Reactions to ‘Numbers and Stories’

Devangshu Dutta

December 16, 2009

Following on our article (“Numbers and Stories”, 23 November 2009), our friends at Retailwire.com thought it would be interesting to run a poll to ask the Retailwire community what they thought about retailers using research. The original discussion is here on Retailwire, but we’ve reproduced the comments and the poll results as they stand today (16 December 2009).

As evident from the graph below, the short answer is “no, companies don’t use research well”; only 15% of the respondents felt that companies are “good” in using research, at their best. Should we blame the companies or the researchers? The comments seem to suggest that the blame needs to be shared equally.

Comments below:

 

This sounds a lot like a chapter we wrote for ESOMAR’s Best Practices book. We have devalued research in favor of insights, which can rely much more on a good narrative and much less on good data. A management team that expects insights from research all the time is asking for trouble down the road. A research team that doesn’t focus on quality first and insights second is doomed to failure when management makes the wrong moves. Research needs to give management the best information possible in a way that management can understand it. Management needs to understand that research is providing the best information it can within budget constraints. The two need to work together. [Stephen Needel, Managing Partner, Advanced Simulations]

One of the concerns I have at present is how SKU rationalization research is viewed, so quickly judged, and acted upon. Many retailers are looking only through a narrow interpretation based on shear numbers and not taking into consideration other more visionary factors about specialty brands, niche items, and growth brands. If this keeps up, consumers will have very few choices and most of the stores will all look the same with exact assortments. Only price will differentiate one from the other. The results will be rather ironic. [David Biernbaum, Senior Marketing and Business Development Consultant, David Biernbaum Associates]

I agree that there is a lot of bad “research” out there in the world. Any analytical study has to be right, applicable, and actionable. If a study doesn’t meet these criteria, it is worse than useless–it can actually pollute the minds of decision makers by letting them think they know something they don’t. Before spending any valuable share of mind on numbers, executives should ensure:

1) Is it right? If I only had a buck for every time I’ve seen a big name consulting firm presentation with numerical “findings” using a flawed methodology or with no statistical significance…. I’d be retired in Paris right now.

2) Is it applicable? So, some other retailer says their TV spend has a 150% return (or some consultant claims that). So what? Your business is different. Consumers react differently to every retail concept. You do need to know for you.

3) Is it actionable? Oh, we all know about the study designed to validate the CEOs hunch. Want to guess what the consultant’s findings will say? If you are going to do research, you’d better be prepared to act on the findings–either way.

This is why in-market testing is such a powerful technique in retail. While it does take commitment to do it right, it is one of few techniques that almost always meets these criteria. [Jonathan Marek, Senior Vice President, APT]

It is absolutely true that marketers do not often take the time to understand the basis of the research that they are presented with. Understanding how the research is developed and the analysis approach used to develop recommendations is an important, if misunderstood, part of the job description for a data-driven marketer.

I do find, however, that marketers more often do not carry out sufficient research to draw conclusions, even when that research is relatively easy and low-cost to execute. If you have access to email addresses, you can execute basic research surveys to customers and gain valuable insights in less than a week, at a very low cost. Those opportunities to “fill in the gaps” are often overlooked. Sometimes those insights can make the difference between success and an indifferent failure of a key initiative.

Marketers must understand the opportunities that research affords them, even when timelines are tight. Obtaining the Voice of the Customer, particularly the Best Customer, is a practice that should be followed religiously. Only then will marketers be able to gain insight and make truly data-driven decisions.  [Mark Price, Managing Partner, M Squared Group, Inc.]

We have to keep in mind that corporations are run by human beings that often make decisions on emotion rather than logic. I have many clients who have been very successful making decisions by shooting from the hip, yet they always prefer to see my research, just to be sure. Most of my clients are very bright people and my research generally confirms their own instinctive thoughts. There have been times when I have been brought in to do an autopsy on a project to find out why a store failed. Typical reasons are:

Researchers did not want to offend management so they candy-coated the results.

Key decision makers are suffering from some kind of physical or emotional impairment which affects their ability.

Corrupt middle managers that change the research results.

Researchers leaving out a key piece of data (i.e. not telling management that the Mexican format store they have planned is in a Puerto Rican neighborhood).

Overall, I don’t think retailers have a narrow view of research. Researchers can do a better job in communication by simplifying the results, being blunt, and putting their integrity ahead of their paycheck. [David Livingston, Principal, DJL Research]

I think there are two elements at play here:

First and perhaps foremost, retail is an emotional business. We can have reams of data and still use the words “It feels like….” and make significant decisions based on those gut feel moments. Certainly this has long been true in the world of merchandising. Something “feels like” it’s going to be a home run or a dog, and it “feels like” we’d better take a markdown or run a promotion to goose traffic. And actions are taken accordingly.

Now, can I tell a retailer in all honesty to ignore those gut feels? I really can’t. I can encourage them to use data to support actions taken based on those feelings and obviously that’s what I do…every day. But I can’t ask them to ignore their gut completely.

This brings me to the second issue: we don’t always present data in an easily distilled and understandable format. Our retail survey respondents repeatedly ask to have their Business Intelligence delivered in simpler ways. While “red light, yellow light, green light” might be a little too simple for some decisions, the data just has to be usable and quickly actionable.

Finally…if a retailer (or any company really) is going to make such a dramatic shift, it has to be driven from the top. And the C-level exec driving the initiative also has to LISTEN to what he/she is being told in response. Otherwise you get a company similar to Home Depot under Nardelli.  [Paula Rosenblum, Managing Partner, RSR Research]

Decisions are always made without perfect information to support them. But sometimes, decisions are made that ignore the available information or decline the implications.

Research is clearly most valuable when it can be turned into actionable recommendations. We are all too aware that research can be used as a fishing expedition without a clear objective. However, there is also a danger in using research designed just to prove a point rather than develop real, new learning.

On balance, I believe that research, properly done, interpreted, and acted upon, can vastly improve the decision making process. [Ray Jones, Managing Director, Dechert-Hampe & Co.]

I’m reminded of the Samuel Taylor Coleridge quote “Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” Research/knowledge is the raison d’ tre for The Luxury Marketing Council www.floridaluxurycouncil.com; it’s what I do. The highest level executives or those who will someday sit in the corner office recognize the value of research. They’re able to sift through the myriad of information to find what’s relevant and actionable.

There are a couple trends re: research. Some executives don’t want facts to get in the way of their vision. Historically, these individuals’ careers stall. Also, there are many companies that have pared down their employees to the point that executives don’t have time for the facts–they’re too busy keeping the ball moving. The third group often doesn’t understand how to read the research, how it affects them and/or how they can use it for their benefit.

Relevant research is an imperative for retailers. Having a 360 on your targeted customer and understanding their collective experiences is the key to personal and business success. [Chris Ramey, President, Affluent Insights]

Devangshu Dutta mentions many of my personal concerns regarding research. But before I go any further I have to add, my name is Joan and I am a researcher. I’ve spent many years working in the industry to help alleviate some of the barriers Mr. Dutta listed. There is still much to be done of course.

