[Panel Discussion] From Support Staff to Pivotal Partner: Advancing the Role of Insights

Awesome. Thank you so much, Seth. And that, free ticket sounds awesome. You can probably probably then into a trip to Disney World if you’re really ambitious. So it’s like market research and Disney World together. I don’t know if it gets any better than that. So we’re talking about a really exciting topic today. Just to give you an overview on what the session’s about, and then we’ll introduce our panel. It’s we’re really talking about how we can transition from being kind of functional support staff, really, you know, diving into the minutia of research and how organizations can transition to being, like, an actual pivotal partner for their organizations that they work at. So it’s going from tacticians to strategists. We’re We’re really excited to talk to this conversation today. I’m gonna mostly moderate, and I have an awesome panel, here with me. I’m just gonna go around the horn and have, our group introduce themselves. So, Joe, do you mind, introducing yourself first, and then we’ll we’ll move on to, Selmya and Alliance. Sure. Thanks very much, Rick. Nice to speak with everybody. Joe Rini. I’m from MarketLogic Software. So we are actually a software platform that serves the insights community. We work with some of the largest companies in the world’s insights teams, providing them with a platform to manage their knowledge and insights. So I’m not directly from the insight space, per se, but I’m interacting with insight professionals across these organizations, on a daily basis. I’ve been in a product role at MarketLogic for a number of years and previously in several other years, about ten years in the space. So great to be here and, looking forward to this. Awesome. Thanks, Jeff. Tommy, over to you. Hi. Thank you for having us here today, and thank you for joining the event as well. I’m Samia. I lead the consumer insight center of excellence for Kari. We’re a food beverage, flavors, ingredients, all things nice and sweet, at KHERI here. I’ve been at the industry at KHERI for over a decade now, prior to which I come from the Kantar world of agency side research. So I like to straddle the boat. We’ve been doing a lot of research in the food and beverage space purely from uncovering new innovations, new ideas on foods, flavors, you know, your next menu item and your next food product that you’re searching all on the shelves. That’s what we do. We pride ourselves on the outside in, consumer story. Thanks for having me, and, looking forward to the session. Awesome. Thank you. Elias, over to you. Hey, everyone. Elias Soussu. I lead insights for FGX. We’re a division of SLR ex SLR Luxottica. We are in the eyewear business, and this is my, eleventh year at the company. I’m, you know, somewhat of a one person team at FTX, but have connectivity with a larger team at SLO or Luxottica in the research, department. Prior to that, I’ve had a a bit of a mix of different experiences. So I started after college on the agency account management side working on classical CPG brands like J and J and P and G. And then I worked in, strategy consulting after, business school. So, you know, the benefit of all that is it’s given me a range of different experiences and perspectives, and that brought our business lens in terms of the stakeholders that I work with. So I think that’s that’s been a a, you know, a great benefit, as well. Awesome. And Elias, I think we determined in our warm up session a couple weeks ago that you have to wear glasses if you work at Luxottica. Right? Absolutely. Yeah. Then there we go. Well, good stuff. Again, thank you all for being here. So, you know, one of the things that, you know, we often hear, you know, anecdotally and in real world is that that research professionals sometimes have a challenge in transitioning from, you know, being, executing research, going out and order taking, and transitioning to having, like, an actual team at the table and influencing business decisions. You know, this is borne out in dozens of conversations I’ve had with, you know, you know, actual practitioners inside organizations. There’s also a substantial amount of data around this too. And maybe to frame up some of the conversation, I’ll cite a a study, you know, research report done by a Boston Consulting Group a few years ago called the Introverted Corporation. In this report, you know, they found that, among many top global executives that insights or customer led decision making was one of the top two priorities for organizations or for leaders of organizations. However, only thirteen percent rated their satisfaction or rated their, satisfaction with their insights function as highly satisfied. So there’s a big gap between what organizations want and the actual satisfaction with that need. I think that what we’re talking about today is really about how to elevate the role of insights inside an organization. And maybe we can come through and we’ll we’ll start off with a question here. And, Elias, I might just come straight back to you is that and we see that insights is really cited and that BCG study highlights that this is a top priority. What what’s the actual challenge in making the transition from very tactical support to strategic partner? Maybe give us kind of a big kind of waiting answer, and, Soumya, I’ll I’ll kick it over to you as well. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, it can be challenging at times to be immersed in our roles as researchers, but really make sure that we’re delivering, value and connecting with partners from a strategic point of view as well. You know, and and so I think that piece of it is is super important because there’s a lot of time that goes into it, and it’s important to spend that time on both ends. So before, you know, both before and after the research. Right? So I think those those stages are just as important, if not more important than the research itself. So the planning that goes into it, the alignment with the stakeholders, creating that strategic, vision and purpose for the research. And then after the research, making sure that we’re really distilling the insights into the key, key points and actions that that are gonna make a difference and an impact for the business. So I think, you know, really making sure that we’re focused as much on those those pieces of the puzzle, is super important. And and I think sometimes that takes us out of our comfort zone. Right? Because we’re you know, for it’s easy to get caught up in making sure that we’re planning and delivering and executing the research itself. But, that hand off, and helping to make sure that there’s not just sort of a understanding of the research, but a clear, you know, vision in terms of how we’re gonna use it and next steps and actions, I think, is is so important. Yeah. Super, super useful. Salmya, what’s your what’s your take on this? Yeah. I agree with with Elias. I think that is that is definitely key. I’d just like to bring up two specific pieces. It’s one, for us to move from a transactional, right, day to day opportunity sizing, test this concept of that, you know, product viability. I think it’s important for for the composition of the team to also have that diverse group of team members. Some of us are researchers. We love to get into the weeds of things, and you need those within the insights community. But your your team from a global, regional, local basis has to be diverse enough to support those strategic conversations and to be able to take you from the weeds and the, you know, the interesting nuggets and the moments all the way to translating it to the business and understanding the strategic growth pillars, understanding, you know, what areas of opportunities you could unlock for a business overall. So I think we are also, we also need to enable our resource team a certain way with the skills and the capabilities to be able to support a transactional to a strategic partner journey altogether. And I think, you know, constantly, like, the Gartner piece comes to mind. And, Rick, the the BCG piece is very crucial for us to read through as well. But it makes you think, what is your research life cycle? Are you diagnostic in the your services that you provide to the teams? Or are you going from a diagnostic all the way to a predictive foresight, you know, platform? So I think it depends on how you craft your function and your toolbox and your toolkit to unlock that strategic value. And these seem very specific, you know, tangible aspects that you can invest in. So no matter what maturity your insights function is at, to be in a to be enable your resource team as well as your, offering is very important in this space as well. Yeah. Wait. Oh, go ahead, Elias. No. I was just gonna say and and, Rick, I think in the the prep session, we talked a little bit about, you know, the, connecting back to the strategic pillars of the business. Right? So I think making and and I think that’s that’s a way to really make sure that everything is is aligned from a, a a pillar growth pillar perspective. And I think that makes it everything that comes afterwards, a lot easier in terms of the alignment and and the purpose. So, you know, I I I think, you know, that that part is again, that’s the the before part, but really creating that vision of how it’s supporting the the, you know, the overall growth pillars and and the work that, you know, frankly, the whole organization is is, working towards. So Yeah. I I think, and, Joe, I’ll jump to you in a moment here. But I think what I hear from both of you is, like, it’s really about moving away from, like, the minutia of the day to day research and actually connecting, like, insights to outcomes and the business outcomes and being able to be in front of the business rather than kind of riding the tails of the business. Right? It’s the difference in order taking and taking a very strategic lens. You know? And and, Joe, I think that you have a really unique perspective here because, you know, Salome and Elias are sitting in the business, actual practitioners here. You’re looking at with a really broad lens and seeing how organizations are making this change. What what do you see as, like, the challenges that these organizations go through? Like, what’s, what prevents that from from working well? Yeah. Right. So I mean, echoing a lot of what’s been said, we’re working with some of the hundred largest global customers. We’re also seeing a lot of RFPs from, either large Joe midsize companies looking to implement something to help their insights teams. And something that’s consistent to echo what was in that article you referenced is it’s about moving beyond that minutia to getting insights to see the table. Right? So really not just being there to serve questions from stakeholders from marketing or r and d, and just serve up what the latest report said or execute some research around that. But starting to, synthesize that and come back with sort of proactive, recommendations either at the product or market level, but also more of a at a strategic level. And Yeah. What’s interesting there is this is not just coming from the insights, mid level senior level insights VP. This is coming from the, you know, the top of these organizations even above the insights, sort of team that push to enable insights to also be, really a significant player within the organizations. Yeah. I like that. That it’s the push not pull. Right? So you’re pushing into the organization rather than kinda sitting back. Right. Well, I mean, super useful. And by the way, I think that this is even more important. There’s a lot of, like, kinda traditional research processes continue to get kinda automated, through the use of technology that being a strategic consultant or almost an internal business consultant is even more important