Trust Your Experience
Marc Sniukas
For over 20 years, I‘ve helped CEOs and business owners make their companies more successful with clear, actionable, winning strategies • Follow for Proven Systems to Make Better Strategy
Why you might not need expensive market analysis
When working with leadership teams on strategy, I always ask them about customers, employees, and other essential stakeholders and ecosystem partners.
First, we create lists of these.
Then, we work through each group, and I ask them to list what they think the stakeholders would say is working well and what could be improved when dealing with their company.
We often do additional market research, external and internal focus groups and/or surveys to determine what people really think, what they consider the most essential elements, and how they rank the company’s performance and their satisfaction on these elements.
What I find is that usually, the team has about 80-90% of what people will tell us in the research right.
Sure, we get more granular information here and there, but the key topics, issues, and challenges are known. Very seldom are there any big surprises.
Call to Action:
Next time you think you need more data, try the above first.
And trust your team to know their sh*#!
I help established B2B SMEs define and align their unique brand strategy, story & style. Head of Strategy at Fellowship. Board Member at Cambridgeshire Community Foundation.
9moDepends on what you're researching. If you want to find out how your customers perceive your company, its products and services, you can only get that with confidence from them.
Head of Facilities Management | CFM, MIET, PMP, QHS Lead Auditor | Asset & Operations Management | Strategic Planning | Driving Facilities Management Excellence in Diverse Sectors across GCC
9moTrusting your team's insights can be more valuable than any expensive market analysis. - Your team is on the ground, living the company's reality every day. - They have firsthand knowledge of what's working and what needs improvement. - Often, their insights align closely with external research, saving time and resources. Thanks for sharing this perspective, Marc Sniukas. It's a powerful reminder of the importance of internal knowledge and trust in decision-making processes.
Interesting read! This newsletter post provides valuable insights. Thanks for sharing!
The Design Thinking Guy | Mission to Help Leaders Unlock Human-centred Innovation | Workshop Facilitator | Lecturer | Co-Authoring The DUCTRI Playbook
9moI'd say that's typical Marc The thing with the research is that it surfaces the reality and starts the discussion in the right place.
The Strategy Delivery Guy
9mo100%. Don’t spend research money until you understand where the gaps in internal knowledge are. Also, don’t spend until you have one or more hypotheses to test. Data without a point of view is just data not insight. I think the issue is that execs don’t know how to gather internal and customer data in a structured way. There is nobody to take the lead. This is a skill in itself and help can be needed to question, collect and collate. Let’s face it, nobody has ever been inspired by an 80 page word doc or presentation.