Episodes

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.