One thing above all else makes a difference between insight and simple information – thinking! For Insight teams, this means looking at information and asking: “What does this mean for the organisation?” If it doesn’t have any implications, then it isn’t insight!

But one of the biggest stumbling blocks to thinking things through is simply a lack of time – or a lack of organisation. Here are three quick tips to help you: 

• Make time – Consciously stop what you are doing and make time for just thinking an issue through – even if it’s just a few minutes.
• Break time – Take a break (which will often itself lead to new ideas), or even put your thinking aside for a while (so that you can come back to it afresh later).
• Take time – Block out time in your diary specifically to think, even if you don’t know what you will think about. Bill Gates blocks out two weeks each year!

To find out more about how to set aside time to think, please click here.

DRIVEN DAVE

This is the fifth in a set of 'pen portraits' of different types of internal clients, and the issues you may need to address when working with them.

Driven Dave

Dave is General Manager of a major business unit. He is young, ambitious, totally focussed on results, and has a low boredom threshold. This can cause various problems:

• People making presentations can get flustered by his lack of interest in detail.
• He tends to suppress discussion and questions.
• Some members of the team may feel that they aren’t valued.
• He can become annoyed if presentations don’t have clear recommendations.

To handle Dave effectively, you need to anticipate any potential issues before they arise. When making presentations to him, go to the answers as quickly as possible, and leave the detail until later. Be brief, clear, and to the point. For any conclusion you are due to make, ask yourself: “What does this mean?” until you reach what really matters (nearly always money for any commercial organisation). If your presentation doesn’t lead in some way towards the organisation’s goals, Dave will give you a hard time!

To learn more about how to handle Dave’s domineering approach, click here.

Next edition - meet Amenable Amy...  

PUT YOUR STAMP ON IT! 

Insight functions, just like products and services, need to be visible, respected and credible. Anything you produce should be clearly branded. There are some important reasons for this:

• Users will then be aware of the source, and where to go for further information.
• It builds loyalty, encouraging people to go to the Insight function for customer information.
• It will help your team to get the recognition they deserve for the decisions they influence.

The key elements of branding are: naming; a logo; and a consistent style of presentation. For instance, one Customer Research Department uses a distinctive logo on all of its communications and on its intranet site. In some organisations, the sources of Insight may be separate. If so, a solution needs to be developed that will achieve the main aims of branding, but without confusing the customer.

For more information, please click here.

DEVELOPING SKILLS

Internal clients have very different needs and characteristics, and you must adapt your products and delivery channels to meet these needs. The best way of achieving this is to start carrying out a more detailed segmentation of your internal clients. There are many ways of categorising them (for instance, by authority, role, experience/skills, personal attributes, and attitudes).

Once you have chosen the method that suits your organisation, it can help you to identify the different methods of communication that might work with different groups.

There is one other important parameter to bear in mind: which internal clients are the most important to you? Most Insight teams feel that they are under-resourced, and therefore need to focus on those internal clients that really matter. Look at these first, and identify their specific characteristics and needs.

For more information, please click here.

EXPLORING THE PROCUREMENT RELATIONSHIP

Procurement has a vital role to play in any organisation. However, the effectiveness of the procurement process depends on the compatibility of the client and the agency involved. Both parties therefore need to make an honest appraisal of their relationship. Clients (especially Insight teams) should try and understand the relationship from both a buyer’s and a supplier’s viewpoint.

One useful way of doing this is to use a simple matrix approach:

• For buyers, this focuses on potential business impact versus relative cost
• For suppliers, it focuses on the attractiveness of the account versus its relative value

Each matrix divides the potential relationship into four quadrants. The most successful relationships come from clients and agencies that would place each other in the same relative quadrant of the matrix. For a more detailed explanation of this approach, please click here.

To find out more about the whole subject of the client/agency relationship, please click here to read a paper given by CI Solutions at the MRS Conference 2007.

TIP OF THE MONTH

Facts at Your Fingertips

How often do you need to know a basic but useful fact (e.g. the population of the UK subdivided by age group; the number of people with mobile phones; or how many UK workplaces have over 5,000 employees?). The Marketing Pocket Book, published by WARC, is a great investment. It’s pocket-sized and is packed with information about the media, the consumer, retail and distribution, finance, and the UK economy.

The book is mostly consumer-orientated, but also has some useful business information. For instance, did you know that: 

• The microwave oven market is worth £211 million
• 30% of females go to the cinema at least once a month
• There are 11, 248 barristers in the country
• National Savings manages over £66 billion?

There are also pocket books on Europe, Asia-Pacific and Americas, and other subjects (each costs about £40). You can find out more by visiting their website for a listing of all of WARC’s pocket books, including some sample data.

TRAINING

After the success of our first training courses we are pleased to announce the dates for the next set:

Wed 19th Sept 2007   -     Insight Management - From Vision to Reality
Thu 4th Oct 2007        -     Commercial Thinking
Thu 1st Nov 2007        -     How to Communicate For Maximum Impact

Please Click here for more details

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