In this world of easy access to numbers/statistics, upper management demands and gets “stuff” by which they make decisions. Trying to explain the difference between good research and everything else often falls on deaf ears. Management expects those who supply the data, whether they are staff or outside consultants, to bring the quality, validity and relevance required. And in turn they do not question the underlying premise of what they are buying, or what they are buying into.

And when forecasts don’t work out as expected, new products fail and marketing strategies are ineffective, it’s all about how research failed to deliver. Researchers preach to the choir when they have meetings about quality standards.

CASRO (Council of American Survey Research Organizations) has a Code of Standards and Ethics. Companies who belong to CASRO must adhere to them. And this is one way in which clients can insure research results are reliable.

CASRO is initiating an ISO certification program. I believe more client companies and executives will relate to and understand ISO (because their own companies go through similar ISO certification processes), perhaps choosing vendors and staff accordingly. In my opinion, this could be a turning point for the acceptance and recognition of true quality marketing research. I hope so.

As for the story telling aspect of research…well that’s another “story” entirely. I’ve mentored many researchers and advised them to always answer three basic questions, What? So what? And Now what? These questions get to the heart of why research is conducted in the first place. Good reporting and presentation requires training. If you believe that anyone can be a researcher and choose vendors or staff based on that assumption, you get what you get and it may fall below the standards Mr. Dutta advocates. [Joan Treistman, President, The Treistman Group LLC]

During my 11 years with Kenosia I used a phrase with clients “One truth.” By combining disparate data sources, a retailer or a brand manager can get to the “one truth” and then make a business decision regarding direction. Far too often, decisions are made using one source of data which can lead to less than effective results.

Example, if a retailer only views their loyalty data to make business decisions about advertising, are they understanding all the trends happening in their market? Probably not. Combining their loyalty data with demographic data makes it better and adding additional information from a syndicated data provider makes it even better yet.

The great news is, there are a dozen technology solutions to help both retailers and brand managers combine data and the data to combine is available and affordable. It boils down to first understanding the questions and then going out and combining all the best data sets to create the answers. [John Boccuzzi, Jr., Managing Partner, Boccuzzi, LLC]

The use and misuse of research, data and “insights” varies widely across retailers and brands. Typically, the larger the company, the more primary research they have and the more reliant on primary research they are.

Unfortunately, great research and insights are, as many here are illustrating above, not nearly as commonplace as they should be. There are many reasons for this:

– Flawed and biased methodologies (e.g., let’s “Focus Group” this”);

– Vendors who specialize in one research/data collection area over another;

– The research goals and objectives themselves: pure answers to hard marketing questions rarely come directly from research but rather from what is done with it, i.e., what is the data needed to create information to support or disallow a hypothesis?

Budgets, which have mostly seen cuts for the past two years; though the cost of collecting data has come way down in many cases.

All these challenges with research underscore the importance of knowing who your customers are, having an ongoing dialogue and relationship with them, and gleaning insights from them. There is nothing better than customer (transactional) data to gain an objective perspective and insights for your business.

Unfortunately, many companies are data rich and insight poor. Even worse, many companies, retailers included, don’t know their customers or how they behave. This is continuing to change for the better, however, and those who are focused in this area are the ones who will make better decisions and be more successful in the long run. [Phil Rubin, CEO, rDialogue]

One simple question expresses the confusion around statistics: “Why do we have Democratic and Republican Pollsters?” I think it was Harry Truman who when confronted by economists telling him “Well on one hand the statistics are saying this, but on the other they could mean this” said “Someone get me a one armed economist.”

The thing with retail is that we don’t need answers to thousands of different questions. We ask the same questions a thousand times: how does this product sell, what is its net profit, how important is it to my customers, does it fit my brand objective, how does it relate to other products, are there viable substitutes, etc? Instead of poring over tons of numbers, the POS data should be used to construct answers to questions.

So the fundamental reason retailers (and anyone, really) make bad decisions from raw data is because they don’t know what questions they’re trying to answer. Start there.  [Bill Bittner, President, BWH Consulting]

The fact that information is available and is being used effectively are two separate things! Usually a company uses too much information, regardless of correct or incorrect, or it does not use information. Very few companies strike and maintain a balance between insight, gut feeling/intuition and relevant, timely information in decision making. [Pradip Mehta, Principal, Mehta Consulting, LLC]

I’ve found that the overall views of research within companies goes in cycles. Of course, leadership changes come into play with the research points of view as well. Some executives understand how to use it better. Some have used it so much they can go by gut.

In any case, a research cycle may start when a huge mistake is made by using strictly gut instinct (Tropicana?), then more and more insights will come from research and less from gut until, one day, it is determined that there is too much science and not enough art, and the cycle starts all over again.

I do believe though, that research is one of the faults with our nation’s fashion business today. Too much science, not enough art. The talent and guts it takes to take a big chance on new, fun fashion seems to have been relegated to trend reports, focus groups, ethnography and best seller lists. The rare exception to that rule is Forever21…instincts still survive there. Perhaps they can teach the industry a lesson. [Lee Peterson, EVP Creative Services, WD Partners]

Where would Disney be without fairy tales? SMWeiss’

The problem, dear Brutus, is in ourselves. Retailers and brands have created vast action machines with thought paradigms behind. Anyone doing research is likely to be looking to fit information into the existing machine. And for each individual, when they formulate a research query, they bring their own current thinking into it–obviously! This means that the results they get back reflect, in far too great a way, their own predispositions. This, coupled with the fact that lots of research is “ask” type research–interviews–guarantees a sluggish and distorted view of reality, what I call the Picasso business view; shared distortions, unperceived as such by both researchers and respondents.

The partial antidote to this is “observational” type research, and the hierarchy of truth. And observation here must be of the real world, not some laboratory simulation, which typically just further cements the existing distorted paradigm. The hierarchy of truth means distinguishing between what is most rock solid and least likely to be distorted, and that which may be as changeable as the weather. (That’s right, Maude. It used to be just common sense that the weather changes. ; )

One example near and dear to my heart is OBSERVING how many items people buy in a store. The most common number, whether in a convenience store or a supercenter is ONE. But the “world” absolutely refuses to believe this, because it does not match their own conceptions/perceptions. An observation like this is at the pinnacle of retail truth, and must be allowed to shatter any part of the paradigm that does not conform to it. THAT’S “revolutionary,” but it is also the route to racing past the competition that is spending their time dancing on peanut butter.

