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What's In A Name?
These days, many different groups of people claim to deliver insight. Some Market Research teams have been renamed Insight teams – and so have some Data Analytics teams. And there are those involved in competitor and market intelligence (sometimes grouped together as competitive intelligence) who could claim to be Insight teams. Last but not least, numerous research agencies have adopted the term - either as part of their name, or as a description of what they deliver.
So is ‘Insight’ just another name for something that we’ve been doing for years? No, it isn’t. Although the intelligent interpretation of basic data hasn’t changed as a concept, the big difference comes from a recognition of the need to bring together lots of information from different sources. This enables the Insight team to build comprehensive pictures of what is actually happening (and what is needed) in the market.
Lessons from other business areas
A similar thing happened to ‘Personnel’, which used to be primarily about pay and recruitment. It’s now called ‘Human Resources’ and focuses more on developing the capability of the staff to deliver maximum value. (The joke used to be: “What’s the difference between Personnel and HR? About £5,000 on your salary!”)
Perhaps a more pertinent example is Information Technology. Twenty years ago, there wasn’t an IT industry. It was a ‘computing industry’, and IBM – which made and sold computers – was its biggest player. Then companies realised that they didn’t just need one computer, but several. And these needed to be connected together – not just within the building but between sites, then across the country, and then globally.
Those computers were then linked to networks of office systems, to other computers and to communication systems etc. Over the top of all of this were the applications – Oracle databases, Microsoft Office software suites, enterprise systems, CRM systems… Companies needed more than just computers – they needed a blend of technology. Today, the term ‘solutions’ encompasses pretty much everything. IBM is no longer a computing company: it’s a ‘solutions provider’. And it is by bringing together all these technologies that IT can deliver much higher strategic value to the organisation.
The point is that the change of name from computing to IT wasn’t just cosmetic. It indicated a real change. People accused Data Processing Managers of simply changing their title to make themselves more important. They now say similar things about insight. Market research, data analysis, competitive intelligence etc. are all in the position now that computing was in then. Customer Insight is like IT was then - a much abused term, often viewed as a re-simple re-badging. But it’s not: insight is a real term, and the individual elements (such as market research) are just a part of it.
Stick with it!
It took about ten years before the term ‘IT’ became fully understood and accepted. The term ‘insight’ has only been in use for five years, so we have some way to go! And there’s still debate about whether it’s the right term. But we believe we should stick with it, as it is now becoming better accepted and understood. If anyone questions it, just stress that to derive the maximum value from information (and information is power) you need to bring together information from many different sources. You can then build much larger and more comprehensive pictures of markets. And that’s insight.
