relationships

    Episode 17: Improving stakeholder relationships

    So how do the most successful corporate Insight teams improve their relationships with stakeholders? Please listen to this week’s podcast to find out!

    Topics Discussed

    • A more personal challenge for our colleagues (1.41)
    • Learning from the Trusted Adviser book (5.47)
    • Where do Insight professionals have natural strengths? (7.11)
    • The need to take a few risks (10.20)
    • Are we sometimes too defensive? (11.30)

    Highlights

    • “The perfect advisers are people we like and who we also think are more knowledgeable than us on the subject in question. Our opinions are often shaped by theirs without us even realising it. In the language of behavioural science, we all constantly buy the messenger, not the message.”
    • “The way that influence operates in the workplace has far more in common with the way it works in our personal lives than we often assume. People buy from people just as much between 9am and 5pm Monday to Friday as they do in their home life at the weekends.”
    • “As knowledge workers, it should be relatively straightforward for us to find ways of demonstrating our credibility, but the key question is whether we can demonstrate an ability to translate our technical competence into customer and market understanding that helps to solve business problems.”

    This is episode 17 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

    Episode 16: Seek first to understand

    Episode 16: Seek first to understand

    In this episode, James is joined by Lisa Dutton, Senior Adviser at the IMA, and an expert on influencing skills.

    Lisa provides her top tips for choosing which stakeholders we should influence, understanding what it feels like to do their role, and the importance of understanding individuals’ communication preferences.

    Please listen to our podcast if you have the ambition to transform your Insight team!

    Topics Discussed

    • Taking time out to think about our internal audience (2.17)
    • Are our communication preferences the same as theirs? (4.13)
    • A question of translation (5.32)
    • Choosing who we should influence (7.27)
    • Having empathy and not being intimidated (9.50)

    Highlights

    • “Just like a company needs to understand its external customers if it’s going to influence their behaviour, so our Insight teams need to understand our internal customers if we’re going to influence their decisions.”
    • “There are often pronounced differences between analysts and researchers within teams, and between both these groups and the marketing teams and wider organisations in which they work. All these types have strengths and weaknesses, and they tend to be compounded when the departments in which we work have a structural bias towards people who are quite like us.”
    • “We need to be very deliberate when we think about who we would like to influence, and once we have got those people in mind, it’s then about understanding what it’s like to be in their world.”
    • “We can be guilty of seeing ourselves as service providers and being quite intimidated by our stakeholders.”

    This is episode 16 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

    Episode 15: Driving change through influence

    Episode 15: Driving change through influence

    An Insight team needs to solve problems and identify value opportunities for its company, but then it also needs to drive the corporate changes necessary to profit from those opportunities.

    So how do the most successful corporate Insight teams influence decision-makers? Please listen to our podcast if you have the ambition to transform your Insight team!

    Topics Discussed

    • Sharing knowledge is as important as generating it (1.41)
    • Pareto’s law applies to corporate decision-making (3.10)
    • Seek first to understand (5.16)
    • The benchmarking data on influence (8.27)
    • The challenges of influencing remotely (9.31)

    Highlights

    • “In a big organisation, a great insight, poorly communicated will sink without trace, whilst a reasonable insight, shared brilliantly, that can spread like wildfire.”
    • “Market researchers and customer analysts tend to be recruited, developed and promoted for their research and analysis skills, and too little focus has historically been placed on our colleagues’ ability to drive change.”
    • “We need to recognise that Pareto’s law applies to corporate decision-making, just like it applies to many aspects of business life. 80% of big decisions will be taken by the top 20% of senior executives, or maybe just the top 10%, or even 5%! so we all need to give a disproportionate amount of our attention to influencing that senior group of managers.”
    • “On balance, whilst I recognise that remote working has undoubtedly added to the size of the problem for some teams, I think that the fact that there is now clearly no alternative but to have an explicit plan in place for how we are going to influence, can only be a good thing.”

    This is episode 15 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

    Episode 14: Transforming Insight at Carnival

    Episode 14: Transforming Insight at Carnival

    In this episode, Jan describes what it was like to lead an Insight team at an organisation that had to close its global operation during the pandemic, and how, despite the tragedy, he managed to seize the opportunity to make Insight ‘the lead huskey’.