No one should reproach themselves for participating in a social Picasso view of their business. (Although I may insult you from time to time. ; ) All of us are afflicted with the phenomenon noticed many years ago, about historians and their “research” of the past. Looking into the past, for a historian, is much like looking at a reflecting pool at the bottom of a very deep well. The image the historian tends to come away with is a reflection of himself. Business people are no different. [Herb Sorensen, ScientificAdvisor, TNS Global Retail & Shopper Practice]

There are plenty of great tools to make sense of all of the information. The challenge is balancing it with the human side. Take, for example, the stores. Are all corporate employees required to walk the stores and report what they see? View the stores in the evening when store management has left for the day. These age-old problems are still far too common, yet they are the source of some of the most valuable information available anywhere. Sales will be increased, labor decreased and earnings improved if this information is acted upon. [Ralph Jacobson, Global Consumer Products Industry Marketing Executive, IBM]

This sounds a lot like a chapter we wrote for ESOMAR’s Best Practices book. We have devalued research in favor of insights, which can rely much more on a good narrative and much less on good data. A management team that expects insights from research all the time is asking for trouble down the road. A research team that doesn’t focus on quality first and insights second is doomed to failure when management makes the wrong moves.
Research needs to give management the best information possible in a way that management can understand it. Management needs to understand that research is providing the best information it can within budget constraints. The two need to work together.
Stephen Needel, Managing Partner, Advanced Simulations
One of the concerns I have at present is how SKU rationalization research is viewed, so quickly judged, and acted upon. Many retailers are looking only through a narrow interpretation based on shear numbers and not taking into consideration other more visionary factors about specialty brands, niche items, and growth brands. If this keeps up, consumers will have very few choices and most of the stores will all look the same with exact assortments. Only price will differentiate one from the other. The results will be rather ironic.
David Biernbaum, Senior Marketing and Business Development Consultant, David Biernbaum Associates
I agree that there is a lot of bad “research” out there in the world. Any analytical study has to be right, applicable, and actionable. If a study doesn’t meet these criteria, it is worse than useless–it can actually pollute the minds of decision makers by letting them think they know something they don’t.
Before spending any valuable share of mind on numbers, executives should ensure:
1) Is it right? If I only had a buck for every time I’ve seen a big name consulting firm presentation with numerical “findings” using a flawed methodology or with no statistical significance…. I’d be retired in Paris right now.
2) Is it applicable? So, some other retailer says their TV spend has a 150% return (or some consultant claims that). So what? Your business is different. Consumers react differently to every retail concept. You do need to know for you.
3) Is it actionable? Oh, we all know about the study designed to validate the CEOs hunch. Want to guess what the consultant’s findings will say? If you are going to do research, you’d better be prepared to act on the findings–either way.
This is why in-market testing is such a powerful technique in retail. While it does take commitment to do it right, it is one of few techniques that almost always meets these criteria.
Jonathan Marek, Senior Vice President, APT
It is absolutely true that marketers do not often take the time to understand the basis of the research that they are presented with. Understanding how the research is developed and the analysis approach used to develop recommendations is an important, if misunderstood, part of the job description for a data-driven marketer.
I do find, however, that marketers more often do not carry out sufficient research to draw conclusions, even when that research is relatively easy and low-cost to execute. If you have access to email addresses, you can execute basic research surveys to customers and gain valuable insights in less than a week, at a very low cost. Those opportunities to “fill in the gaps” are often overlooked. Sometimes those insights can make the difference between success and an indifferent failure of a key initiative.
Marketers must understand the opportunities that research affords them, even when timelines are tight. Obtaining the Voice of the Customer, particularly the Best Customer, is a practice that should be followed religiously. Only then will marketers be able to gain insight and make truly data-driven decisions.
Mark Price, Managing Partner, M Squared Group, Inc.
We have to keep in mind that corporations are run by human beings that often make decisions on emotion rather than logic. I have many clients who have been very successful making decisions by shooting from the hip, yet they always prefer to see my research, just to be sure. Most of my clients are very bright people and my research generally confirms their own instinctive thoughts. There have been times when I have been brought in to do an autopsy on a project to find out why a store failed. Typical reasons are:
Researchers did not want to offend management so they candy-coated the results.
Key decision makers are suffering from some kind of physical or emotional impairment which affects their ability.
Corrupt middle managers that change the research results.
Researchers leaving out a key piece of data (i.e. not telling management that the Mexican format store they have planned is in a Puerto Rican neighborhood).
Overall, I don’t think retailers have a narrow view of research. Researchers can do a better job in communication by simplifying the results, being blunt, and putting their integrity ahead of their paycheck.
David Livingston, Principal, DJL Research
I think there are two elements at play here:
First and perhaps foremost, retail is an emotional business. We can have reams of data and still use the words “It feels like….” and make significant decisions based on those gut feel moments. Certainly this has long been true in the world of merchandising. Something “feels like” it’s going to be a home run or a dog, and it “feels like” we’d better take a markdown or run a promotion to goose traffic. And actions are taken accordingly.
Now, can I tell a retailer in all honesty to ignore those gut feels? I really can’t. I can encourage them to use data to support actions taken based on those feelings and obviously that’s what I do…every day. But I can’t ask them to ignore their gut completely.
This brings me to the second issue: we don’t always present data in an easily distilled and understandable format. Our retail survey respondents repeatedly ask to have their Business Intelligence delivered in simpler ways. While “red light, yellow light, green light” might be a little too simple for some decisions, the data just has to be usable and quickly actionable.
Finally…if a retailer (or any company really) is going to make such a dramatic shift, it has to be driven from the top. And the C-level exec driving the initiative also has to LISTEN to what he/she is being told in response. Otherwise you get a company similar to Home Depot under Nardelli.
Paula Rosenblum, Managing Partner, RSR Research
Decisions are always made without perfect information to support them. But sometimes, decisions are made that ignore the available information or decline the implications.
Research is clearly most valuable when it can be turned into actionable recommendations. We are all too aware that research can be used as a fishing expedition without a clear objective. However, there is also a danger in using research designed just to prove a point rather than develop real, new learning.
On balance, I believe that research, properly done, interpreted, and acted upon, can vastly improve the decision making process.
Ray Jones, Managing Director, Dechert-Hampe & Co.
I’m reminded of the Samuel Taylor Coleridge quote “Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” Research/knowledge is the raison d’ tre for The Luxury Marketing Council www.floridaluxurycouncil.com; it’s what I do. The highest level executives or those who will someday sit in the corner office recognize the value of research. They’re able to sift through the myriad of information to find what’s relevant and actionable.
There are a couple trends re: research. Some executives don’t want facts to get in the way of their vision. Historically, these individuals’ careers stall. Also, there are many companies that have pared down their employees to the point that executives don’t have time for the facts–they’re too busy keeping the ball moving. The third group often doesn’t understand how to read the research, how it affects them and/or how they can use it for their benefit.
Relevant research is an imperative for retailers. Having a 360 on your targeted customer and understanding their collective experiences is the key to personal and business success.
Chris Ramey, President, Affluent Insights
Devangshu Dutta mentions many of my personal concerns regarding research. But before I go any further I have to add, my name is Joan and I am a researcher. I’ve spent many years working in the industry to help alleviate some of the barriers Mr. Dutta listed. There is still much to be done of course.
