In my career I have had the privilege of establishing an insights function from scratch twice, once for an Asia Pacific regional footprint in an established large global organization, and more recently in a young Singapore-based business.
These two experiences have been quite some years apart, so it has been interesting to reflect on the changes in the nature of the work, the skills needed in an insights team, the technology available for our work and the challenges faced by insights practitioners.
A lot has changed, however one thing that I feel is persistent is the challenge of really achieving “insights to action” and leveraging the cumulative value of insights work.
A phrase that regularly pops up on process frameworks, job descriptions, and roadmaps, “insights to action” refers to the shift that we expect to take place when decisions and actions are taken as the result of providing a new