    Please listen to our podcast if you have the ambition to transform your Insight team!

    Topics Discussed

    • The importance of being yourself (4.45)
    • The varied world of cruises (7.30)
    • The Carnival Insight team and its journey (10.23)
    • Working in Insight when the world stopped (14.03)
    • The need for continuous development (20.03)

    Highlights

    • “We can see [the pandemic] as a huge opportunity here. With all the things that we've got sat there ready to go, this is the time we can see what the business needs, that maybe it hasn't realised yet. We should be turning all these residual contracted tools we have at our disposal to really help the business navigate this pandemic and work out what we can do.”
    • “This idea of “Lead Husky” - the Insight leading the business. Going into the fresh snow, no one wants to be this sort of husky in the back. You want to be the husky at the front, really plowing through the fresh snow, working out what, and where, the opportunities are.”
    • “So much of the past data ceased to be relevant for the data science models. But by joining together the strengths of the different sides of the Insight function, you could really put Insight in a far better place in your business, and a better place to understand what might happen next.”
    • “If you can embed things like always taking time to join the dots at the end of the project. Think: Which are the stakeholders that could do with hearing this story? How does this new finding relate to things that we've seen in the past? How is it contradicting it? These are the times when more interesting things emerge, aren't they? But you need to build in time for that."

    This is episode 14 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 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

    Episode 13: Developing Knowledge Systems

    Episode 13: Developing Knowledge Systems

    The smartest systems are no replacement for developing an acute understanding of Insight’s purpose and role in your company; acting as consultants to nail and map key business issues; approaching Insight investigations like forensic detectives, and farming insight to cultivate knowledge.  

    Systems are a means to an end, and in this episode, we consider some top tips for developing them.

    Please listen to our podcast if you have the ambition to transform your Insight team!

    Topics Discussed

    • Systems are a means to an end (1.42)
    • Systems do not have to be sophisticated (3.00)
    • Start with the Insight team’s own needs first (4.55)
    • Only 10% of Insight teams have effective knowledge systems (9.33)
    • Roy Hammond’s top tips (10.52)

    Highlights

    • “Insight knowledge systems do not have to be very sophisticated. If you were tempted to skip this episode because your company isn’t going to give you several $100k to build or buy the system you saw demonstrated at a research conference last week, don’t worry.”
    • “I would always start with the Insight team’s own needs first; no matter how many brand managers and marketing executives sign up for email alerts or browse your latest reports looking for inspiration, it is nearly always the Insight team itself that will be the most frequent user of any knowledge system you develop.”
    • “Many knowledge management systems work at a project level; they are effectively systems for recording and retrieving lists of projects that have been carried out. That’s OK in itself, but if you want to provide opinions based on accumulated insight, you will need a system that allows the recording and retrieval of insight, not just insights.”
    • “If you’ve been to an Insight or research conference recently and come away wowed by an unbelievably impressive presentation about a system used for recording insights and developing a knowledge base, it’s worth bearing in mind that such examples are in a small minority.”

    This is episode 13 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 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                                                                   

    Episode 12: Cultivating Knowledge

    Episode 12: Cultivating Knowledge

    In this episode, James is joined by Emma Jones, Senior Insight Manager at the IMA, and an expert on Insight farming.

    Emma provides her top tips for Insight teams who want to develop as knowledge farmers and create a knowledge-sharing culture.

    Please listen to our podcast if you have the ambition to transform your Insight team!