than before. But making that transition can be really challenging. Right? So you go from, like, tactician or you come you introduce a new organization where you perceived as a tactician or executing on a tactical level. And, Elias, I’d love to start with you and your perspective here because you’re, kind of a one man show within your, you know, your role here. How do you move from being an executor to being in that kind of consult you know, consultant within the organization? Yeah. I I think, it can be definitely very challenging at times. I think the, there’s a few ways that I think about it. Right? So I think one is really, and it kinda comes back to, you know, creating, that those discussions beforehand, finding the, you know, the the strategic partners within the organization that really support insights and and, working closely with them. I think, you know, at the the start of the project, making sure you know, it kinda goes back to the whole idea of being a consultant. Right? So I think when you’re working on the brief, make it collaborative. Right? So I think it doesn’t always work well when you’re doing it yourself. It doesn’t always work well when the stakeholders doing it themselves. So I think, you know, when it when it is a collaborative process and you’re really starting with the the why, the business question of why, you know, what is the need. But more importantly, you know, how are we gonna use the the the research, and even taking in a step further, what decisions are gonna be made based on this. Right? So I think, you know, kind of forcing those those tough questions on on the stakeholders and having having, a strategic discussion around that, I think, really kinda helps, you know, in my role, I think, to to kinda play both, you know, the, strategic partner side of it as well as the tactician. Because once I have clarity and alignment in terms of those key questions, of those key business questions, then I think everything, that comes after becomes easier. And then at the recording stage, right, you know, you wanna really make sure that that at that executive level summary that you’re tying back to those, you know, those key points and questions that were identified in the brief. Right? What decisions are gonna be made based on this? How are we gonna use this? And and that, you know, I think that just really simplifies, you know, the the, the points that were that are actionable and and that, you know, we’re trying to work towards from an outcome perspective. Yeah. Absolutely. And and, Salmi, maybe just to kinda dovetail onto that, a question for you is, what have you seen as an effective way to build that trust and partnerships with stakeholders? I think Alliance, like, did a great job outline, like, the process and everything. What what are you what are you seeing from your, from your perspective? Yeah. It’s an interesting perspective thinking of them as stakeholders, and I think what we consider internally is they’re our customers. Are they using your insights? Are they not using your insights? How are they using your insights? To me, everyone’s a customer whether they’re internal and then presenting on to their clients and their customers onwards. But unlocking this kind of customer mentality means that we need to make them feel like they’re the champions at the end of the day. It’s not just stakeholders, but they are not just accountable, but also do we make them look good in their briefing stages. Right? They might not remember their research a couple of months after, but they’ll remember how we made them feel. So for us, it’s from a customer perspective. For us to reach that stage, however, we have to also embrace being okay being transactional in some cases. And I think you need to think about being transactional in certain aspects because you have these heavy hitter strategic vision, right, pieces of research. And I think I just want to make sure that we demarcate that a little bit. It’s alright to be it’s alright to be transactional. You might be in the weeds of a subject. Somebody asks you for data, and that’s pretty much it. But that’s the association then with that relationship. However, we put our eggs in the big pieces of research basket. So similarly, Elias, we have a lot of, you know, broad scoping, exploratory, visionary studies where we are studying strategic pillars. Right? Like, our focus areas in the next five years. And I think it’s a beauty in that is embracing that dual role. I know the whole topic is going from, you know, support staff to pivotal partner. The reality of it is many of them are still going to think about us as being support staff, and that’s alright. The way we’re cracking through, however, is getting this one piece of research and showing them everything. Right? From the from the Toyota’s to the Cadillacs all the way to the Tesla’s. Like, let’s show you our toolbox in action. I think then we not just inform and educate, but I think we eliminate this fear sometimes associated with research. You know, there’s this idea of like, Joe, gosh. It’s gonna take six months Joe oh, gosh. It’s gonna take six weeks. And that’s not reality anymore. We’re doing things faster. For the folks who are embracing technology, we’re doing, you know, pieces of research at a rapid timeline. And sometimes it just says having this conversation with a, non insights promoter, you know, Elias, in in your point. I think we have these insights, you know, drivers in the organization, but it’s also trying to identify one other person and advertise to that customer and say, here’s what you already have. So, like, a, you know, library approach might help them as well, Rick. So it, you know, it’s it’s a lot of different points, but I think at the heart of it, they are our customer and how do we unlock or advertise to them? Yeah. I I think, like, I would almost summarize what you just said if I did put it in one sentence is that there’s no replacement