In this world of easy access to numbers/statistics, upper management demands and gets “stuff” by which they make decisions. Trying to explain the difference between good research and everything else often falls on deaf ears. Management expects those who supply the data, whether they are staff or outside consultants, to bring the quality, validity and relevance required. And in turn they do not question the underlying premise of what they are buying, or what they are buying into.
And when forecasts don’t work out as expected, new products fail and marketing strategies are ineffective, it’s all about how research failed to deliver. Researchers preach to the choir when they have meetings about quality standards.
CASRO (Council of American Survey Research Organizations) has a Code of Standards and Ethics. Companies who belong to CASRO must adhere to them. And this is one way in which clients can insure research results are reliable.
CASRO is initiating an ISO certification program. I believe more client companies and executives will relate to and understand ISO (because their own companies go through similar ISO certification processes), perhaps choosing vendors and staff accordingly. In my opinion, this could be a turning point for the acceptance and recognition of true quality marketing research. I hope so.
As for the story telling aspect of research…well that’s another “story” entirely. I’ve mentored many researchers and advised them to always answer three basic questions, What? So what? And Now what? These questions get to the heart of why research is conducted in the first place. Good reporting and presentation requires training. If you believe that anyone can be a researcher and choose vendors or staff based on that assumption, you get what you get and it may fall below the standards Mr. Gutta advocates.
Joan Treistman, President, The Treistman Group LLC
During my 11 years with Kenosia I used a phrase with clients “One truth.” By combining disparate data sources, a retailer or a brand manager can get to the “one truth” and then make a business decision regarding direction. Far too often, decisions are made using one source of data which can lead to less than effective results.
Example, if a retailer only views their loyalty data to make business decisions about advertising, are they understanding all the trends happening in their market? Probably not. Combining their loyalty data with demographic data makes it better and adding additional information from a syndicated data provider makes it even better yet.
The great news is, there are a dozen technology solutions to help both retailers and brand managers combine data and the data to combine is available and affordable. It boils down to first understanding the questions and then going out and combining all the best data sets to create the answers.
John Boccuzzi, Jr., Managing Partner, Boccuzzi, LLC
The use and misuse of research, data and “insights” varies widely across retailers and brands. Typically, the larger the company, the more primary research they have and the more reliant on primary research they are.
Unfortunately, great research and insights are, as many here are illustrating above, not nearly as commonplace as they should be. There are many reasons for this:
– Flawed and biased methodologies (e.g., let’s “Focus Group” this”);
– Vendors who specialize in one research/data collection area over another;
– The research goals and objectives themselves: pure answers to hard marketing questions rarely come directly from research but rather from what is done with it, i.e., what is the data needed to create information to support or disallow a hypothesis?
Budgets, which have mostly seen cuts for the past two years; though the cost of collecting data has come way down in many cases.
All these challenges with research underscore the importance of knowing who your customers are, having an ongoing dialogue and relationship with them, and gleaning insights from them. There is nothing better than customer (transactional) data to gain an objective perspective and insights for your business.
Unfortunately, many companies are data rich and insight poor. Even worse, many companies, retailers included, don’t know their customers or how they behave. This is continuing to change for the better, however, and those who are focused in this area are the ones who will make better decisions and be more successful in the long run.
Phil Rubin, CEO, rDialogue
One simple question expresses the confusion around statistics: “Why do we have Democratic and Republican Pollsters?” I think it was Harry Truman who when confronted by economists telling him “Well on one hand the statistics are saying this, but on the other they could mean this” said “Someone get me a one armed economist.”
The thing with retail is that we don’t need answers to thousands of different questions. We ask the same questions a thousand times: how does this product sell, what is its net profit, how important is it to my customers, does it fit my brand objective, how does it relate to other products, are there viable substitutes, etc? Instead of poring over tons of numbers, the POS data should be used to construct answers to questions.
So the fundamental reason retailers (and anyone, really) make bad decisions from raw data is because they don’t know what questions they’re trying to answer. Start there.
Bill Bittner, President, BWH Consulting
The fact that information is available and is being used effectively are two separate things! Usually a company uses too much information, regardless of correct or incorrect, or it does not use information. Very few companies strike and maintain a balance between insight, gut feeling/intuition and relevant, timely information in decision making.
Pradip Mehta, Principal, Mehta Consulting, LLC
I’ve found that the overall views of research within companies goes in cycles. Of course, leadership changes come into play with the research points of view as well. Some executives understand how to use it better. Some have used it so much they can go by gut.
In any case, a research cycle may start when a huge mistake is made by using strictly gut instinct (Tropicana?), then more and more insights will come from research and less from gut until, one day, it is determined that there is too much science and not enough art, and the cycle starts all over again.
I do believe though, that research is one of the faults with our nation’s fashion business today. Too much science, not enough art. The talent and guts it takes to take a big chance on new, fun fashion seems to have been relegated to trend reports, focus groups, ethnography and best seller lists. The rare exception to that rule is Forever21…instincts still survive there. Perhaps they can teach the industry a lesson.
Lee Peterson, EVP Creative Services, WD Partners
Where would Disney be without fairy tales?
SMWeiss’
The problem, dear Brutus, is in ourselves. Retailers and brands have created vast action machines with thought paradigms behind. Anyone doing research is likely to be looking to fit information into the existing machine. And for each individual, when they formulate a research query, they bring their own current thinking into it–obviously! This means that the results they get back reflect, in far too great a way, their own predispositions. This, coupled with the fact that lots of research is “ask” type research–interviews–guarantees a sluggish and distorted view of reality, what I call the Picasso business view; shared distortions, unperceived as such by both researchers and respondents.
The partial antidote to this is “observational” type research, and the hierarchy of truth. And observation here must be of the real world, not some laboratory simulation, which typically just further cements the existing distorted paradigm. The hierarchy of truth means distinguishing between what is most rock solid and least likely to be distorted, and that which may be as changeable as the weather. (That’s right, Maude. It used to be just common sense that the weather changes. ; )
One example near and dear to my heart is OBSERVING how many items people buy in a store. The most common number, whether in a convenience store or a supercenter is ONE. But the “world” absolutely refuses to believe this, because it does not match their own conceptions/perceptions. An observation like this is at the pinnacle of retail truth, and must be allowed to shatter any part of the paradigm that does not conform to it. THAT’S “revolutionary,” but it is also the route to racing past the competition that is spending their time dancing on peanut butter.
No one should reproach themselves for participating in a social Picasso view of their business. (Although I may insult you from time to time. ; ) All of us are afflicted with the phenomenon noticed many years ago, about historians and their “research” of the past. Looking into the past, for a historian, is much like looking at a reflecting pool at the bottom of a very deep well. The image the historian tends to come away with is a reflection of himself. Business people are no different.
Herb Sorensen, ScientificAdvisor, TNS Global Retail & Shopper Practice
There are plenty of great tools to make sense of all of the information. The challenge is balancing it with the human side. Take, for example, the stores. Are all corporate employees required to walk the stores and report what they see? View the stores in the evening when store management has left for the day. These age-old problems are still far too common, yet they are the source of some of the most valuable information available anywhere. Sales will be increased, labor decreased and earnings improved if this information is acted upon.
Ralph Jacobson, Global Consumer Products Industry Marketing Executive, IBM

Numbers and Stories

Devangshu Dutta

November 23, 2009

Just after noon, on a weekday, I bumped into a family acquaintance at one of the more successful shopping malls in the city.

