THE METHOD IN THE MADNESS
Lately, many people have directly or indirectly been asking me what exactly we do. This definitely signalled the time for a blog entry! What do we do? Or for those who’ve read through the website by now – what would be an example of the business analysis we are talking about?
We are not an analytics company and neither do we claim usage of proprietary software where you can feed gigabytes of code expecting to churn out a magic solution for all your pains. We believe in sound theory, a “back to the basics” rigour, backed by years of perspective built painstakingly by working with consumers and analysing & understanding consumer data.
Let me attempt to explain by way of a real-life example.
The volumes of a flagship brand in a certain geography was heading southwards for several months. There were innumerable research reports capturing this – consumer studies such as equity understanding, habits & practices, segmentation, equity & advertising tracking, shopper behaviour, qualitatives and retail data such as value & volume share trends, distribution figures, price variations and so on. Our client consulted with us to help extract insights from all of the above, enabling a factual understanding & identification of the “real” issues of this downtrend.
We set ourselves to the task by analysing the whole cross-section of available data, supplementing it with external studies and perspective, consulting industry captains and applying our own Asian and category experience to understand the situation. As a result, we were able to pinpoint specific issues which were working to destroy the brand’s equity, and from there, clear actionables emerged for the business team. The amazing thing was that almost ALL the answers were hidden in the data handed over to us.
We delivered this at a time when the client was contemplating another research to find out what exactly was “wrong” with the situation. Needless to say, the proposed research was not commissioned.
The process we followed to identify the specific issues was characterised by rigour and business perspective. On a broad level, this process required the ability to understand the business, organisational dynamics, ask the right questions and help the client distil out the precise business issue. On a micro level one needed the ability to generate meaningful hypotheses, know what each data source could and could not reveal, mine, interpret & integrate data across multiple sources, and, finally, the ability to crystallise all of this into a simple yet comprehensive story that could be easily communicated, understood & acted upon.
“Elementary, my dear Watson!!”
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