for just doing excellent work. Right? And so you were doing excellent work, fulfilling stakeholder needs, then you earn trust. And that trust, you know, then parlays into, larger conversations and, more access and more influence within the organization. Right? Yeah. Maybe, you know, building upon, like, that trust. Once you’ve once you’re executing in a in a really great level, Joe, I’m gonna flip this over to you. Let let’s talk about, like, the actual practice and maybe, like, the tactics for actually elevating insights. Is, from your vantage point, what have you seen in, like, you know, potentially innovative practices for communicating, across your organization? Yeah. Sure. It’s a good question. So, I mean, as a tech platform, we have a couple of offerings that are really good at at doing that. So we’re all we’re facilitating the research in our platform, but then we also offer insights professionals a lot of tools so that they can build out kind of longer standing assets than just, like, given research output. So one off research project and try to turn that into something that can sit there for six months, be refreshed, but somewhere that, business stakeholders, marketers can be pointed to to go source information and so on. And just sort of putting back on what, some of you have spoke about, I think that what I see is a wide spectrum of insights teams. So we’ll have teams that are really focused on, sort of that negotiation with the marketer or with the business stakeholder on a given piece of research. But we might have other teams or companies where it’s a stronger focus on data analytics or sort of recurring data sources coming in. So not just those ad hoc, studies. And that’s where the insights teams really are experts at being able to work across those different types of research or data and turning them into insights. I think insights teams have a unique position within companies that other teams don’t, and thus, they can make that sort of cross source or cross data type analysis and then either push it out to business users, as I’ve said, or build out longer standing assets to business users can come to to get informed. Yeah. I think that’s something that that’s, important. Yeah. So it’s it’s applying, like, new innovations and new ways of looking at things. Because, you know, you, you ultimately you look in the same charts every year for twenty years. It’s, it’s hard to, you know, it’s hard not to let your eyes go blurry. Right? I think that’s a great point. Maybe, maybe a a a quick shifting gears. You know, there’s a there’s this paper I read a few years ago. It actually came from, like, nineteen eighty two as these researchers. They studied, what makes and they studied the diffusion of insights within an organization. And one of the things that they found was that the diffusion of insights in an organization is highly dependent on the political acceptability of an insight within the organization. So stakeholders don’t like that. If they don’t like the insight that comes back, they have a tendency to reject it even if it’s true. Right? I I’m really curious. Elias, Salmi, and Joe, like, I I I know intuitively that this is sometimes true. How do you manage that? That’s a big question. Right? Salmi, let’s start with you. Oh, wow. Case studies after case studies of of pieces of research that sit on the shelves because they didn’t support the sales story. And, they’d still happen. Right? There’s a concept or a product. If it doesn’t fit the consumer, we shift gears to is there another consumer? Is there another customer? I mean, there’s Joe there there are millions of examples that way. But one particularly comes to mind, which was pivotal for us in terms of how we ship how we think. We started not thinking about projects as ad hoc and let me clarify what I mean by that. While we run tactical ad hoc projects, the lifespan or the shelf life of that project is not limited just to that brief. I will also say there is no perfect brief out there Joe matter what anybody says. It’s never a perfect brief. It changes and evolves. But for us to unlock beyond the brief ability for that research to survive, that’s how we felt, you know, that there is more ROI, there’s more bang for your buck for that research. So if for instance you’re studying, you know, the the the taste preferences of a consumer, it is important for us to think about the outcome of not just how to support a flavor story or a product story or how do I make this energy drink, you know, more appealing to consumers, but it’s also what other teams can use that piece of research that we think of even during briefing stage. So it might be one stakeholder that came to you and said, hey. This is what I need out of your piece of research. Well, we love piggybacking on them to make sure that there is lifetime value of that piece of research. And I don’t need like five years later, but at least have more than one primary objective that it is supporting. So that’s that’s made us feel a lot more motivated as an insights function as well that hey this is not just a you know one and done type of piece of research but there is more extension of stories that it could deliver and that means not just more products that it could, you know, not tactical solutions that it could be applied to, but we also think about it from a business perspective. Okay. Great. This concept doesn’t work, but this could be applied for future mergers, acquisitions, you know, other business development questions. So while we always think about the end consumer and then customer, we also think about how can this influence the business, and that increases the lifetime value of your research. It makes us feel better. Yeah. Yeah. So, it’s extending the high the half life of data, right, by actually taking a bigger picture look. So it’s not just executing an individual thing. You’re looking at the bigger picture. I I think it’s a recurring theme is