Insights2020 is a global initiative to uncover the drivers of customer-centric growth, aligning strategy, structure, capability and the role of insights and analytics behind business growth. It builds on Marketing2020, whose findings were the cover story of the July to August 2014 Harvard Business Review.
The study asks what customer centricity means and how to achieve it, and is described as the largest global study of its kind: 337 vision interviews with business, marketing and insights leaders, and a quantitative survey of more than 10,000 respondents from 60 countries.
Key findings
- The ten drivers sort into three groups: total experience, customer obsession and the insights engine, all feeding customer-centric growth.
- Total experience covers being purpose-led, data-driven customization and touchpoint consistency, reported as 80 against 32 percent, 73 against 31, and 64 against 29.
- Customer obsession covers being embraced by all functions, leadership priority, collaboration and experimentation, at 79 against 13, 91 against 48, 72 against 45 and 40 against 13. Incentives based on customer-related KPIs reach only 45 percent among over-performers.
- The insights engine covers the leading role of insights and analytics, unlocking the power of data and critical capabilities. Insights leading the business runs 51 against 18 percent, and reporting into the CEO reaches only 29 percent against 12.
- The critical capabilities named are business sense, whole-brain thinking and storytelling, at 75 against 50, 71 against 42 and 61 against 37 percent.
What Marketing2020 had already established
Marketing2020 drew on more than 250 CMO and peer interviews to answer how to focus and organize marketing. It identified three characteristics of winning future brands: identifying relevant big insights, establishing a clear and engaging purposeful positioning, and creating brand value through a personalized, consistent and engaging total experience.
It also named five effectiveness drivers for a future-proof marketing organization: connecting with other functions, inspiring all employees with the brand purpose, focusing effort on key strategies and KPIs, organizing efficient processes, and building marketing excellence.
How the study was built
Beyond the interviews and the survey, the method included LinkedIn behavioral analysis, crowd sourcing by Wharton and eight global research teams working across industries and functions. Growth was assessed both as self-reported and as actual growth.
The Wharton partnership ran through its Future of Advertising Program, to look at customer centricity and how it will affect the future of marketing.
The advisory board included Keith Weed of Unilever, Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP, Diego Scotti of Verizon, Julian Prynn of BAT, Jerry Wind of Wharton, Harish Bhat of TATA, Gayle Fuguitt of the ARF, Rob Norman of GroupM, Tony Fagan of Google and Barbara Lamprecht of Volkswagen.
Keith Weed’s contribution sets out why the question mattered then. As a brand manager he worked from third-party retailer data that was twelve weeks old, and with mobile the same business has first-party consumer data in real time, a change he says must affect how insights are thought about.
The opportunities, the obstacles and the tools
The opportunities are insights into action across all touchpoints, behavioral data, personalization and brand purpose, which the study notes hold especially for over-performers. The challenges divide: internal silos, bureaucracy and legacy structure weigh on under-performers, while making sense of data and recruiting whole-brain people are the over-performers’ problems.
The scorecard uses the respondent base to model growth scenarios from a company’s own scores on the ten drivers, and the study offers to diagnose the current score, identify growth opportunities and build a roadmap to improve.
Three packaged formats are offered: a PulseCheck with a growth opportunity workshop, including an in-company quantitative survey and five to ten vision interviews. A lighter self-assessment and opportunity workshop with three to five intake interviews. And a 45 minute keynote with one tailored data cut and a panel discussion.
Scope and limitations
The driver figures are reported as over-performer against under-performer contrasts. The scorecard models growth scenarios from the study’s data rather than measuring one company’s outcome.
Source
This page summarises Insights2020: Driving Customer-Centric Growth – Global Results Summary, by MillwardBrown Vermeer, 2015.