Is it possible to calculate an Insight team’s return on investment?
Well it isn’t if you see insights as an essential part of a value chain. Every essential element of a chain has to be in place for there to be any value in the first place.
But in every organisation I know there are multiple decisions taken every month without any insights. Maybe because there’s no Insight team, or the team wasn’t consulted, or it was asked far too late in the day.
These decisions might not have been very good decisions, but they were taken, and that proves that insights are not an essential part of how companies often operate. For better or worse they’re a discretionary part.
And that means we can always estimate the incremental value of including them.
If we routinely estimate the size of the prize before we prioritise projects, and then record the value delivered by the business and others’ estimate of Insight’s contribution after they’re completed, we can elevate everyone’s appreciation of our work.
And that’s invaluable when we want to argue for more resources - or when we need to make the case for keeping those we have.
To help explore this topic, James is joined by Jane Woolley. Jane is a former Insight leader at the London Underground and BMRB International, and now a senior adviser at the IMA and our lead on Insight commercial thinking and return on investment.
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Transforming Insight podcast
The Transforming Insight podcast was launched 2 years ago and has now been downloaded 14,000 times.
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If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team and its impact in your organisation, please tune in!
We explore the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams, as summarised in the Transforming Insight book, but also talk to many of the senior Insight leaders at organisations like Carnival, Carlsberg, Card Factory, Google, Nestle and Sainsbury's who have put these ideas into practice.
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James, Lisa & Emma