looking at the big picture, not just the individual item as well. And if I if I may, Rick, just Joe mentioned technology is just so important and visualizing it is very important. And I think the way we have oh, my gosh. There’s this, book I was reading on attention spans at organizations. You know, people are not not joining hour long insights, you know, sessions and webinars as much, especially when you’re running it every piece of research. So we’ve been trying to look at it from a visual dashboard basis. So Joe, like the solution of visual dashboards, you don’t have to have a presentation. Attention spans have gone down from two and a half minutes in two thousand and four. There’s a piece there’s a book written by Gloria Mark, and, she talks about how it’s now reduced down in the last five years to forty seven seconds. So you’re going from two and a half minutes to forty seven seconds. And it might not be me. I still love reading books and flipping the pages, but that’s your organization. And how do we appeal to them? And that’s where we’re kind of cutting down the PowerPoints. Let’s take out Joe, you know, somewhere stored in a SharePoint or a Teams folder, but visualize your your piece so that it’s always available to when the stakeholders gonna need that piece of research. It might be two AM in the night. It might be, you know, six AM in the morning. But if it’s a dashboard, they have access to it at any piece of time if they wanted to craft a different story out of it. And that’s very important. I I did like, Joe, what you mentioned, and that is very tactical in the way we approach insights to Yeah. Go go for it, Joe. Yeah. Okay. You saw that on mute. Yeah. Just to echo that. So, I mean, one one very nice use case, we’re working with the world’s or one of the world’s biggest furniture stores. Let’s put that way. And they have a very strong, focus within within the organization and the insights, team to move towards database, dashboard based self-service of, of data and insights. So store managers, business, stakeholders, marketers are going directly to dashboards and source sourcing the KPIs that are relevant to them, and acting on them directly. The insights function is, of course, there to serve higher higher level strategy questions and so on, but really enabling across the organization that they can go self serve those data points at least. They don’t need a PowerPoint deck where someone calls out what’s in the dashboard that they can look at. Right? They can do that on their phone or they can do that on on their own time as you said. And that itself alleviates that minutiae level work on the insights team who can now be working on the higher level, strategic kind of insights and so on. Yeah. So Yeah. That’s a good And and hope hopefully, they pay you in Swedish meatballs, Joe, to get that done. Well, Elias, maybe shifting over to you. So, again, going back to, like, you know, you have, like, the political acceptability of an idea or an insight that you’ve, you know, that you’ve you’ve worked hard on, and that’s a determiner of whether it was accepted or not. How do you manage that relationship? You know, you have a top sales leader. They just say, no. We don’t like this. You know? Well, no. We don’t wanna do it. How do you, how do you still maintain influence and gain trust out of those conversations? Yeah. I think that’s that that is a challenge, and I think we all face that. I think, you know, some of sometimes, you know, you find that that insight you you get really excited about and, you know, how how do you make sure that that gets translated in the right way. Right? So I think sometimes it starts with, you know, the the the fact is I think there you know, the insight is one piece of it. Right? So there’s a lot of other pieces that goes into it. Some of those are internal considerations. Some of them are external. But, you know, we need to look at it not in a vacuum in terms of this is it. This is the story we need to kinda move forward with this, but, you know, what are those other factors and considerations? And I think a lot of that starts with empathy in terms of really understanding the points of view of of the stakeholders that you’re working with and really, you know, putting yourself in their shoes in terms of, you know, do they first of all, do they do they understand clearly the the insight and the implications? But, but, you know, what are the other factors? There may be something that’s kind of going against, you know, a reason for moving forward with it. I think sometimes the the it’s not necessarily stated or explicit in terms of them rejecting it, but more that, you know, maybe it sits on the shelf as, Samia said. So maybe it’s, it’s maybe the the function isn’t, you know, organizationally ready, from a timing perspective to execute that or, on the, the insight. So I think there’s, again, there’s a lot of different factors, but I think it’s it’s kinda taking a step back and and really looking at that bigger picture, to understand what are those other levers or or factors and and how you know, if if there, you know, if there is a, you know, kind of, like, a reason to kinda keep it moving forward, then, you know, how do you influence the conversation? How do you and I think that kind of goes into the the soft skills territory of, you know, really, you know, kinda working closely with your stakeholders and empathy and and listening and and that sort of thing. But, but definitely not easy. I think it it it happens, you know, more often than, than not. And, you know but, again, I think, it starts with just, you know, really that relationship that you build with with, your your your cross functional partners. Yeah. That I mean, so, Elias, that’s a really great diplomatic answer. I’m gonna I’m gonna press you a little bit on this. So what happens when you have really high conviction about something that the organization is pushing back on? Like, you