Transforming Insight Podcast

Clare and I shared a stage at Quirk’s London in May, and we were reflecting on the amount of disruption in the corporate Insight world at this moment. Reorganisations, budget freezes, headcount cuts, senior roles disrupted… we’re seeing it all.

And – spoiler alert for next week’s roundtable episode – I personally don’t think this period of change is going to end any time soon.

In this environment, it’s particularly important to reflect on our Insight team’s output, because it’s the output that you will usually be known for. It’s what will largely dictate other departments’ views of Insight itself and the role we could play.

Clare is a great advocate for ‘Insight productisation’; identifying our core outputs, structuring them, packaging them, branding them, using test and learn to see how they land, then developing a comm’s plan to encourage more stakeholders to engage with them. She has also always had KPIs in place to measure each Insight product’s success – usually its return on investment.

Topics Discussed

• Insight teams and product optimisation (00:09)
• Transforming Insight teams through productisation (08:50) 
• Product differentiation (15:19) 
• Strategic Insight management for impact (20:40) 
• The future of Insight teams (28:39) 

Highlights

• “Businesses are constantly having to anticipate change. Now they're having to think forward. They're having to react quickly, get on the front foot and navigate change, and COVID made that business as usual.” (05:14)
• “Another part of my role was developer cap innovation, so we were quite specific on exactly what we were doing, what the products were and how we were taking best practice from design, research and various other things agile work to productize what we needed to deliver.” (14.51)
• “So it was initially targeted at the board, but then that became the consistent knowledge base and fact pack for the rest of the business and it was a Halo product because the KPIs that had been identified within it were then the things that we tracked and we reported onto the business on a monthly basis.” (21.14)
• “I think my other advice would be to embrace AI and use it to empower you. There is nothing more empowering than being able to do insight faster, quicker and enabled by tech.” (25.52)

Please listen to find out more!

This is episode 75 of the Transforming Insight podcast. 

If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team and the role it plays in your organisation, please tune in to future episodes. Not only will we explore the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams as outlined in the Transforming Insight book, we will also talk to senior corporate Insight leaders, delve into books that have inspired us, and discuss new best practice research carried out with the IMA’s corporate members.

You won’t want to miss this! So please subscribe - and thank you for listening. 

About James Wycherley, the author of Transforming Insight

James Wycherley was Director of Customer Insight and Analytics at Barclays Bank from 2005 to 2015 when he became Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy (IMA). 

He published his first book, Transforming Insight, in 2020, and his second, The Insight Leader’s Playbook, in 2025, and he hosts the Insight forums and the Transforming Insight podcast.

An entertaining keynote speaker, he has presented over 50 times at Quirk’s events, a global record, and has provided thought leadership in the UK, USA, Europe, Canada, Australia, India and the Middle East.

The Insight Management Academy is the world’s leading authority on transforming corporate Insight teams, and its vision is to inspire and support every Insight leader to transform the impact of Insight in their organisation.

Resources:

If you would like more information on any of the ideas discussed in this episode of the Transforming Insight podcast, please visit www.insight-management.org

Disclaimer

The Transforming Insight podcast is published by the Insight Management Academy and produced by Zorbiant.

All rights reserved.   

Any small business owner writing a playbook would want to consider their company’s products and how they’re packaged. Similarly, as Insight leaders, I think we should review our Insight team’s products each year (our output), and how our products are packaged (our communications).

In this episode we look at:

• Working on our Insight teams (0.50)
• Regular products (2.49)
• Insight investigations (3.42)
• Forward-looking pieces (4.49)
• Big picture summaries (5.59)
• Models and segmentations (9.30)
• Packaging and consuming our products (11.12)

Please listen to find out more!

This is episode 74 of the Transforming Insight podcast. 

