The good thing about an octopus is that it has multiple arms, which can spread and catch in all directions. These eight arms, and the food they are able to mop up from all sides, help the head of the octopus grow and flourish. This is an interesting fact from the animal world, but what connection does it have with the profession of marketing and customer insight, which this column addresses?

Just a simple connect, really. Most marketers feel that customer insights, and the 360-degree view of the customer that it produces, should be very much like an octopus. Its multiple tentacles should stretch across all departments of the company, linking up people in all elements of the value chain, including marketing, product creation, innovation, supply chain, after-sales service and overall customer experience. This seamless obsession with customer insight in every function creates high-performing companies driven by customer-centricity. However, in the view of many Indian marketers, customer insights still appear to belong only to the marketing function, where they often languish in a silo of their own making. The insights octopus is yet to be born.

This was one of the key threads of discussion in a recent seminar in Mumbai, organised by Millward Brown Vermeer, to discuss the results of a global study on driving customer-centric growth. Titled ‘Insights 2020’, this is one of the largest studies of its kind. In its own octopus sort of way, this insights & analytics survey covered 60 countries, and over 10,000 respondents, including behavioural analysis conducted over online platforms such as LinkedIn. I was privileged to be a member of the Advisory Board of Insights 2020, along with senior marketers from several other global corporates, including Google, Verizon, BAT, Volkswagen and Group M. The Board was chaired by Keith Weed, the energetic and articulate Chief Marketing and Communications Officer of Unilever. Frank van den Driest, Chief Commercial Officer and Executive Board Member of Millward Brown Vermeer led this global study, and made a superb presentation on its key conclusions.

Here are some key findings and implications of the Insights 2020 study, that all marketers should know about.

Customer-centricity and revenue growth go closely hand in hand. Over-performing companies are far more obsessed with customers than their mediocre peers. Customer-centricity is no longer an option, it is an imperative.

Three key dimensions of customer-centric growth in companies include (a) the creation of total customer experience at all touchpoints, rather than just providing customers functional products and services (b) a total obsession with customers across the organisation and (c) a strong customer insights engine within the organisation, with data as its clean fuel.

A strong customer insights engine can be created by the Insights & Analytics function having a seat at the top table of the organisation, and also by unlocking the power of data.

In a disproportionately large number of very successful organisations, the Insights & Analytics function has a leading role in supporting decision-making, and also reports in directly to the CEO of the Company.

Customer insights are at their most powerful when they link multiple, diverse data sources to distil sharp insights. The ability to “connect the dots” across multiple pockets of data is thus a key capability. In fact, this capability is becoming increasingly important as the number of data pockets increase, powered by both online and offline data.

Here are two interesting bits of statistics (and the Insights 2020 report contains many similar impressive statistics). Seventy-three per cent of staff at over-performing companies say that they create customer experiences using data-driven insights. Equally impressively, seventy-nine per cent of employees at over-performing companies say that customer-centricity is fully embraced in all business functions, not just by the marketing function.

This final statistic brings us back to the octopus and customer insight theme of this article. Most Indian marketers, who were present at the Insights 2020 seminar in Mumbai, were quite happy to note that the search for customer insights has already begun playing a key role in their respective companies. Yet they bemoaned the fact that customer-centricity and insight are generally seen as the sole preserve of the marketing department, with very little interest or engagement by other functions such as sales, manufacturing, innovation or the supply chain.

“Imagine how much more powerful our company would be,” one of these marketers told me wistfully, “if every single department was obsessed with our customers, and everyone across the company was aligned to the same view of our customer. More customer obsession everywhere means many more valuable insights on the table. In addition, each customer insight would be seen through a total 360-degree view, uniquely enabled by the varied expertise of so many diverse functions. And we would then also certainly deliver far better products, services and experiences to our customers, much more sharply focused on their needs. That is what happens when both internal operations and customer facing functions are driven, first and foremost, by customer insights and needs.”

So what can companies do to ensure that customer insights transform themselves into an octopus, embracing all departments and not just the marketing function ? Here are some simple ideas that may work for your organisation.

Ensure that the Insights & Analytics function reports directly to the CEO, given its key importance in driving growth, and its relatively nascent presence. Organisational octopuses tend to flourish best under the CEO’s direct care, at least until they have grown up.

Invite the Head of Customer Insights & Analytics to sit in on all key meetings where customer-focused decisions are discussed or finalised. Permit her (or him) to support or challenge the leadership with data-driven insights, in all such meetings. This can lead to fascinating conversations which deliver sharp actions.

Urge team members from all functions, not just marketing and sales, to go out and meet directly with customers. For instance, when manufacturing and supply chain people interact face-to-face with customers and understand their aspirations and problems, key areas of satisfaction and complaints, they come back with fresh “customer-focused” knowledge and vigour, and new insights as well. Eventually, if such interactions happen regularly, they begin seeing themselves as customer professionals first, and manufacturing professionals only thereafter.

Encourage senior people from all key departments to attend key sessions where important customer research findings or customer insights data are presented and discussed. Don’t limit such meetings only to marketing and advertising folk, who are typically the participants today. This ensures that customer understanding is enhanced across all functions, and leads to greater engagement with customer insights across the company.

Develop amongst insights and analytics professionals the art of telling powerful customer stories to internal stakeholders across the organisation. Storytelling brings insights to life, as it makes customer behaviour easy to understand for people in all functions. By narrating true human stories drawn from the lives of their customers to illustrate an insight, marketers can also breathe emotion into data and analytics, thus making key insights instantly memorable.

Incorporate at least one appropriate customer-related measure into the incentive structure for leadership teams across all functions – even internal functions generally considered distant from consumers, such as IT, Finance or Procurement. This often works like magic, because it raises customer salience in everyone’s minds, and, as we all know, what gets measured and rewarded gets done.

Create multiple formal and informal forums for conversations that revolve around customers. This can include formal meetings that review customer metrics, informal online communities that discuss a range of customer related topics, newsletters that highlight important customer trends, walls that celebrate moments of customer delight, and even customers themselves being invited to meet company executives for a cup of tea and some good conversation. In conclusion, if you are a marketer or a business head, it is a very good idea for you to nurture the Insights Octopus in your company. Here is an octopus which can help everyone embrace customer-centricity, which has strong positive correlation to sales and customer growth.

(Harish Bhat is the author of 'Tata Log: Eight modern stories from a timeless institution.' These are his personal views. bhatharish@hotmail.com )

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