    Topics Discussed

    • Compiling a greatest hits presentation (1.34)
    • The heart of the knowledge cultivation process (3.10)
    • The Insight farming mindset (5.25)
    • Examples from successful Insight teams (8.50)
    • The importance of discussing insights (11.38)

    Highlights

    • “Stage 1 may be as simple as listing the key findings from all the best pieces of work your Insight team has done in the last year. If you have a 1-page summary, or a killer slide, for each of these pieces, you can simply stitch them together to form a ‘greatest hits’ compilation.”
    • “Another critical aspect of knowledge cultivation is conversation between Insight professionals. If you have team meetings where all you ever do is report on project progress, you are wasting a wonderful opportunity to develop knowledge and collective understanding.”
    • “I’d emphasise that creating effective insight is an on-going process, with every insight project providing context for the next one. Reviewing what we know and prioritising it by relative importance can be a really effective way of building a robust and joined-up knowledge base. In turn, that places our teams in a much stronger position to influence and drive key business decisions.”
    • “What I love to see Insight teams introduce is a ‘knowledge-sharing culture’ - a set of unwritten guidelines that promotes sharing knowledge, experiences and insights - all of which can be fundamental to a team’s collective knowledge, intelligence and abilities. It enables people to continue growing both personally and professionally.”

    This is episode 12 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, 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 fromwww.transforming-insight.com

    Disclaimer

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

    All rights reserved

    Episode 11: Sowing the seeds

    Episode 11: Sowing the seeds

    In this 16-minute episode, we’ll begin with Sowing the seeds – crystallizing and recording our findings.

    Topics Discussed

    • The practical steps to take (2.25)
    • Who should do the work? (5.41)
    • The Insight manager skillset (6.52)
    • Taking your time (9.23)
    • The need for effective processes (10.58)

    Highlights

    • “Insight farming appeals to many on a cultural level, as well as offering obvious cost savings by cutting out project duplication.”
    • “In a perfect world I would like to believe that everyone in an Insight team should take part; the distillation, crystallisation, and recording forming an integral part of each project. However, there are two problems with this: time and talent.”
    • “It’s particularly important to identify contradictions between the outputs from related pieces. Contradictions don’t necessarily mean that either piece of work was wrong – they may just reflect different data sources or different moments in time – but identifying contradictions is key to deciding whether the big picture that has emerged from a range of previous pieces is now out of date, or whether a more nuanced view is now appropriate.”
    • “If recording insights and joining the dots is everyone’s second most important task, then it tends to get pushed to the very end of the week by the more urgent task of hunting for new insights.”

    This is episode 11 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 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.

    Episode 10: The evolution to Insight farming

    Episode 10: The evolution to Insight farming

    We need to move away from a world where we spend all our days hunting for new insights, because wise Insight teams know that Insight farming is more valuable to their organisations and more sustainable for the team itself. 

    Topics Discussed

    • Do senior people care about individual insights? (1.52)
    • What sets the most effective teams apart? (3.58)
    • Cutting out duplication and responding in an agile way (6.25)
    • Farming is more valuable (9.34)
    • The importance of process (11.40)

    Highlights

    • “Insight projects tend to be planned bottom-up: we look back on our work each year and see a collection of projects undertaken to support different decisions made by different stakeholders, not one comprehensive piece of work to which the individual pieces of research and analysis have contributed.”
    • “The vast majority of our Insight specialists’ time is spent working on new investigations, so when senior people ask us to explain the big picture, we often have to think on our feet, and there’s every chance that our colleagues would come up with a different answer.”
    • “Putting all our focus into new projects means that we never have time to reflect on all the things that we already know, make connections we hadn’t spotted, investigate contradictions, and come up with a comprehensive view of our customers, our markets, and our organisations.”
    • “Just like real farming, Insight farming requires patience, hard work, the ability to change Insight professionals’ ways of working and then stick to a plan. Effecting this sort of behaviour change in our teams is not easy, which is probably why the IMA’s benchmarking scores reveal that most Insight leaders consider their teams to be considerably better at generating new insights than at cultivating and harvesting accumulated insight.”

    This is episode 10 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. 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 visitwww.insight-management.org

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

    Disclaimer

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

    All rights reserved

    Episode 9: Insight investigations

    Episode 9: Insight investigations

    What happens next in an Insight project will depend on the question you have identified and the sources of information and data collection available to you. However, effective Insight teams tend to adopt a common mindset regardless of whether they are data analysts or market researchers. It’s the mindset of the detective. 