If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team and the role it plays in your organisation, please tune in to future episodes. Not only will we explore the secrets of successful corporate Insight teams and their leaders, as outlined in James Wycherley’s books, Transforming Insight and The Insight Leader’s Playbook, we will also talk to senior corporate Insight leaders, delve into books that have inspired us, and discuss new best practice research carried out with the IMA’s corporate members.

You won’t want to miss this! So please subscribe - and thank you for listening. 

About James Wycherley, the author of Transforming Insight

James Wycherley was Director of Customer Insight and Analytics at Barclays Bank from 2005 to 2015 when he became Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy (IMA). 

He published his first book, Transforming Insight, in 2020, and his second, The Insight Leader’s Playbook, in 2025, and he hosts the Insight forums and the Transforming Insight podcast.

An entertaining keynote speaker, he has presented over 50 times at Quirk’s events, a global record, and has provided thought leadership in the UK, USA, Europe, Canada, Australia, India and the Middle East.

The Insight Management Academy is the world’s leading authority on transforming corporate Insight teams, and its vision is to inspire and support every Insight leader to transform the impact of Insight in their organisation.

Resources:

If you would like more information on any of the ideas discussed in this episode of the Transforming Insight podcast, please visit www.insight-management.org

Disclaimer

The Transforming Insight podcast is published by the Insight Management Academy and produced by Zorbiant.

All rights reserved.   

This has a particular bearing on how we approach the prioritisation of our work. In episode 72 we explored the twin importance of Insight leaders assigning time to identify the biggest business issues they could research in more detail, and the benefits of developing more agency over which topics would then be their teams’ main focus. If we overlay a commercial mindset, we can make sure that we’re looking at prioritisation through a lens our CEO will understand, and the perceived value of our Insight teams will rise.

This week James is joined by Nick Rich, former Insight leader at Carlsberg and InterContinental Hotels Group, and now the founder of a new business called Growth Constructors that seeks to provide organisations with tools that enable them to find sustainable growth through Insight.

Together, they discuss how Insight teams can move from being reactive service providers to proactive strategic voices, gaining more agency in their roles by making essential choices about how to allocate time and resources. 

Nick has also played the lead co-ordinating a joint IMA, MRS and AURA initiative in the UK, the Client Sight 2025 survey. Launched this week, it looks at corporate Insight professionals’ views of Insight, of their careers, their future in the sector, and how we all need to develop our skills and capabilities. It reveals a gap between the value that Insight teams seek to add, and the value they feel is placed on Insight by their organisations, and an understandable desire to gain more attention from senior people and a greater voice in strategic decisions.

Finally, we address the critical role of embedding commercial prioritisation within Insight teams to drive organisational success. Nick and James both believe in linking insights to commercial objectives, in providing new team members with an immersion in commercial factors as part of their induction, and, conversely, in an Insight team helping the rest of its organisation to be more commercial in its thinking.

Please listen to find out more!

Topics Discussed

• Insight prioritisation and value contribution (06:01)
• Closing the gap for Insight (10:50) 
• Insight teams and revenue generation (19:07) 
• Budget allocation for business growth (25:06) 
• Unlocking commercial success with brand trackers (29:42) 

Highlights

• “One of my biggest frustrations that I had, particularly on the client side, was really linking insights to the growth of a business, and I think there's definitely a gap there in how do we make insights more commercial, but how does Insights really lead the way in identifying growth opportunities for a business and then leading the business to that growth?.” (04:44)
• “So you know, to quote, essentially, gaining respect from the C-suite and senior business leadership, getting Insight analytics teams more important within my organisation and having the organisation invest more heavily in Insights analytics.” (11.17)
• “First thing you do, just work out exactly all the myriad ways this business can make money, because that opens up your understanding about who your real stakeholders are, who the channels are that you've got to be involved with, the relationships you've got to form.” (18.09)
• “We talked about finding your purpose and understanding how the business makes money, how it makes decisions. I think the first thing for an Insight leader is to take a look at your current agenda, take a look at your team and work out whether you are truly connected to those commercials.” (28.51)

This is episode 73 of the Transforming Insight podcast. 