know, so there’s soft skills of management. What’s your recommendation for people who have very high conviction about, you know, a mistake or an opportunity that’s gonna be missed backed by data, but for some reason, the organization’s missing it. How do you manage that? Yeah. I think, not easily. Right? So but, I think, you know, you kind of need to kinda make sure, again, that the story is clear and that, you know, you’re communicating it the right way. So, you know, if if you’ve done all that, then great. I think, you know, make sure that you’re getting it in front of the right, audience and, and approaching it the the right way. So I think, you know, don’t give up. Be persistent about it. And, and I think that’s probably the most important thing. Right? If you feel like there’s something that that needs to to, you know, kinda move forward or to, to, you know, get get more intention in terms of, hey. We have this this great insight. We’re not doing anything with it. Then, you know, it’s it’s, you know, it it certainly is a, you know, it’s on both sides, but I think it’s it’s super important to really just make sure that you’re persistent about it and, you know, getting it, you know, in front of that that audience, that those decision makers and so forth. So I don’t know if that answers your question. But I I I think that’s a great answer. Sylvia, anything to add there before we move on to the next question? I’m gonna give you a example of how it has helped us. Yeah. You know how we talk about research briefs all the time or briefs of business briefs and so on. We try to chase right to the story at the start of it. I don’t know what you would use. You use an SCQA, you use a storyline in fashion, but we ask our stakeholder to finish the SCQA, took in, assuming that whatever pieces of research they already have. So it helps us really understand, oh, that’s the story you want to deliver. That’s the data point you want, you know, because it sometimes comes down to I need a data point on this to support. But uncovering that SCQA and having, you know, that story developed and the script to develop, that has been beautiful to work with stakeholders that are not necessarily aligned with your insights vision. Right? So that’s and I think it’s a big learning too if they don’t feel like that data point works for us works for them and their story. That’s learning too for the next time. And we don’t stop. Sometimes it’s a piece of research that might not support, but we have so many vendor partners as well. Right? Like, out in the space. And maybe our research didn’t directly help that’s SCQA or that storyline. But how can we use everything else to make them still feel like, hey. Trust me. Trust your insights person. Trust, you know, that we will help you uncover that story, and we won’t just let you go because the research didn’t work. Often than not, we see they don’t like the research and then they go off chasing something else, But we helped through that process as well because we are all in it together, and that has really helped with partners who are not necessarily bought into the research deliverable. Does that make sense? Yeah. It it does make sense. And I think this kinda echoes a theme of, like, excellent work that gets excellent work. And so providing excellence and really sharing the load between yourself and the business partners, you’re not operating in a silo. That is really fundamental to maintaining influence even when there’s disagreement. Right? And I think I heard that from both you and from Elias. So, super helpful. Maybe a question here. So our audience is composed of a couple different constituents. One, we have research practitioners who are living inside the business, and then we also have research providers. So on the research provider side, like, I I’m sure there’s something that they all want to know, is how, as a practitioner of insights, do do you feel like technology selection or partner selection impacts your ability to have influence inside an organization? That’s a big question. And maybe, Elias, I can start with you. Sorry, Rick. Can you rephrase the question? Yeah. What did you say? So the quest the question is, does vendor and partner selection for the way that you do deliver insights into the organization, does that impact your ability to be a strategic partner? I I mean, I I think it it does for sure. I think, you know, it’s it’s important to to find the the right strategic partner that’s gonna deliver that, that the value in terms of not just here’s what the the research said, but here’s the implications. And I think that’s, you know, not sort of a given with any supplier that you select Joe that that, you know, that that process of of, the the scoping and and, you know, understanding their approach and and the thought process behind it and what what what the the, the deliverables and and outcome will look like, I think, is super important. You know? Is there going to be, you know, just a report, or is it gonna be kind of like an, you know, a, is there gonna be, like, you know, maybe a workshop that would would be helpful as a part of the a piece of the the the puzzle? Maybe not. Right? But, you know, making sure that the, you you have that comfort level in terms of the insights are going to kind of be, strategic and, easy to understand for the the the broader organization. Super useful. Thalia, how about you? I think extremely useful, is the use of a window who can go beyond that initial deliverable, Rick. Just having the right partner whether they’re data partners, analytical partners, or research full suite partners, extremely important at least within my universe because we’re servicing all countries around the globe. Right? We’re we’re servicing, you know, from China to Japan to Brazil to all over, and they have their own unique set of partners they trust and that are even available, to be honest, within that geography. It’s extremely