    Topics Discussed

    • The importance of hypotheses? (1.54)
    • Joining up across multiple sources (4.32)
    • The requirement to form opinions (7.27)
    • Technical skills are critical but not transformative (9.34)
    • The iterative nature of Insight investigations (11.24)


    Highlights

    • “Insight teams tend to adopt a common mindset regardless of whether they are data analysts or market researchers. It’s the mindset of the detective.”
    • “We need to spend as long trying to disprove our hypotheses as we do trying to validate them. But we are still better off starting with hypotheses and adapting them to the data as we go along than starting with a blank sheet of paper and hoping for a Eureka! moment.”
    • “There is a classic trade-off between wanting to drill into more and more of the detail supported by our favourite data source and remembering that Insight projects have to address the overall business issue.”
    • “Technical skills are really important for Insight teams, and developing great analytic skills or keeping up with the latest research methodologies is a requirement for all Insight teams. But it’s a hygiene requirement; in itself it’s not going to transform the performance of your Insight team, that happens when we change our mindset and reframe the way we define our roles.”

     

    This is episode 9 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 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

    Episode 8: Transforming Insight at Halfords

    Episode 8: Transforming Insight at Halfords

    The really important questions when you join any company are ‘How does this organisation make money?’, ‘What are its drivers of success?’ and ‘Who makes the key decisions?’

    Debra has enjoyed a career spanning market research agencies and big brands, but she thinks she is happiest working in corporate Insight.

    She has worked for Safeway, Homebase, British Airways, British Gas and Saga before her current role at retailer Halfords, and in this conversation she reflects on the different cultures and circumstances she has experienced and the common questions that she has found to be key.

    Key topics discussed in this episode

    • Debra’s career path from agencies to large brands
    • The key questions to ask and the importance of frameworks
    • Adapting to the culture of different organisations
    • Building relationships with busy stakeholders
    • Data journalism and the importance of the Rule of Three in communication
    • Building customer instinct with the drumbeat of customer knowledge

    If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team, please listen to our podcast!

    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 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

    Episode 7: Nailing the real business issue

    Episode 7: Nailing the real business issue

    Einstein said that if he had an hour to solve a problem, he would spend fifty-five minutes thinking about the underlying problem and five minutes thinking about the solution to it so in this episode we consider how Insight teams can act like consultants to nail the underlying business issue, and in a subsequent episode we’ll look at how we should investigate it.


    Topics Discussed

    • How can we generate better insights? (2.10)
    • Reflecting on the context for the question being asked (3.59)
    • Engaging business decision-makers (4.28)
    • Diagnosing like a doctor or a management consultant (5.15)
    • Adopting the SCQAB model at Barclays (9.12)

    Highlights

    • “It should be perfectly possible for intelligent people to draw commercially useful conclusions and recommendations from data and observations without the need for magic spells.”
    • “Most Insight projects fail because they start in the wrong place.”
    • “We cannot generate insights in a vacuum, we need to speak to business decision-makers. The stakeholder who asked us for the new research might have a clever plan for how they are going to use the new data to help them to solve a problem. Or they might be passing along a request from their boss, which has probably gone to other departments as well, sowing the seed for contradictory data and a confused strategy. I’ll let you decide which is more likely in your company!”

    This is episode 7 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. 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 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

    Episode 6: Making up the numbers

    Episode 6: Making up the numbers

    Does the idea of making up the numbers fill you with horror? 

    It shouldn’t… making up the numbers, in other words becoming comfortable with estimation techniques and focusing on accuracy rather than precision, is actually a critical skill for everyone in Insight. It supports agile decision-making, forces you to explain your assumptions, and facilitates constructive conversations with others who are trying to solve business problems.

