Rotman Management — Spring 2017

rotmanmagazine.ca / 75

DESPITE THEIR BEST INTENTIONS TO FOCUS on customer needs, many

companies spend most of their time looking inward. If you are

not convinced of this, try this experiment: In your next internal

meeting, divide a piece of paper in two. On the left side, record

each mention of an internal topic, such as financial or operational

performance, plans, metrics, employees or culture; on the right

side, record each discussion of an external topic, such as compe-

tition, technology, innovation, social media or customer needs

and wants. If your ‘introverted’ score is higher than your ‘extro-

verted’ score — keep reading.

Consumer-facing companies in developed economies have

experienced little to no growth since the global recession of

2008. As a result, the smartest of the bunch are now increasingly
      looking outward, trying to spur growth by turning to new sources
      of customer information — ‘structured’ batches of Big Data such
      as online behaviour and ‘unstructured’ data such as social media
      and call centre conversations.
      In addition, these companies are experimenting with predic-
      tive methods for anticipating customer behaviour and evolving

an internal customer insight (CI) function that can provide rel-

evant recommendations and ongoing execution support.

Unfortunately, our research finds that most companies

struggle to make CI more than just a traditional market research

operation. In this article we will look at the challenges and ben-

efits of integrating CI into your core processes.

Rewiring Your Customer Insight Function

Rapidly-changing technology is having disruptive effects on con-

sumer behaviour. Shopping is now integrated into consumers’

daily activities, before and after traditional retail hours, and the

shopping habits of Millennials, for example, are quite different

from those of older generations. Mobile apps are generating large

volumes of new data from sources such as online behaviour pat-

terns, social media, user reviews, geolocation data and mobile

payments. Consumer demand for information, ‘newness’ and

interactions with brands is increasing, as is the ability of brands

and retailers to anticipate the needs of individual customers. As

a result, sectors that once were predictable and stable — and that

HOW TO TURN

CUSTOMER INSIGHT

INTO GROWTH

Most leaders recognize the importance of understanding their customers.

Why, then, do so many continue to overlook change signals?

by C. Barton, L. Koslow, R.Dhar, S. Chadwick, M.Reeves and F. Lang