crucial to really move from that support staff to the pivotal partner otherwise you’re going to be stuck kind of pulling out you know sales data and honest sale information for them and not really the story. So for us partner relationship is extremely important. In fact, we actually take, a month out of every other year to just go through discovery of vendors. So does that for us, it’s no longer a, you know, phase one, phase two approach of running a workshop, like, do the research on the workshop. It has to come hand in hand because if you Joe a vendor who wants to increase your lifetime value at our end, it just comes hand in hand. The more you have conversations beyond the insights function and probably workshop beyond the insights function with your with your stakeholders is very important. So, you know, when when I see vendors with full suite research and they say, do you want a workshop? Don’t you want a workshop? I think it’s very important that you push for it because, you know, maybe your inside team is thinking about support stuff, try to unlock value for them and say, you don’t need to do this. We’ll run the workshop so that you have that unbiased opinion, coming through from an agency, but that workshop is important. So I think, like, even these kind of small aspects of how a vendor approaches the organization, not from not from ad hoc. Like, it might be an ad hoc study, but that can build a relationship for your future as well. And sometimes it helps us from the customer end to build equity in the business. Right? The right partner also makes us embed insights in the organization better. So it is extremely crucial for us to move from support to pivotal by choosing the vendor. I mean, my gosh. It’s, you know, fifty percent of the game. Yeah. I I hundred percent agree with with Sumiel, and I I think, you know, that’s, you know, my exact thinking. I mean, as I’m and I I’ve I’ve worked with vendors that, you know, have I’ve seen the range. Right? But in terms of, data reporting versus storytelling, and I think that that piece that Sumia really talked about in terms of the storytelling and the the strategy and the the, you know, kinda helping to bridge that that piece between the research and the, the opportunities, the actions, the recommendations, rather than leaving it all to us to kind of go through and peace peace out because, you know, our our plates are full. Our, our lives are busy. It’s takes a lot of time to do that. So I think the more that they can help to facilitate those conversations and those those opportunities. And so, that is a crucial piece as well for me in terms of really looking, you know, closely at at vendors and and what they’re gonna deliver. Yeah. I think super helpful insight. Maybe one more question for Joe before we move to audience, q and a. Joe, if we if you kinda summarize, like, one piece of advice, you know, based on the the breadth of organizations that you work with, if you could summarize one piece of advice to move from tactician to partner, inside an organization, what would it be? It’s a good question. So, I mean, it’s kind of the the almost the topic of the talk as well. I think, yeah, what we’re seeing I’ve said it now, this this idea of having a seat at the table. But, I mean, when you actually dig deep and look at what that tactically means, strategically means, it’s about, one, well, if we just look together some of the things we talked about. Right? Like, have embedding yourself in the entire insights process. So you’re there. The really successful insights teams that we’re seeing are there before the brief is created. If it’s ad hoc research, they’re influencing how that brief is created. They’re bringing their knowledge of previous studies and research to the process of creating that research project. So maybe research from a different geography or, you know, slightly older can be reused, repurposed, and so on. And then they’re really, at the end of that research, heavily involved in disseminating it out to the organization. And of course, technology is not the only solution, but there are good technology solutions. I’m working for a technology company that provides a very good solutions to be able to search through that content, stay on top of it Joe that you yourself as the insights team are really aware of what you’ve created, what you’ve worked on, and can then proactively be sourcing it out to to the stakeholders within the business. Great answer. Great answer. Seth, when you’re ready to come back on it, I think we’re ready for our audience q and a. There we go. Nice look at the keyboard. Better look in your face. Go for that. See see now, Rick, that’s that’s behind the scenes. Not everybody saw that. That’s that’s your privileged position as a, honor. I love it. Yeah. I love it. So, yes, we do. We’ve got a two part question to kick it off. K? When you have a piece of research that goes against the company’s current target market, campaign, product offering, etcetera, and that was so exciting for this question. That’s where it ends. But I think it’s what do you do? So research that’s outside of what we’re trying to accomplish. Joe, did I see you get excited with an answer? Or I was more laughing at the cutoff question, though. Yeah. The second part of it. But, I mean, I think I mean, again, coming out from the perspective of a a platform that’s providing right to to these insights teams, I think that’s, you know, that’s beyond common. Right? That something that maybe goes against the grain or goes against a given campaign. But that’s your your job as well as as the insight professional there to surface both sides of the story. And if we look back to that idea of storytelling that we spoke about, I think it’s about compellingly bringing that counter data point to the table. You’re not gonna make the final decision probably in the end, but you can be there to explain the context and so on and just try to use that as