If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team and the role it plays in your organisation, please tune in to future episodes. Not only will we explore the secrets of successful corporate Insight teams and their leaders, as outlined in James Wycherley’s books, Transforming Insight and The Insight Leader’s Playbook, we will also talk to senior corporate Insight leaders, delve into books that have inspired us, and discuss new best practice research carried out with the IMA’s corporate members.

You won’t want to miss this! So please subscribe - and thank you for listening. 

About James Wycherley, the author of Transforming Insight

James Wycherley was Director of Customer Insight and Analytics at Barclays Bank from 2005 to 2015 when he became Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy (IMA). 

He published his first book, Transforming Insight, in 2020, and his second, The Insight Leader’s Playbook, in 2025, and he hosts the Insight forums and the Transforming Insight podcast.

An entertaining keynote speaker, he has presented over 50 times at Quirk’s events, a global record, and has provided thought leadership in the UK, USA, Europe, Canada, Australia, India and the Middle East.

The Insight Management Academy is the world’s leading authority on transforming corporate Insight teams, and its vision is to inspire and support every Insight leader to transform the impact of Insight in their organisation.

Resources:

If you would like more information on any of the ideas discussed in this episode of the Transforming Insight podcast, please visit www.insight-management.org

Disclaimer

The Transforming Insight podcast is published by the Insight Management Academy and produced by Zorbiant.

All rights reserved.   

But whose priorities are we talking about?

Who identifies the business issues that Insight could investigate?

Ho much agency does the Insight have in allocating its own time, budget and focus?

In this episode we look at:

• The Insight prioritisation matrix (1.30)
• The paramount importance of proactivity (4.17)
• Making essential choices (7.40)
• The daily discipline of prioritisation (10.55)
• Value-based prioritisation (14.04)
• A commercial mindset (17.50)

Please listen to find out more!

This is episode 72 of the Transforming Insight podcast. 

If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team and the role it plays in your organisation, please tune in to future episodes. Not only will we explore the secrets of successful corporate Insight teams and their leaders, as outlined in James Wycherley’s books, Transforming Insight and The Insight Leader’s Playbook, we will also talk to senior corporate Insight leaders, delve into books that have inspired us, and discuss new best practice research carried out with the IMA’s corporate members.

You won’t want to miss this! So please subscribe - and thank you for listening. 

About James Wycherley, the author of Transforming Insight

James Wycherley was Director of Customer Insight and Analytics at Barclays Bank from 2005 to 2015 when he became Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy (IMA). 

He published his first book, Transforming Insight, in 2020, and his second, The Insight Leader’s Playbook, in 2025, and he hosts the Insight forums and the Transforming Insight podcast.

An entertaining keynote speaker, he has presented over 50 times at Quirk’s events, a global record, and has provided thought leadership in the UK, USA, Europe, Canada, Australia, India and the Middle East.

The Insight Management Academy is the world’s leading authority on transforming corporate Insight teams, and its vision is to inspire and support every Insight leader to transform the impact of Insight in their organisation.

Resources:

If you would like more information on any of the ideas discussed in this episode of the Transforming Insight podcast, please visit www.insight-management.org

Disclaimer

The Transforming Insight podcast is published by the Insight Management Academy and produced by Zorbiant.

All rights reserved.   

In our conversation, we look at the busy workload of both client-side Insight teams and market research agencies, and the empathy that the best of each demonstrate for the other. This includes the well-being of all concerned in the research process, and steps we can all take to help each other.

Central to the discussion is AURA's Working Well Together charter, which has been designed to foster healthier, thriving collaborations. Ruth talks about the 6 principles enshrined within the charter, and James E. gives his perspective on the principles that agencies think most important and those that he would like us to prioritise.

Do agencies receive all the information that they would like when making proposals for new projects? Do Insight teams themselves always know the full commercial and strategic context surrounding the business issues? How can we take time to share feedback at key moments in the research process?