The question, “What are you doing here?” was underlined by a mildly accusatory look and the subtext, “Why are you spending a week-day shopping?”

My response that I was “working” wasn’t enough; the further explanation that I was doing “research” received a dismissive smirk and ended the conversation. The fact is that I was repeating the time-honoured ritual of RBWA (research by walking around), with its seemingly aimless strolling, sidelong glances, and possibly turning over a hundred items in a dozen shops without reaching for the wallet even once. This is a ritual that is not taught in our temples of management learning. In fact, it is one of the many tens of methodologies that seem to be missed out during the course of our formal education. And very often, what we do get taught is so remote and opaque to most people that they will promptly forget it the moment they walk out of the examination hall.

I was reminded of this walk-about incident during a conversation with two members of the faculty of a professional institute on the subject of research. Most of their students, I had observed, had a narrow interpretation of research – focussed only on consumers being interrogated through a questionnaire. The students were working from the guidance they had received during the previous semesters at the institute.

Unfortunately, the students are not alone – this is also how too many people identify research, including many executives in decision-making positions. I have been frequently puzzled by the confident (brash?) statement I have heard many times: “We don’t need research.” It is only when I probe further do I, and they, discover that while they perhaps don’t need consumer surveys, there are large gaps in their decision making toolkit which can only be filled by inputs from various other kinds of research.

Sometimes the roots of that statement lie in the perception of research as an impenetrable jungle in which it is easy to get lost but difficult to find something immediately useful. Researchers, like all other vocations, have their own professional shorthand (also known as “jargon”) which they sometimes use to identify their own kind, and perhaps sometimes to exclude people who are not from the trade. Very often this jungle is created by “research-as-a-foreign-language”, which many executives are just too apprehensive or too busy to tackle.

But before you pick up the axe and start cutting away at the creepers of bi-variate analysis, quota samples, correlation and projective techniques, let me give you my very simple definition of research which I like to keep in mind when I am asked the question: “Do we need research?”

To me, research is the discovery and collation of diverse pieces of information from various sources, so that it can be analysed using multiple tools, to discover relationships, patterns and directions that can be used to draw conclusions and take decisions.

There is a purpose for which we would discover or collate that information. There may be a set of questions that we need to answer. We need to understand what are the various places where that information may lie, the different forms it might take or the different ways in which we might need to look at the information before anything useful emerges.

And, in the business context (as in many other situations), research is meant to come up with something that is applicable and directly beneficial to the business. So once we’ve got most of the answers we were looking for, it is certainly useful to stop and apply the newly gained knowledge rather than try to refine and perfect it to the infinite degree.

If this definition of research frames the context well enough for you, then you’re on the way to doing and using research well.

Despite the wealth of information available today, far too many bad business decisions are being made in the absence of good information, either because the executives have not bothered to carry out research, or have not had the capability or the time to question the research which is being presented to them.

Worse – perhaps because of the abundant data and the ease of access to it – today many business decisions that turn bad are taken on the basis of information that is presented by someone else (“secondary research” in research language), without questioning the validity of the conclusions, the structure of the study, the context in which the data was analysed. It’s almost as if we couldn’t be bothered to think, because someone has apparently already done the thinking for us – especially if it comes from a “reputable source”. (Ok, that might be smart sometimes. So let me give you a more graphic analogy – could you think of an adult bird regurgitating pre-digested food to feed the chicks? Hmm, not so pleasant an image after all, is it?)

Also, research (especially the number-oriented kind) seems too dry for most people to take in. And I think that is one place market researchers could do themselves a huge benefit if they could tell the story – especially a story with a moral at the end. That is, create the picture for the user as to what all of that information means in simple language, and also show the user how to use the information in the context of his situation or problem. Bedtime stories during childhood and good movies in adulthood work well because there is a coherent narrative, a start, a middle that is interesting and an ending that stays in the mind. You can see the relationships between the characters, and the consequences of those relationships. A good research project report could be seen as something very similar.

Having said that, of course, there are also some researchers go far beyond, who would never let boring facts get in the way of a good story! Apparently a letter to the editor of the National Observer (London) as far back as 1891 complained: “there are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a ‘fib,’ the second is a downright lie, and the third and most aggravated is statistics.” (Mark Twain famously paraphrased this in his autobiography as “lies, damned lies and statistics”.)

How many stores can you think of which are located at sites where their chances of success are exactly the same as that of a snowball in hell? How many products or brand launches come to mind, where you wondered, “what is this company thinking?!” Of course, there would have been pre-launch studies which would have showed just how successful these would be, where the stories were possibly based more on imagination than on facts.

For a decision-maker, the only way to tell the difference between bad statistics (lies) and the true story of the market is to make sure that he or she is equipped with multiple sources of information, and various tools with which to analyse them. Also, if you recall my earlier definition of research, the starting point was the definition of the objectives which a research is supposed to fulfil – if the objectives are vague or undefined, so will the research outputs be.

Numbers (quantitative research) and narrative (qualitative research) can tell us many wonderful stories about the market. Some of those stories are highly imaginative “fairy tales” because of a bad study – that shouldn’t lead us to ignore all the others which can direct us to our objectives.

Shopping Centres – Boon or Bane

Devangshu Dutta

March 13, 2008

Many people I know treat shopping centres or malls as a new phenomenon, a progressive development of recent times or a modern blot on the traditional cityscape (depending on your point of view).

However, Grand Bazaar (Istanbul, Turkey) is the earliest known mall, with the original structures built in 1464, with additions and embellishments later.

In India, if one were to include open arcades, Chandni Chowk in Delhi is reported to have opened around 1650, with its speciality shopping streets. (Of course, more traditional bazaars have been around many thousands of years around the world.)

But even if one were to get more “traditional” about the definition of a mall, possibly India’s first mall was founded in the hottest city in the country then, Kolkata (New Market) in 1874.

In more recent history, Delhi’s municipal pride, the air-conditioned underground Palika Bazar was a novelty in the mid-1980s, while Bangalore’s Brigade Road saw several early pioneers with their shopping arcades in the late 1980s.

Then came the mall-mania beginning with Ansal Plaza in Delhi and Crossroads in Mumbai. Everyone started looking at malls as the new goldmine, being pushed ahead by a “retail boom”.

The early stage of any such gold rush usually has several experiments missing their mark, which is what has happened with the hundreds of mall-experiments that have been launched in the last 7-8 years.

Some of the significant and common issues are starting to be addressed, but many others remain.

Catchment-Based Planning is Needed

The top-most issue in my mind is “oversupply”. While this may sound absurd to many people, given the low figures quoted for modern retail, I am referring to the over-concentration of malls in a small geography. If 8-10 malls open 4-5 million sq. ft. of shopping in a catchment that can only support 1 million sq. ft., everyone knows that some of the malls will fail. But everyone also believes that their mall will succeed (otherwise, they would obviously not have invested in the mall).

