Episodes

Welcome to Season 7 of the Transforming Insight podcast! Episode 48 is going to begin where we left off with our focus on the positioning of Insight teams – the relentless focus that successful teams have on their position in the hearts, minds and decision-making processes of their organisations.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve explored the first three pathways that successful Insight teams have taken to improve their position in the hearts, minds and decision-making processes of their companies. We’ve called these brand, awareness and reputation, and each involves looking at our Insight team and the messages that it communicates to the rest of the organisation, either intentionally or unintentionally. Do these messages align to consistently improve its position?

Episode 50 of the IMA's Transforming Insight podcast is now available. In this extended episode, James talks to Carolina Otero, Head of the Insight Function at Nestle UK. Carolina is one of our few podcast guests whose journey into Insight was not an accident, but a conscious choice. Bringing us on a journey through her career, from Argentina to the UK, Carolina has seen both agency and client-side roles working with a list of enviable brands and companies. Understanding the value in her learnings from previous roles, Carolina shares her experience of a total reset and redefinition of Insight at Nestle UK. Carolina was a driving for transformation, building a new foundation for the Insight team. Carolina shares her playbook on empowering teams, highlighting the importance of helping each team member contribute to and feel part of the collective growth, ultimately achieving a team that is greater than the sum of its parts. We examine the shift from technical expertise to skill…

What does it mean to be commercial? Is it about having passed your accountancy exams? Or perhaps having the ability to sell used cars? Or being experienced in leading Sales teams? Perhaps it’s about having the unshakeable inner confidence that if you were in the boardroom on The Apprentice TV show, you would be hired, not fired?

In our last episode, we started to talk about money. Insight commerciality is the IMA’s 8th best practice territory and the one where our capability benchmarking shows there is the most development to do for many Insight teams. No organisation can expect sustainable financial success unless it develops and leverages an expert understanding of its own operational performance, its customers’ behaviour, and the financial outcome of customers’ interaction with the organisation. This is very unlikely to happen in a large company if the Insight function doesn’t recognise that its work is integral to commercial success. And that applies in the public and not-for-profit sectors as well.

Episode 53 of the IMA's Transforming Insight podcast is now available. In this extended episode, James chats with Caroline van den Bos, Insight and Client Experience Director at Lloyd’s Register. Caroline shares her unique path from studying history to becoming a prominent leader in corporate insight. She reflects on how her background in history equipped her with essential research and strategic thinking skills. Caroline also discusses her transition from marketing to insight, her impactful tenure at MBNA, and as Chief of Staff at Bank of America. She highlights the crucial role of Lloyd's Register in the maritime industry and her current efforts to enhance commercial and strategic decision-making while driving client-centric transformation.

It’s episode 54, the last of season 7, and our Summer roundtable. As usual, James is joined by Lisa Dutton, the IMA’s Head of Team Development, and Emma Jones, Head of Insight and Content, to review the latest best practice research and hot topics of conversation. In this episode we talk about the importance of managing the relationships we have with an Insight team’s external partners and suppliers in a more strategic way; about the need to review our own team’s ‘product range’; and the critical role of project prioritisation.

The Transforming Insight podcast is back this week! Our 55th episode, the first of Season 8, and it's called the Value of valuation. Back in episode 52, we explored the importance of Insight teams building a commercial foundation for their work. We said we should begin by assembling 'core stats', then develop a 'business blueprint', overlay key insights about customer behaviour and its effect on revenue and costs, and summarise our knowledge with an executive presentation. Where do we go next if we want to optimise the impact of our work?

Episode 56 of the IMA's Transforming Insight podcast is now available. In this extended episode, James along with co-host Roy Hammond chat with Laura Roberts, Head of Brand and Marketing Insights at Google EMEA. Laura takes us on her career journey from music marketing to her impactful role at Google, emphasizing the blend of qualitative insights with quantitative data. This riveting conversation reveals how Google's insight teams operate in an agency-like setting, turning vast amounts of data into actionable strategies while maintaining stringent data usage controls.

In our last episode, we talked to Laura Roberts, Head of Brand and Marketing Insight (EMEA) about her work to transform Insight at Google, and the ways her team are adopting AI. This week, it’s back to our focus on Insight commerciality.

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 operate, they’re a discretionary part. And that means we can always estimate the incremental value of including them.