We couldn’t finish our conversation, looking ahead. Will generative AI prompt changes in the mix between agency work and in-house research? And how can we all place the emphasis on building great relationships that James and Ruth both see as so critical?

Please listen to find out more!

Topics Discussed

• Strengthening client-agency partnerships in Insight teams (02:46)
• Importance of agency collaboration in projects (11:50) 
• Maximising stakeholder involvement for Insight (17:01) 
• Future of client-agency partnerships and AI (24:51) 
• The development of corporate and agency Insight teams (28:02) 

Highlights

• “The topic of wellbeing and mental health more broadly in the UK sector: research that was done by the MRS a few years ago showed that there are high levels of poor mental health and examples of stress and a lot of that comes from the interface between clients and agencies.” (04:12)
• “Over time, as that relationship grows and you get to know their business better, that just becomes even easier and easier and easier, and you know so much more anyway. But it really is essential to give as much information as possible.” (15.34)
• “In AURA’s webinar about procurement, we had an expert who specialises in marketing services who absolutely acknowledges that research is not widgets and you can't put out a request for proposals and assess it in the same way in which you could assess buying something physical for your business or buying a commodity for your business.” (22.35)
• “We do all need to be mindful of training needs for our people on both sides. Training needs, perhaps on the client-side, of communication and championing insights inside the organisation, so that those conversations are very easy to get the briefs that we've been talking about, because all the stakeholders are fully aware of what's needed and what's required and how important it is.” (28.02)

This is episode 71 of the Transforming Insight podcast. 

If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team and the role it plays in your organisation, please tune in to future episodes. Not only will we explore the secrets of successful corporate Insight teams and their leaders, as outlined in James Wycherley’s books, Transforming Insight and The Insight Leader’s Playbook, we will also talk to senior corporate Insight leaders, delve into books that have inspired us, and discuss new best practice research carried out with the IMA’s corporate members.

You won’t want to miss this! So please subscribe - and thank you for listening. 

About James Wycherley, the author of Transforming Insight

James Wycherley was Director of Customer Insight and Analytics at Barclays Bank from 2005 to 2015 when he became Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy (IMA). 

He published his first book, Transforming Insight, in 2020, and his second, The Insight Leader’s Playbook, in 2025, and he hosts the Insight forums and the Transforming Insight podcast.

An entertaining keynote speaker, he has presented over 50 times at Quirk’s events, a global record, and has provided thought leadership in the UK, USA, Europe, Canada, Australia, India and the Middle East.

The Insight Management Academy is the world’s leading authority on transforming corporate Insight teams, and its vision is to inspire and support every Insight leader to transform the impact of Insight in their organisation.

Resources:

If you would like more information on any of the ideas discussed in this episode of the Transforming Insight podcast, please visit www.insight-management.org

Disclaimer

The Transforming Insight podcast is published by the Insight Management Academy and produced by Zorbiant.

All rights reserved.   

James is joined by IMA Senior Insight Adviser, Roy Hammond, who developed a more strategic approach to managing agency relationships at Barclays.

In this week’s episode:

• We can’t just rely on the people we manage (1.30)
• Don’t forget internal departments (3.06)
• Roy Hammond’s approach to the strategic management of agencies (8.46)
• We’re never trained in how to manage partnerships (11.27)
• How do we measure agency performance? (14.17)
• The attributes of great partnerships (18.12)

Please listen to find out more!

This is episode 70 of the Transforming Insight podcast. 

If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team and the role it plays in your organisation, please tune in to future episodes. Not only will we explore the secrets of successful corporate Insight teams and their leaders, as outlined in James Wycherley’s books, Transforming Insight and The Insight Leader’s Playbook, we will also talk to senior corporate Insight leaders, delve into books that have inspired us, and discuss new best practice research carried out with the IMA’s corporate members.

You won’t want to miss this! So please subscribe - and thank you for listening. 