What happens to the malls that fail? Depending on the design of the building, many of them can be repurposed into office space – another area where a lot of investment is still needed. So in the end, actually, most people win, one way or the other. Yet, there will be some losers. Does anyone “plan” on being one?

The second key issue in my mind has been that mall developers have been thinking as “property developers” rather than retail space managers. The successful shopping centre operators worldwide (now also in India), are actually as concerned about what and who is occupying that space as a retailer would be. They are concerned about the composition of the catchment, the shopping patterns, the volume of sales, the shopping experience. Therefore, the tenant mixes as well as adjacencies are factored into the earliest stages of planning the shopping centres.

In fact, if I were to identify the most critical operational problem for many of the malls, it is the lack of relevance to catchment and, therefore, the low conversion of footfall into sales for the tenants other than the food-courts. Customer flow planning within the mall is another factor that can make a tremendous impact on the success and failure of the tenant stores.

Once you start looking at these factors during the planning of a mall, another obvious aspect that jumps out is “differentiation”. Currently, there is little to choose from between malls (other than possibly the anchor store). However, with more clarity in terms of the target audience, the potential strategies for differentiation also become clearer. The visitors also become segmented accordingly, and there is a natural benefit to the tenants occupying the mall.

If, as a mall operator, you want to be in business for long, and also develop other properties in the future, the success of your tenants is probably the most critical driving factor for your business.

Integration into the Urbanscape

When we gauge malls from the perspective of integrating within the urban landscape, there are obviously some glaring errors being made. Instead of aesthetic design that reflects the heritage and culture of the location and its surroundings, or some other inspirational source for the architect, most malls that have come up are concrete and glass boxes.

Beyond the looks, some of the malls are a victim of their own success. They attract more crowds during the peak than they have planned for. Not only does the parking prove to be inadequate, there is no holding capacity for cars entering or exiting the mall. The result is a traffic nightmare – not just for general public, but even for the visitors to the mall. Someone who has spent 45 minutes stuck in a jam waiting to get into the parking of a mall will certainly not be in the best frame of mind to buy merchandise at the stores occupying the mall.

Some of the problems lie outside the mall-developer’s control – for instance land costs are a major driver of the cost of the project (and, therefore, the lease costs to the tenants), and land is a commodity which is independent. Real estate is available within the cities as brown-field sites (former industrial locations), but the regulations are convoluted and the strings are in the hands of too many different departments of the government (city, state and central). This needs joint creative thinking on the part of developers, the government and the public, if our cities are to develop in a more sane fashion than they have in the past.

Similarly, land deals are still not clean enough for foreign investors to be comfortable participating in many developments. This obviously is holding back a tremendous source of capital and domain expertise that could contribute to the growth of this sector.

Many other operational issues exist – manpower, systems, health & safety – some of them can be managed or controlled by the mall developers, and it is a question of time (and of their gaining experience). Other issues are more in the domain of the government, and need a visionary push to make “urban renewal” a true mission.

New Life for the Cities

In my opinion, one of the most interesting areas which would be in the joint interest of almost all parties (that I can think of) is the possibility of revitalizing the high streets and community markets, and reinventing them as the true centres of shopping.

Many of our markets are rotting (a strong word, but let me say it anyway). The individual stores are owned by individual owners who are not all equally capable of maintaining the same look and feel throughout. The infrastructure in and around the markets are owned or managed by several different agencies. To make matters worse, there is often no cohesiveness and no synergy in the interests of most of the members of the market association. None of these individually have the power or the mandate to recreate the shopping centre. But what if they could get together and take the help of a re-developer?

If an example is needed, New Delhi’s Connaught Place provides the example of one stage of redevelopment. Connaught Place had lost its pre-eminent position as a shopping centre, due to the spread of Delhi’s population and the new local markets that had come up. Further disruption was caused by the construction by Delhi Metro. But DMRC has reconstructed an “improved” centre, and the Metro connectivity has made the customers come back into CP, as it is affectionately known in Delhi.

There are clearly many such opportunities around India’s cities. These need to be looked at as a commercial opportunity for all concerned (revenue for the redeveloper, better sales for the store owners / tenants, more tax revenue for the government from additional sales and consumption). But it is also a broader social opportunity to breathe a new life into our cities, and to make them proud beacons of a growing India.

It would be a mission that would truly prove the worth of shopping centre developers, urban planners, regulators and the retailers themselves.
Any takers?

Brand Immortality and Reincarnation

Devangshu Dutta

January 18, 2008

The entertainment business suggests that nostalgia is a very powerful driver of profit.

It is quite clear that retro is “in”. The movie business worldwide is full of sequels, prequels, re-releases and remakes. The music business is ringing up the cash registers with remixes and jukebox compilations.  Star Wars and Sholay still have a fan following. ABBA has leaped across three decades, Hindi film songs from 30-60 years ago have been given a skin-uplift by American hip-hop artists, while Pink Floyd is hot with Indian teens along with Akon and Rihanna.

As copyright restrictions are removed from the works of authors long-gone, the market gets flooded with several reprints of their most popular writings. Of course, we know that classic literature survives not just a few years but even thousands of years. Examples include the still widely-read 2,500-year-old Indian epic Ramayana by Valmiki, the Greek philosophers’ works that continue to be popular after two millennia and the Norse legends that have been told and re-told for over a thousand years.  Spiritual and religious leaders’ writings are also recycled into the guaranteed market of their followers and possible converts for a long time after their passing away.

On the other hand, the basic premise of today’s fashion and lifestyle businesses is that silhouettes, colours and design-cues will become (or be made) obsolete within a few weeks or a few months, and will be replaced with new ones.   This principle is true not just of clothing and footwear, but is applied to home furnishings, furniture, white goods, electronics, mobile phones and even cars.  In fact, the fashion business (as it exists) would find it impossible to survive if customers around the world chose only classics which could be used for as long as the product lasted in usable form.

What Fashionability Means for Brands

Other than individual styles or products falling out of favour, as fashions move and as the market changes, it is evident that some brands also become less acceptable, are seen as “outdated” and may also die out as they lose their customer base.

Of course, that some brands become classics is quite apparent, especially in the luxury segment where brands such as Bulgari have survived several generations of consumers, and continue to thrive.

However, the past is of relevance to the fashion sector because, other than planned or forced obsolescence, the fashion business has also long worked on another principle – that trends are cyclical.

Skirts go up and down, ties change their width, and the colour palette moves through evolution across the years.  A style formula that was popular in the summer of a year in the 1970s might be just right in another summer in the first decade of the 21st century.

So, the question that comes up is whether the same logic that is applicable to individual products, styles and trends, could also be applied to brands.

The answer to whether apparently weak, dead or dying brands could be brought back to life is provided by brands such as Burberry’s, Lee Cooper and Hush Puppies.  Sometimes innovative consumers create the opportunity – as with Hush Puppies in the 1980s – while in other cases (such as Burberry’s, Volkswagen’s Beetle, or Harley Davidson), vision, concerted effort and resources can make the brand attractive again.