    Topics Discussed

    • The difference between accuracy and precision (3.23)
    • Back of an envelope intelligent guesswork (4.47)
    • How to handle big numbers (6.27)
    • A technique to help our mental maths (7.48)
    • How many Insight directors do you need to size the toothpaste market? (10.05)

    Highlights

    • “To support agile decision-making, our senior stakeholders often need answers fast, even if it’s just ‘something to work with’. So, for every decision, a trade-off needs to be made between insights based on perfect data and agile decisions. This middle ground is where the most workable solutions are found.”
    • “In many instances, an accurate range of outcomes is far more useful in Insight than a precise number that will almost certainly never be right and might well give a false impression of confidence.”
    • “This bit might surprise you, but we actually want our stakeholders to challenge our assumption. This is because our stakeholders may be in a better position to supply an accurate figure, but also because being transparent about our assumptions helps us to work collaboratively with others and get to better answers.”
    • “What I hope becomes clear from a very simple example like this, is that even if we have no prior knowledge of a topic, we can arrive at a perfectly reasonable estimate if we use Facts, Assumptions and Logic.”

    This is episode 6 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

    Episode 5: From the market to the money

    Episode 5: From the market to the money

    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

    Episode 4: Transforming Insight at ASOS

    Episode 4: Transforming Insight at ASOS

    Sandra talks candidly about the challenges she faces and the lessons Insight teams can learn from Finance, and she also recommends a book that has changed her working life.

    Topics Discussed

    • Insight and Analytics at ASOS (1.45)
    • Creating a joined-up Insight team (5.45)
    • Sandra’s day job and diary (10.02)
    • The book that changed Sandra’s working life (15.15)
    • An Insight team creating value for the business (23.59)

    Highlights

    • “I understood what Insight was and I also understood the value, but within the limitation of doing it within a finance function. We looked at transactional data, we were always focused on customer profit and customer value. Knowing what I know now, looking after a broader team, we weren’t looking at web analytics or other customer behaviour, everything was always in the confines of financial numbers.”
    • “In a Finance function, you are very much at the forefront of the decision-making at ASOS. The value of the work Insight was doing was very visible to me because it would always inform new business initiatives.“
    • “We are fast-growing, and things are changing all the time…When I took over, ASOS was going through a painful growth phase, and we really needed to look at our organisation. Unfortunately for me, I was tasked with looking at some cost-efficiencies for the team. It was a tough decision, but one that I needed to take.”
    • “It requires me to work across the breadth of the organisation. ASOS has very big growth ambitions and lots of strategic transformation initiatives. It’s not just organising my own time, but getting that time from busy people, which requires a lot of planning.”

    This is Episode 4 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 practices 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, Chief Executive, IMA and 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

    Episode 3: The purpose of Insight

    Episode 3: The purpose of Insight

    Insight is an expensive business so we have a collective responsibility to make sure that our organisations are getting the best possible return on their investment, otherwise there’s a good chance that those resources would be better deployed elsewhere. 

    The 2nd secret of successful Insight teams is that they recognise an underlying purpose: to identify value for their organisations and to drive change within them.

    Topics Discussed

    • What can we learn from the IMA’s Insight capability benchmarking? (1.03)
    • From service functions to proactive business drivers (2.45)
    • The four key activities for Insight teams (3.54)
    • We shouldn’t just work at the task level (5.48)
    • We’re all too busy working on other things (7.47)

    This is Episode 3 of the Transforming Insight podcast which will outline the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams. In this episode James Wycherley, Chief Executive of the IMA and author of the Transforming Insight book, explores the underlying purpose of an Insight team.

    Highlights

    • “Insight is an expensive business. It costs a lot of money to acquire data, to manage it, to analyse it, to buy market research from agencies, to employ people with analytical or research skills...So, like every corporate department, we have a collective responsibility to make sure that our organisations are getting the best possible return on their investment, otherwise there’s a good chance that those resources would be better deployed elsewhere.
    • “We should also study our own organisations with the same focus we bring to studying our customers and our market. Why?  Sometimes we know exactly who these people are, and we can try to develop close working relationships with them. “
    • “The most successful Insight teams share another attribute. They don’t just work at the task-level, they reflect on their underlying purpose and use this insight about themselves as a reference point and a source of inspiration.”
    • “If our teams are clear that their focus should be on identifying value and driving change, then it naturally follows that we would question a lot of the activity that we tend to get drawn into because other people have asked us to do it.”

    If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team and the role it plays in your organisation, please tune in to future editions of this Transforming Insight podcast. Not only will we explore all 42 secrets 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, Chief Executive, IMA and 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.

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