About James Wycherley, the author of Transforming Insight

James Wycherley was Director of Customer Insight and Analytics at Barclays Bank from 2005 to 2015 when he became Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy (IMA). 

He published his first book, Transforming Insight, in 2020, and his second, The Insight Leader’s Playbook, in 2025, and he hosts the Insight forums and the Transforming Insight podcast.

An entertaining keynote speaker, he has presented over 50 times at Quirk’s events, a global record, and has provided thought leadership in the UK, USA, Europe, Canada, Australia, India and the Middle East.

The Insight Management Academy is the world’s leading authority on transforming corporate Insight teams, and its vision is to inspire and support every Insight leader to transform the impact of Insight in their organisation.

Resources:

If you would like more information on any of the ideas discussed in this episode of the Transforming Insight podcast, please visit www.insight-management.org

Disclaimer

The Transforming Insight podcast is published by the Insight Management Academy and produced by Zorbiant.

All rights reserved.   

James is joined by Emma Jones, the IMA’s Head of Content, and Lisa Dutton, Head of Customer, to look back at the term just gone, and forward to the summer term to come.

In this week’s episode:

• The need to embrace ‘uncomfortable influencing’
• Tactical tips for managing difficult conversations
• The bunch of fives… what’s the worst that can happen? 
• What do CEO’s think about Insight?
• The need to understand stakeholders and their communication preferences
• What’s on James’s mind for Quirk’s Chicago, London and New York?
• The next Insight forums we’ve organised for our members

Please listen to find out more!

This is episode 69 of the Transforming Insight podcast. 

If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team and the role it plays in your organisation, please tune in to future episodes. Not only will we explore the secrets of successful corporate Insight teams and their leaders, as outlined in James Wycherley’s books, Transforming Insight and The Insight Leader’s Playbook, we will also talk to senior corporate Insight leaders, delve into books that have inspired us, and discuss new best practice research carried out with the IMA’s corporate members.

You won’t want to miss this! So please subscribe - and thank you for listening. 

About James Wycherley, the author of Transforming Insight

James Wycherley was Director of Customer Insight and Analytics at Barclays Bank from 2005 to 2015 when he became Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy (IMA). 

He published his first book, Transforming Insight, in 2020, and his second, The Insight Leader’s Playbook, in 2025, and he hosts the Insight forums and the Transforming Insight podcast.

An entertaining keynote speaker, he has presented over 50 times at Quirk’s events, a global record, and has provided thought leadership in the UK, USA, Europe, Canada, Australia, India and the Middle East.

The Insight Management Academy is the world’s leading authority on transforming corporate Insight teams, and its vision is to inspire and support every Insight leader to transform the impact of Insight in their organisation.

Resources:

If you would like more information on any of the ideas discussed in this episode of the Transforming Insight podcast, please visit www.insight-management.org

Disclaimer

The Transforming Insight podcast is published by the Insight Management Academy and produced by Zorbiant.

All rights reserved.   

James is joined by Lara Meyer, an expert on Insight team stress and well-being, to discuss the ongoing importance of developing Insight professionals and nurturing our teams amidst rapid technological advancements. Lara shares her personal journey, highlighting the necessity of balancing high performance with well-being for sustainable success. 

Burnout can creep up on even the most resilient among us, quietly eroding our passion and energy, and Lara explains how this can easily happen to Insight professionals.

• What is burnout?
• What are the signs to look out for?
• How can we help our colleagues to avoid or alleviate stress? 

This is a critical issue for Insight leaders and anyone who aspires to be a senior manager in an Insight team. 

Please listen to find out more!