a way to also iteratively keep your seat at the table for next time and so on. Right? Thank you, Joe. Samia, I’m seeing pretty, you know, emphatic, head nodding. So I just wanna see if you have a thought. I think it is important to understand the why did they use the research and why not did they use the research. Right? Everyone is a respondent to a researcher. A family member, a person walking down the water cooler, everyone is a respondent. So I think it is important for us to understand that why did they not use that piece of research, but also not to table the research from an insight perspective. You know, I know it’s very we go on from one research to another because it’s a forward moving motion. But, like, sometimes we uncover things that happened pre pandemic. Right? What happened to that twenty eighteen research? Was there something that happened in that market over there? And that’s where technology really comes in play Joe, Joe. You know, for us to not go through Powerpoint decks and Excel pages, my gosh. But to have it in a data cube already and compare and contrast, maybe it didn’t serve serve its primary purpose, but you still didn’t study consumers. Right? Like, you still study the consumer in that set. So it might not have delivered the story that the business wanted, but those are still consumers you study. And I think, like, understanding that is important. So why not, Joe? Like, why did you not use our research is also, a nice research brief. Interesting. Elias, did you have anything, or do we should we go to the second part? No. I would echo what both of them said. And I think, you know, Joe’s point about really, you know, making sure it’s it’s our job to surface those, those insights. Right? So not just to ignore them and to make the compelling argument as to why they’re important. And, you know, I think in some cases, it may not necessarily be counter, but it could be, you know, just a different, different piece of the puzzle. Right? So kind of understanding, okay. Well, we’ve got this. We’ve got this. They’re somewhat kind of overlapping or conflicting, but, let’s look at the big picture and and the reasons for each. Speaking of that big picture, the follow-up is how fast should you pivot your strategy around that data? Soon. Like, soon. Business is not waiting. The story is not waiting. You need to pivot soon. And it’s funny because my last statement that I wanted to live was immediacy. And my gosh, in a word of AI and generative or conversational AI, immediacy is such a big currency Yeah. That if it doesn’t work, you have to pivot immediately to figure out what’s the next story that could help deliver the piece. In fact, there’s a case study, Gosh said, that we worked on where the same piece of research two years ago did not fly at all. It’s on their shelves collecting dust. But from an insight perspective, we did that piece of research again this year. And guess what? Maybe we were just ahead of our time. That’s right. You know? Timing, is, everything. Last question here I think we’ll have to get to. I’d love to know how the panel determines success with the use of the information and feel great about the research work that has been done. So let’s just simplify that to maybe metrics that help determine success and get you to actual ROI. Anyone? Make it fun. Like, we’re in research. It’s a lot of fun. We’re selling consumers. It’s like, I don’t see a better, you know, world. Just make it fun. Make it easy and fun quizzes, gamify. Just have fun with research. I think Sumay had spoken in the prep session a little bit about the the reels. Right? Creating those show reels afterwards. And that’s kind of a fun visual way, and I think that, that’s super interesting. So, you know, I think just really bringing to life the the insights and and, how how they were used, how like, the any kind of ROI that you can attribute to it. And I think, you know, we talked a lot about this before. It can be difficult at times because sometimes that ROI doesn’t you know, it might happen a year or two two later. You know? It takes a while for the to see the sales result or the the impact of the the campaign or whatnot. But I think there’s, in the meantime, you can still build that ROI story. Right? There’s different ways that you can approach that. Fantastic. Joe, are you, adding to that? Or Rick? Like, it’s stunts stun stun silence at the call and then the answer there. That that’s where that’s where we’re at. I love it. I love it. Fantastic. Joe, was it just that you couldn’t find the, mute button? Or you’re still having trouble. Fair enough. I guess a a parting thought here, you know, if we’re to remember one thing here, lightning round, Salmia, what would you say? Oh, push beyond the grain. No matter what grain you’re seeing, push beyond it. Just try to get to the answer no matter what it could be. Elias? Yeah. I think I talked about this before, but I think really being a champion of the voice of the the consumer, you know, I think is is a is a great way to elevate the the role of insights within the organization. And so I think that there’s a lot that can go with that that I won’t get into, but I think, you know, I’ll just leave it at that. I think really being the voice of the of the consumer. Excellent. Rick, we’ll let you cap it off as the moderator. Yeah. I mean, I think we’ve heard such great things from everybody on the panel today. You know, it’s great work, but it gets more great work. And so that’s a really way to build trust. If you’re delivering repeated excellence to the organization, you’re gonna build trust and build you know, kinda transition from just a, order taker to a voice of the table and strategic decision maker. And I heard that from Joe, Soumya, and Elias. So I think that really summarizes it. It really, really does. Rick, great job moderating. Thank you so much. Soumya, Joe, Elias, thank you for participating in this panel. What a great one.