The question then is not whether brands can be relaunched – they can. The more important question for brand owners is: should a brand be relaunched. And using the logic of the fashion business, rather than being left to linger and then dying a painful death, could brands be consciously phased-out and later brought back into the market as the trends change?

The Brand Portfolio – Diversifying Opportunities and Risks

These questions are particularly important for large companies, or in times when market growth rates are slow, or when the market is fragmented. Organic growth can be difficult in all these scenarios, and companies begin to look at developing “portfolios” by acquiring other businesses and brands, or by launching multiple brands of their own.

The car industry worldwide has lived with brand portfolio management for long. Even as companies have merged with and acquired each other, the various marques have been retained and sometimes even dead ones have been revived.  The companies generally focus the brands in their portfolio on distinct customer segments and needs (such as Ford’s ownership of “Ford”, “Volvo” and “Jaguar”, or General Motors with its multiple brands), and then further play with models and product variants within those.  When things go right portfolio strategies can be quite profitable, but the mistakes are especially expensive. Sensible and sensitive management of the portfolio is absolutely critical.

In the fashion and lifestyle sector, the players who already follow a portfolio strategy are as diverse as the luxury group LVMH, mainstream fashion groups like Liz Claiborne (with brands in its portfolio including Liz Claiborne, Mexx, Juicy Couture, Lucky Brand Jeans) and LimitedBrands (Limited, Victoria’s Secret, La Senza etc.), retailers such as Marks & Spencer (with its original St. Michael’s brand having given way to “Your M&S”, and also Per Una) and Chico’s (Chico’s, White House | Black Market, and Soma Intimates) who wish to capture new customer segments or re-capture lost customers.  Some of these companies have launched new brands, some have relaunched their own brands, and some have even acquired competing brands.

The issue is also relevant to the Indian market, whether we consider Reliance’s revival of Vimal, the new brand ambassador for Mayur Suitings, or the PE-funded take over of Weekender.  As the market begins evolving into significantly large differentiated segments, branding opportunities grow, and so will activity related to existing or old brands being resurrected and refreshed. An additional twist is provided by Indian corporate groups such as Reliance, Future (Pantaloons) and Arvind that are looking to partner international and Indian brands, or grow private labels to gain additional sales and margin.

The issue also concerns those companies whose management is attached to one or more brands owned by them which may not have been performing well in the recent past, but due to historical or sentimental reasons the management may not like to close down or sell them.

It is equally critical for potential buyers who would like to take over and turn brands around into sustainable profits. This is a real possibility in this era of private-equity funds and leveraged buyouts, where a company or a financial investor might find it cheaper and more profitable to take over an existing brand and turn it around, rather than building a new brand.  This is already happening in the Indian market. More interestingly, Indian companies have also already acquired businesses in the USA and Europe, and the potential revival or relaunch of brands is certainly relevant for these companies as well.

When to Recycle and Reuse

Relaunch or acquisition of an existing active or dormant brand can be an attractive option when building a portfolio, or when a company is getting into a new market.

For the company, acquiring an existing brand is often a lower cost way to reach the customers, and also faster to roll-out the business. The company may assess that the brand already has an existing share of positive customer awareness that is active or dormant, and that the effort and resources (including money) needed to build a business from that awareness will be much less than that to create a new brand.

The risk of failure may also be lower for a relaunched brand than for a new brand.

This is because the softer aspects, the hidden psychological and emotional hooks, are already pre-designed. This provides a ready platform from which to re-launch and grow the brand.

From the customer’s point of view, there is the confidence from previous experience and usage, and possibly also nostalgia and comfort of the ‘known’.

‘Age’ or vintage is respectable and trustworthy. This is especially powerful during volatile times or in rapidly changing environments when there is uncertainty about what lies in the future, and makes an existing brand a powerful vehicle for sustaining and growing the business.

On the Downside

However, when handling brands it is also wise to keep in mind the cautionary note that mutual funds issue: “past performance is no indicator of the future”.

In re-launching active or dormant brands, there is also a downside risk.  While the brand may have been strong and relevant in its last avatar, it may be totally out of place in the current market scenario.  The competitive landscape would have shifted, consumers would have changed – new consumers entering the market, old consumers evolving or moving out – and the economic scenario itself may now be unfriendly to the brand.

Also, the “awareness” or “share of mind” may only be a perception in the mind of the person who is looking to re-launch the brand, and the consumer may actually not care about the brand at all.  There are instances where the management of the company has been so caught up in their own perception of the brand that they have not bothered to carry out first-hand research with the target segment to check whether there is actually an unaided recall, or at worst, aided-recall of the brand. They are imagining potential strengths, when the brand has none.

It is also possible that, during its last stint in the market, the brand may have gathered negative connotations – consumers may remember it for poor products or wrong pricing, the trade may remember it for late deliveries, vendors may remember it for delayed payments…the list goes on. In such a scenario, it may be a relaunch may be a disaster.

So how does one know whether to resurrect a brand, or to reincarnate it in another form, and when to just let it die?  The answers to that lie in answering the question: what is a brand? And then, what is this brand?

A Critical Question: What is a Brand?

Even in these enlightened marketing times, many people believe that the brand is the name. They believe that once you advertise a name widely and loudly enough, a brand can be created. Nothing could be further from the truth.  High-decibel advertising only informs customers of the name, it cannot create a brand.

If we put ourselves in the customer’s shoes, a brand is an image, comprising of a bundle of promises on the company’s part and expectations on the customer’s part, which have been met.  When promises are delivered, when expectations are met, the brand develops an attribute that it is defined by.

The promise may be of edgy design (think Apple), and the customer expects that – when the brand delivers on the promise and meets the expectation the brand image gets re-affirmed and strengthened. However, these attributes are not always necessarily all “positive” in the traditional sense. For instance, a company’s promise may be to be low-cost and low-service (think Ikea, or “low-cost airlines”), and the customer may expect that and be happy with that when the company delivers on that promise.  The promise may be products with a conscience (think The Body Shop), which may strike a chord with the consumer.

What that brand actually stands for can only be created experientially. Creating this image, creation of the brand, is a complex and step-by-step process that takes place over time and over many transactions. Repetition of the same kind of experience strengthens the brand.

The brand touches everything that defines the customer’s experience – the product design and packaging, the retail store it is sold in, the service it is sold with, the after-sales interaction – all have a role to play in the creation of the brand.

For instance, to some it may sound silly that market research or how supply chain practices can help define a brand, but that is exactly how the state of affairs is for Zara.  Changeovers and new fashions being quickly available are what that brand is about, and it would be impossible for Zara to deliver on that promise without leading edge supply chains, or a wide variety of trend research.

Similarly, it may sound clichéd that your salesperson defines the brand to the consumer, but even with the best products, extensive advertising, and swanky stores, for service-oriented retailers everything would fall apart if the salesperson is not up to the mark. This is indeed a sad reality faced by so many of the so-called premium and luxury brands.

