Is In-sourcing the Solution

In the current economic climate many companies in-source research and analyses. Which means that they move from having consultants plan and coordinate their collection of market data (or citizen data in the public sector) to doing more themselves. This means high growth potential for tools and systems that enable DIY-analyses and for consultancies that help enable clients and train them to take the lead themselves. It also means that research can become more deeply embedded in the organisation. This is an advantage in terms of making sure that data is put to use and made available in the organisation and also that the organisation regains ownership of their own market information.

However, these benefits will not happen by themselves. They require a deliberate effort going beyond resource management. The people inside an organisation must be able to communicate the data they collect in order for the data to develop into insights and organisational knowledge. Internal marketing is important in this respect, a company should advertise its knowledge internally in order to create employee interest and thus more market oriented behaviour.

I have come across several sub-optimal examples of in-sourcing through my work. One example is a large production company, that stopped having customer surveys done by a consultancy and instead bought an online survey-tool and hired a parttime project-employee to handle the survey. This could have been an opportunity to embed the knowledge. But what happened in this case was that after the part-time employee left, the organisation was back to square one. What was the benefit of that customer survey? Was it just measuring for measuring's sake? That company could take this experience as an opportunity to learn and have an internal strategy for using the information they collect. The more every employee know about the market a company serves the more market orientated it will become with higher employee satisfaction and higher overall profitability as a result.

How to Create Management Awareness (or show them the money)

Managing your insights in the same way you would manage your product portfolio is just good sense. The way you ask and what you gather information about can be central to how you end up running your business, so why not create a strategy for it?

Market oriented businesses are in my definition characterised by having the presence of relevant market information (content) and knowledge sharing to disseminate and learn from this (process) with the purpose of promoting long term profitable action (direction) (Sorensen, 2009).

Having processes to spread information, the right content and a direction is having an insights strategy. Companies that have this have been shown to perform better, have better new product success and have higher comparative market share (Shapiro, 1988; Slater & Narver, 1995; Slater & Narver, 1998; Gouillart & Sturdivant, 1994; Anderson et al, 2006; Anderson & Narus, 1998; Pelham & Wilson, 1996; Singh, 2004) . So talking about the role of market information in your organisation is strategic and it is central.

But with researchers saying this from 1988 and forward, why has it not happened in more businesses. Perhaps it is because information gathering has lingered in marketing departments or specialised units, where employees sometimes even have an interest in keeping the information to themselves or are so isolated from the rest of the business that they have no idea what the rest of the business needs.

From Information to Insights

Having worked in research consulting, I know that all too often data does not produce insights.
The figure depicts a knowledge hierarchy. I have adapted it from Nissen and other knowledge management researchers to include insights at the very top of the hierarchy. That's where we want to go!


But how? We all know data, dead numbers in an Excel sheet - not very actionable and very very abundant. To move data up the ladder, we need to discuss it and make it come alive in the organisation. There are, however, central barriers to this happening;

1. management awareness
2. employee interest
3. availability (in terms of both restricted access and data organisation)
4. organisational ability.

These are just the barriers, we also find drivers in the shape of variety in the types of data, we gather. We need to make sure that we are able to uncover latent needs and not just do what customers say they want right now. Doing that would could lead into situations like 'New Coke', where there was a mass of information and data on customers, but not any that could predict the massive failure of the product.

Why do Market Insights Need Managing?

Companies need market insights to become market oriented and they need to be market oriented to increase performance and basically survive. However, many companies lack an insight strategy. Even in the current crisis, it is only the resources used that are subject to strategizing not the management of insights. In the consultancy industry, I can see that many clients are increasingly in-sourcing research and analyses. But this is based on resource constraints not necessarily a strategy of drawing information and insights deeper into the organisations DNA.

This means that many companies miss out on the potential of the information, they are using substantial resources to gather.

But what is market insights and what is market orientation.

The figure illustrates how a customer-led company will lag behind or just keeping up with its customers in terms of information, products and services. The market-oriented company tries to look beyond the customers’ expressed needs. A company can look beyond expressed needs by making sure that information about the market is spread around the organisation. This makes information come to life and creates new connections that will eventually lead to insights.

Insights are esentially discoveries about the market - they are elusive and rare - but they are not miracles as good managers, we can help them on their way to produce better results for the benefit of both our customers and our businesses. This blog explore 'Insight management' and how it can help organisations.