Episode 59 of the IMA's Transforming Insight podcast is now available. In this extended episode, James chats with Fainareti Schortsaniti, Head of Consumer Insights at McDonald’s. Fainareti’s story begins with an unplanned entry into research, but it quickly grows into a passion for shaping business decisions at one of the world's most iconic brands. Fainareti offers a glimpse into her responsibilities, from consumer research to product development testing, all aimed at keeping the customer at the heart of McDonald's strategy. She candidly discusses the challenges of navigating a company where everyone seems to have an opinion, and champions the power of evidence-based insights.

James Wycherley began the Transforming Insight book with the words “this is the best time ever to work in a corporate Insight team.” In early 2020, it seemed that a combination of better data, an enhanced understanding of consumer psychology, and an increasing appetite from senior management had presented Insight teams with a greater opportunity than ever before.

If you lead, or aspire to lead, a corporate Insight team, you have one of the best jobs in the world. I’m serious! Think about your organisation in its market and the benefits it provides to its customers. Then think how much better its products and services could be, and how many more customers it could serve.

James starts with a confession. He hadn’t ever intended to record this episode of the podcast! He’d mapped out season 9 before Christmas, agreed the outline with the IMA team, then, on the first working day of the year, he changed his mind and decided to record this extra, bonus episode. And it gives him the opportunity to share a personal story, and introduce a framework for managing change.

In episode 61, James described the wonderful opportunity for anyone who leads, or aspires to lead, a corporate Insight team. He also acknowledged a central challenge, that it’s a lot easier in principle than in practice to work on our Insight teams as well as in them. And he made a suggestion: that documenting and developing our ideas in a structured way could help us to transform Insight and its impact in our organisation. Our own Insight leader’s playbook.

This episode expands on the 1st P of the 9 Ps in the Insight leader’s playbook – Purpose. Can Insight teams truly drive business growth or Insight team transformation without a clearly defined purpose? Join us on this episode of the Transforming Insight podcast as James and his guests explore the pivotal role of defining the purpose of Insight teams in building an insight-driven organisation. We're excited to welcome Sandra Kampmann and Amanda Wiginton, IMA associates who share their experiences and expertise.

In our podcasts this season, we’ve introduced the idea of the Insight leader’s playbook, and James has recommended it as a tool for helping all corporate Insight leaders and aspiring leaders who want to transform their teams impact this year. In our last two episodes we’ve focused on the first of 9Ps in our playbook framework – P for Purpose. Today we’re going to move onto the 2nd P – P for Profile. Why profile? Well, if we’re writing a playbook I think we should always start with a view of why our Insight team exists, and describe an amazing ambition for what it might achieve; but we then have to recognise that it’s how the rest of the organisation sees us that will largely determine whether we succeed or not. Hence the focus on our Insight team’s profile

In our podcasts this season, we’ve introduced the idea of the Insight leader’s playbook, and James has recommended it as a tool for helping all corporate Insight leaders and aspiring leaders who want to transform their teams' impact this year. In the previous episode, we focused on the second P of the 9Ps playbook framework. Today, we’re going to continue our discussion on the 2nd P – P for Profile.

In this week’s episode of the Transforming Insight podcast we’re going to focus on the 3rd P of the Insight leader’s playbook – P for People. Since the Insight forums began in 2005, how we recruit, develop and support the analysts, researchers and Insight managers in our teams is the topic we have discussed more than any other.

In our Transforming Insight podcast this season, we’ve introduced the idea of the Insight leader’s playbook, and James has recommended it as a tool for helping all corporate Insight leaders and aspiring leaders who want to transform their teams' impact this year. In the previous episode, we focused on the on the 3rd P of the Insight leader’s playbook – P for People – and today we’re going to continue this theme, but focus on a very particular aspect of it.

It’s episode 69, the last one in season 9, and it’s time to review the topics that we’ve discussed with Insight leaders at our forums and in 121s this term. Which questions have been asked most often, which new ideas have resonated with IMA members and guests at the Insight forums?

It’s episode 70, the first of season 10, and we’re going back to the Insight Leader’s Playbook. Having looked at the importance of working on Insight’s purpose, profile and people in season 9, we’re now going to explore why we all need a plan for building better partnerships with the internal departments and external companies on whom we rely.

Welcome to episode 71, the second of season 10, and we’re continuing our focus on the 4th P of the Insight Leader’s Playbook – P for partnerships. James is joined by two fabulous guests: • Ruth Hinton, Insight leader at Vue Cinemas and also Chair of AURA, the UK-based volunteer-led organisation, that was originally the Association of Users of Research Agencies • James Endersby, CEO of international Insight agency, Opinium, founder of Significant Insights, and current president of the Market Research Society (MRS)