Topics Discussed

• Developing Insight People Through Change (00:36)
• Balancing High Performance and Happiness (06:10)
• Recognising and Preventing Burnout (14:12)
• Importance of Work-Life Balance (19:29)
• Benefits of Self-Awareness in Leadership (27:06)

Highlights

• “Sometimes as individuals I speak from personal experience and as managers or leaders, or even organizationally, we don't take care of ourselves or the people that we're working alongside quite as well as we should do.” (04:59)
• “Having many clients and many stakeholders, certainly when I was in my client-side roles in Microsoft, balancing, many, many requests from across the business mean that you're trying to do the best that you can and wanting to deliver as much as possible, which can often mean taking on too much.” (09.18)
• “That balance between work and out of work always fascinates me. This was, you know, I've just been putting the finishing touches to a book called the Insight Leader's Playbook, and I found myself finishing the book by making reference to what's a bit of a bugbear of mine.” (18.42)
• “The key is in the small steps that you can do for yourself, specifically outside of work. So it is about how you can do small things for yourself that help you to recharge, because the antidote to, you know, being overly stressed, being burnt out, isn't just taking a pause, taking a break.” (24.35)

This is episode 68 of the Transforming Insight podcast. 

If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team and the role it plays in your organisation, please tune in to future episodes. Not only will we explore the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams as outlined in the Transforming Insight book, we will also talk to senior corporate Insight leaders, delve into books that have inspired us, and discuss new best practice research carried out with the IMA’s corporate members.

You won’t want to miss this! So please subscribe - and thank you for listening. 

About James Wycherley, the author of Transforming Insight

James Wycherley was Director of Customer Insight and Analytics at Barclays from 2005 to 2015 when he became Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy (IMA). A popular keynote speaker and acknowledged expert on Insight leadership, strategy, and communication, he is the author of the book Transforming Insight: the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams, and over 35 IMA publications. He has provided thought leadership in the UK, Western Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, India, and the Middle East, and regularly hosts the IMA’s Insight forums - London, Manchester, UK Online and US Online.

The Insight Management Academy is the world’s leading authority on transforming Insight teams.

Resources: 

If you would like more information on any of the ideas discussed in this episode of the Transforming Insight podcast, please visit www.insight-management.org

Copies of James Wycherley’s book Transforming Insight: the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams can be purchased direct from www.transforming-insight.com

Disclaimer

The Transforming Insight podcast is published by the Insight Management Academy and produced by Zorbiant.

All rights reserved.   

Arguably it’s never been more important than it is today, because the environment in which we are generating insights and impact the business is changing fast, and the tools that we and others have available are also changing.

That gives us some key questions to address:

• What types of activity should we prioritise?
• How many people should we have in our teams?
• How can we make the case for extra headcount?
• How should we structure our teams?
• Which skills, mindsets and behaviours will be critical in the future?
• How can Insight leaders guide their teams through change?

To answer these questions, James is joined by Lisa Dutton, Head of Team Development at the IMA, and a regular guest on the Transforming Insight podcast.

Please listen to find out more!

Topics Discussed

• Key questions to ask (1.54)
• Thinking of ourselves as Insight influencers (4.04)
• Uncomfortable influencing (7.11)
• Time for a bit of tough love (11.44)
• The experience mix (16.10)
• Different types of ambition (19.58)

This is episode 67 of the Transforming Insight podcast. 

If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team and the role it plays in your organisation, please tune in to future episodes. Not only will we explore the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams as outlined in the Transforming Insight book, we will also talk to senior corporate Insight leaders, delve into books that have inspired us, and discuss new best practice research carried out with the IMA’s corporate members.

You won’t want to miss this! So please subscribe - and thank you for listening. 

About James Wycherley, the author of Transforming Insight

James Wycherley was Director of Customer Insight and Analytics at Barclays from 2005 to 2015 when he became Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy (IMA). A popular keynote speaker and acknowledged expert on Insight leadership, strategy, and communication, he is the author of the book Transforming Insight: the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams, and over 35 IMA publications. He has provided thought leadership in the UK, Western Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, India, and the Middle East, and regularly hosts the IMA’s Insight forums - London, Manchester, UK Online and US Online.

The Insight Management Academy is the world’s leading authority on transforming Insight teams.