Of course, brand images can be changed or updated, but the new image also needs to be reinforced through repeated action, a process just like the first time the brand was created.

Reviving a Brand: the New-Old Seesaw

Given that a brand is created over multiple interactions and repetitive delivery of certain attributes, it is only natural that the older the brand, the more potential advantage it would have over a new brand.  Just the sheer time it would have spent in the market would give an old brand an edge.

An old brand can appear to be proven, experienced and secure, while a new brand could be seen as untested, raw and risky.  An old brand may have had a positive relationship with the consumer, but may have been dormant due to strategic or operational reasons.  In this case, reviving the brand is clearly a good idea.  There is already an existing awareness of an older brand, which can act as a ready platform for launching the same or a new set of products or services.  Often, there may be a connection with the consumer’s past positive experience of the brand.

On the other hand, a new brand may appear to be fresh, more up-to-date and relevant, and vigorous, compared to an old one that may be seen as outdated and tired.  Certainly, if nostalgia had been all that brands needed to thrive, then old brands would never die and it would be difficult to create new brands.

Clearly, there is no single answer to whether it is a good idea to re-launch an existing or old brand.   If you are considering whether it would be a good idea to revive an old brand, or to acquire and turn an existing brand around, ask yourself this:

  • Is there evidence of enough customer awareness and support for the brand?
  • Are there positive connotations for the brand that can be built upon in the current market context?
  • Is there an opportunity to refresh the brand, so that it does not appear outdated, while retaining its core promise and authenticity?
  • Does the company have the resources and inclination to be a “caretaker” or “steward” of the relationship that has been created in the past between the brand and its customers?

If the answer is “No” to any of these questions, then one needs to think again.  However, if the answers are all “Yes”, then a resuscitation is just what the doctor might have ordered.

DIG To Find Hidden Gold

Devangshu Dutta

October 16, 2007

BOOK REVIEW: HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT: Erich Joachimsthaler

In the midst of extensive or frequent civil works, fluorescent high-visibility clothing contributes to the invisibility of the individual, and can serve as a superb disguise. Similarly, in the midst of extensive research and in-depth analyses, basic insights can go unnoticed.

Erich Joachimsthaler has plenty of examples in his book Hidden in Plain Sight to drive home the point that attention to stuff that is not so obvious to competition can lead to brilliant success such as Sony’s growth through innovative products (the WalkmanT, for one) that met unexpressed consumer needs. Conversely, an inability to spot this can bring even the leaders down, illustrated once again by Sony’s loss of leadership in mobile personal entertainment to Apple’s iPod.

The challenge for companies is to uncover the hidden opportunities by looking into their business from the outside rather than the usual inside-outwards view, and by accurately defining the ecosystem of demand. For most management professionals, this will be harder than it seems.

The exercise begins with the question, “Why didn’t we think of that?” This is intended to remind the reader of how the obvious escapes attention as we sink deeper and deeper into complex analysis and in developing ever more complicated scenarios. And Joachimsthaler sets out a framework that he believes can help larger companies to innovate in a structured way.

Of course, the reader may feel differently, and quote George Bernard Shaw who divided the world into two kinds of people, the reasonable and the unreasonable, and credited innovation to the latter. Or one may agree with Henry Ford who, apparently, felt that customers did not really know what they wanted. He is reported to have quipped: “If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said, ‘A faster horse'”

Yes, at the cutting edge, innovation may seem to be more about the innovator’s creative desire to do something different, and less about “meeting customer needs”. Yet, it is the unmet and, more importantly, unexpressed customer needs, that offer the greatest source of competitive advantage.

This is why innovation seems to spring more from small companies, or companies that are started up around a specific idea that is unique or new. In such a small company or a start-up, typically the founder/innovator/inventor is drawn from the same pool as the target customer. Therefore, while they may be addressing a need they feel acutely, the innovators are unconsciously plugged into their customer’s unmet/unexpressed needs. There are seldom any silos; the whole team is generally focussed on the one problem to be solved.

However, as companies grow larger, functional specialisation emerges — division of labour based on skill-set is deemed to be a more efficient way of doing things. The design folk design based on “trends”, the marketing folk market as they know best, and the manufacturing folk produce to specification and the “demand” generated.

With this speciality of skills taking over, there is a growing disconnect between their efforts to dig for insight and the gold that is “hidden in plain sight”. While data is available in abundance, real knowledge is scarce, and insight just gets buried in well-structured processes and hand-offs between functional silos.

This trend has only accelerated in the past 15-20 years with pervasive information technology that enables the mundane operational process to the most strategic. Never before have management teams been so focussed on information and analyses. As businesses grow, data warehousing and data mining are defined as the competitive cutting edge, pushed along by interested parties (including IT solution providers, but that is another book!).

However, in reality, excessive information is increasingly passed off as knowledge. An inward focus on the management team”s own objectives is often disguised as insight gained on the customer or the market. Functional specialists analyse the market, the latent needs and the gaps in their own way, and if the company is lucky to have some generalists, some of those dots get joined to form a more complete picture.

It is in reminding management of this reality that Joachimsthaler’s book provides a tremendous service. It presents a well thought out model named, curiously enough, DIG – short for Demand-First Innovation and Growth. The three elements laid out sequentially begin with a framework for defining the demand landscape, identifying the opportunity space within it, and then creating a strategic blueprint for action.

Joachimsthaler’s process to define the demand landscape requires managers to put themselves in the customer’ shoes – a process demonstrated with examples from Proctor and Gamble and Pepsi”s Frito Lay. Using the customer’s goals, actions, priorities (there’s the “GAP”), needs and frustrations, demand clusters can be developed and filled out with additional research. The strategic fit between these demand clusters and the brand can then feed into the next steps of identifying the opportunity space.

The filters, or lenses, as the author calls them, are the “eye of the customer”, the “eye of the market”; and the “eye of the industry”. At every step, assumptions and presumptions need to be challenged. Using these lenses, the sweet spot or spots and the growth platforms can be identified, and extrapolated into the strategy. On the downside, the book is clearly about a framework, which may have been best detailed in an article, rather than being stretched over a book.

The author does stress at one point that it is not about “brainstorming”, but about structured thinking. However, he seems to do this in a tone that suggests brainstorming as something vaguely distasteful due to the lack of directional structure.

While examples from the companies studied keep the text alive, yet in places one struggles to correlate the examples with the framework. Indeed, there may well be too much structure to this book, and not enough examples of how inter-disciplinary thinking and functioning can actually produce sustained innovation.

Understanding the model itself can be a fairly involved process. The best way to tackle it may be to approach it as a project, and use the DIG framework as a how-to guide for a real problem. If you are a structured, methodical, sequential kind of manager and possibly work in a large company, the book could provide tools to put that thinking to work for innovation in a team. On the other hand, if you are more of a “people person”, you may want to leave this book alone. [For more, here’s the book on Amazon.]