How can I do more with less?
It’s an evergreen question for Insights and Analytics teams, but one that’s certainly increasing in volume and importance. Teams are looking to improve processes and gain efficiencies, and one method for doing so is by mirroring some of the tactics used in the manufacturing industry.
Manufacturing? Yes, but hear me out.
To help with efficiency, Marketing Analytics and Insights teams can draw from the Lean framework that has become prevalent in the manufacturing and start-up industries. Defined as “a production optimization methodology that relentlessly seeks out and eliminates activities that do not create value for customers,” lean describes seven categories of possible waste.
While all can apply to Analytics and Insights, three stand out in particular: Over-Production, Processing, and Inventory (the full list can be found here— subscription required).
- Over-Production: Lean teams can’t afford to address every request with the same resource intensity. To avoid expending unnecessary resources, work with your team to establish a vetting system to identify projects that can be fulfilled without typical resourcing requirements.
- Solution: Use Eli Lilly’s Quick-Turn Research Process to define alternative, quicker research options for common research projects.
- Solution: Adapt Colgate-Palmolive’s Risk-Based Process Selection to help your team determine the best research plan for each request based on business risk.
- Processing: Poor process design can lead teams to consistently complete projects of low value, or in some cases, inefficiently communicate their findings. Both challenges lead to wasted effort and resourcing.
- Solution: Create your own Request Evaluation Scorecard to ensure that you are not consistently accepting redundant or low-value requests from business partners.
- Solution: Review our How to Create Actionable Business Presentations research to ensure you are communicating your insights in a way that will resonate with your target audience.
- Inventory: Collecting new customer data is expensive, and sometimes unnecessary. Insights and analytics teams should strive to make better usage of existing data and insights. In many cases, insights that have already been derived can add value to new and existing projects in the pipeline.
- Solution: Implement Monsanto’s Prioritized Insight Re-Introduction Process to get existing knowledge and insights into the hands of business partners when they need them to make decisions.
- Solution: Reduce the focus on collecting new data by emphasizing the added value of timing, and activation that can be achieved through leveraging existing data. Learn how Equifax achieved this with their Guidance-Optimized Data Democratization.
These are just a few of the ways that we see Insights & Analytics teams gain process efficiency. Think about how you can begin to implement these processes, and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out!
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