Resources: 

If you would like more information on any of the ideas discussed in this episode of the Transforming Insight podcast, please visit www.insight-management.org

Copies of James Wycherley’s book Transforming Insight: the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams can be purchased direct from www.transforming-insight.com

Disclaimer

The Transforming Insight podcast is published by the Insight Management Academy and produced by Zorbiant.

All rights reserved.   

Join us as we explore the transformative journey of Insight teams striving to elevate their influence within organisations. We are thrilled to be joined by Joanne Pearson from Jaguar Land Rover and Helen Passard from Suntory Beverages Europe as we discuss strategies for enhancing the profile of Insight teams. We unpack the challenges faced by introverted teams and the constraints of hierarchical structures that often stifle effective communication. Joanne and Helen share their expertise on building credibility and trust across the business, underscoring the critical role of Insight teams in influencing decision-making and ensuring their valuable insights reach key decision-makers.

Emotions matter as much as analytics in the realm of insights, and we explore how emotive storytelling can be a game-changer for Insight teams, enabling them to craft narratives that resonate across complex, global organisations.

Listen in as we reflect on the future of Insight teams, emphasising the power of simplicity in communication and the importance of personal branding for Insight leaders. We discuss the essential skills needed to elevate the team's profile and ensure their work resonates across the organisation. 

Please listen to find out more!

Topics Discussed

• Raising the profile of Insight teams (00:09)
• Elevating Insight teams through emotion (10:49) 
• Raising the visibility and impact of insights (15:49) 
• Simplicity in communication (21:50) 
• The future of Insight teams (27:38) 

Highlights

• “But probably for me the biggest piece of it is that ultimately, insight is not valuable to a business unless it's influencing decision making and the actions that we're taking. And I kind of think of it's easy to think of profile as kind of a negative thing, like you're shouting about what you're doing but actually what you're really doing is building trust and credibility.” (03:21)
• “What's our cycle plan? What products are we launching? How much of our customer experience, you know, are we measuring? What are we doing with our brands? That sort of drives that agenda.” (05.38)
• “I think there's two sides to it, isn't there? There's one, that is, you know, use the non-rational information to bring stories to life. I think actually sometimes insight teams, because we feel a bit of pressure to be evidence-based, and so then, when we're sharing and we're trying to build this profile, we can fall into that trap a bit. (13.10)
• “I think it makes our role more important than ever. Clearly, things will change, but AI tools are only as good as the data set that they're sitting over the top of that they're sitting over the top of and, yes, we're starting to get into the likes of synthetic research, where tools are simulating what the response might be, but that can only work for a while before you refresh it with additional content. (28.46)

This is episode 66 of the Transforming Insight podcast. 

If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team and the role it plays in your organisation, please tune in to future episodes. Not only will we explore the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams as outlined in the Transforming Insight book, we will also talk to senior corporate Insight leaders, delve into books that have inspired us, and discuss new best practice research carried out with the IMA’s corporate members.

You won’t want to miss this! So please subscribe - and thank you for listening. 

About James Wycherley, the author of Transforming Insight

James Wycherley was Director of Customer Insight and Analytics at Barclays from 2005 to 2015 when he became Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy (IMA). A popular keynote speaker and acknowledged expert on Insight leadership, strategy, and communication, he is the author of the book Transforming Insight: the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams, and over 35 IMA publications. He has provided thought leadership in the UK, Western Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, India, and the Middle East, and regularly hosts the IMA’s Insight forums - London, Manchester, UK Online and US Online.

The Insight Management Academy is the world’s leading authority on transforming Insight teams.

Resources: 

If you would like more information on any of the ideas discussed in this episode of the Transforming Insight podcast, please visit www.insight-management.org

Copies of James Wycherley’s book Transforming Insight: the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams can be purchased direct from www.transforming-insight.com

Disclaimer

The Transforming Insight podcast is published by the Insight Management Academy and produced by Zorbiant.

All rights reserved.