What are Strategic Insights?
Strategic insights are the process of uncovering and evaluating data to provide knowledge and understanding that can help a company make strategic decisions. Fintalent’s strategic insights consultants note that business use of the term “strategic insights” refers specifically to the process of leveraging data (via primary research, secondary research, etc.) to provide knowledge or understanding that can help a company make strategic decisions. While marketing firms have been using insights for years as part of their tasks, in business the use of this term has only come about in recent years.
In many cases, this knowledge can help you formulate a decision. This is where the difference between insights and intelligence lies. Strategic insights are essentially “knowledge” or “understanding” that helps you make decisions; intelligence, on the other hand, may not be able to be used as such. Intelligence is more like raw data with no real value if it cannot be used as knowledge to make decisions.
Insight is typically generated through primary research techniques such as surveys, focus groups and interviews with consumers. This can be ran by a company or the client in order to get valuable information on specific issues.
Insight is used to gain knowledge about their customer base. This can be done by doing research for the benefit of customers, potential customers, and associated companies. They can also give insight on the company itself, helping them understand what things they should change in order to make better decisions.
Insight is given to a company through research like surveys, focus groups and interviews with consumers. There are many different kinds of surveys and focus groups that are used to get data from people on a variety of topics. The way these techniques are tried out differs as well, so they cannot be compared across all companies looking for insight.
Insight can be uncovered through the use of these research techniques and through analysis the executives gain a better understanding of their consumers and potential customers. This information can then be used to help the company make decisions that are beneficial for both sides. Insight can also be valuable for companies dealing with financial issues.
There are many ways to collect consumer insight data, varying from one company to another. First, face-to-face interviews are conducted with people who fit into one or more of your target groups – these techniques may include a series of focus groups consisting of different age groups or another variation (such as customer support line), in which a group is asked about the same topics but in more depth. Other techniques are telephones, online and mobile questionnaires, or in-home or out-of-home surveys (such as intercepts).
Strategic insights are not limited to just one particular area, but they typically include the following:
-Consumer Insight: The use of research techniques such as surveys, focus groups and interviews to best understand what consumers are thinking–and doing.
-Business Strategy: Studying how customers consume your product or service, how they pay for it, how they buy it and what motivates them most.
-Competitive Analysis: A detailed examination of your competitors’ positioning within the market in terms of strategy, strengths/weaknesses and competitor analysis.
-Legal and Regulatory Compliance: Understanding the laws and regulations within your market that affect your business, as well as compliance to those regulations through periodic changes.
-Financial Analysis: Reviewing and budgeting financial statements such as income statements, balance sheets and cash flow statements to better understand a company’s financial position in the marketplace.
-Marketing Intelligence: Learning from data points in the media, consulting firms or other sources analytic information that can help develop strategies for marketing products and services.
In summary, strategic insights are about gaining knowledge about your market, industry or competition through research techniques. This research data can be used to enable companies to make strategic decisions. Strategic Insights arose when facing demanding and challenging markets, where the consequences of poor decisions are high-risk, costly and may result in losing market share or reputation.
