Leveling up the insights function: From disconnected to connected

Learn more about the connected insights framework 🔮

Ryan Barry: Hello everybody and welcome to this episode of Inside Insights, a podcast powered by Zappi. I'm joined today by the Chief Insights and Analytics Officer at PepsiCo. A wonderful man, Stephan Gans. Hello, Steph. 

Stephan Gans: Hey, Ryan. 

Ryan: Thank you for taking the time. It's going to be a fun episode. So I'm going to dive right in.I don't think it's a secret, but we haven't obviously publicized this, but both of our partners, Kate Shardt, Steve Phillips, Steph Gans, and myself have been busy working on a book to help brands really drive a step change in a competitive advantage for consumer insights. It's going to come out in September, more to come there.

Ryan: But as we were writing the book and really reflecting on what's been a heck of a journey, um, over the course of the last several years, We had a section where we were going to shout out BCG's Insights Maturity Framework, which is fantastic, but we thought to ourselves, the world's actually changed quite a bit since that time, so why don't we take a stab at recreating one based on what we know, and then we'll revalidate that with a bunch of other brands, which we did.

Ryan: So what we're going to do in this episode is actually talk through the Connected Insights framework and give everybody on this call some advice so that regardless of where you are, you can do a couple of things tomorrow to improve the customer centricity and the competitive advantage of your business.

Ryan: We'll prompt a visual if you're watching on YouTube. If you're not, we'll make sure there's a link so you can actually, uh, see what we're about, but we, you don't need to be in front of a screen to follow us today. So why don't we quickly go through the three levels. So from one to three, you're either disconnected, fragmented, or connected.

Ryan: The role of insights is either supporting and taking orders for marketing and innovation and level one in level two, they're operating as advisors and in level three, they're operating as strategic partners. Now, if you go a level below that, Stefan, you have the people. The processes, the technology, the data, and the consumer.

Ryan: And as you'd expect, from left to right, it goes from reactive and disconnected through to connected. Um, so why don't we start? When I met you, PepsiCo, big business, wonderful brands, tons of power, was pretty close between, I would say, level one and level two. But where do you sort of see yourself seven years in the past where you were on this paradigm?

Stephan: Well, right. It's in a company as big as the one that I work at PepsiCo, right? So of course, there's no black and white situation ever on anything. So I think you're absolutely right. That's across the board. You could say the way the insights function was operating was, you know, between level one and two.

Stephan: Big pockets squarely in, in, in level one and, uh, and some teams, uh, depending on the specific leaders and also not only the insights leaders, but also the marketing leaders and business leaders squarely in, in level two, right? So there's a, so on average, yeah, you're right. But there was just no one consistent way of doing things.

Stephan: There was no one consistent expectation, actually, also as to what insight was asked to bring to the party, right? So, and yeah, you refer to that other framework that, that was helpful at the time, but it is also that was made a long time ago and, and it was also a little a little too monodimensional, right?

Stephan: So it was time for something a bit more granular.

Ryan: And what was the granularity that you thought was sort of missing? I mean, we've gone into probably six different vectors here, but what are some of the key differences of what's changed in the last several years?

Stephan: Well, I think first of all, what has changed is that marketing organizations can't really afford any more for insights, consumer insights to be anything but A source of competitive advantage, right? It needed to be more than just kind of a diagnostic tool.

Stephan: It's needed to give you enough granularity to say, okay, but then so what, right? And so, okay. So if we are mostly a team of supportive, uh, let's say order takers then, how do we drive progress from there? Another thing, of course the, the number of data sources and the number of Inputs and the complexity of the data that you get thrown at you as a marketing organization is so massive that you have to, you really have to start working in very different ways in order for Your function to be consistently driving, uh, at a failure.

 That third level, it's really essential. That data is connected end to end, right? But also long, longitude, longitudinally. Sorry, that's a way too difficult word for me. It really is. 

Ryan: We need a new word. That's the next thing we'll do.

Ryan: We'll create a new word for longitudinally. 

Stephan: That's painful. But anyway, but it's so, so you need to, you need to be able to connect data points over time as well as across all these different sub functions that big companies have in which they kind of cut up human centricity, right? Where shopper insights or consumer insights or e-commerce insights or got, you know, whatever type of, uh, data source and whatever type of largely channel driven type of insights we're talking about.

Stephan: Um, you know, it's all one and the same consumer that you're talking about. And that work, the world of cross channel and digital commerce has, of course, exploded over time. 

Ryan: It's interesting. You say a lot, you know, global might for the local fight. There's so much marketing literature around the importance of really understanding your consumer.

Ryan: And there's a lot of marketing that comes out of CRM companies, CDP companies around 360 view of the consumer. Yet most of the things we learn about people aren't actually featured in that. And so I was talking to Steve Phillips the other day on this exact podcast, and he was talking about the need for insights departments to have consumer data asset management at the center of their strategy and an interesting phrase Steve came up with. But it is a lot of how you connect these dots. And the reason I link it back to market orientation is you can scale a lot of your knowledge by pointing. What do they do at the shop?

Ryan: What do they do when I observe them? How do they respond to advertising? What about new product innovations? And yet we seem to think about those things as their own little islands. And I just don't understand why. 

Stephan: Yeah, well, I do understand why, because that's maybe because I am in one of those big companies and I used to be at another very big company at the beginning of my career.

Stephan: And in between I consulted a lot of big companies, so I mean, yeah, basically the specialization. of these teams and companies, particularly of the go to market teams, is inevitable. Um, and so for Consumer Insights, they get kind of added on to the, all these channel driven teams in, in large CPGs. It just takes time a bit For those teams to mature and for those, and for the insights teams then to properly connect.

Stephan: But once that's the business across all those channels is more or less mature, then you start to think like, Oh, hold on. I can serve as that channel and I can serve as consumers in the channel, but to win from my competition, I actually have to go well beyond that. I need to add value. And that means that I have to see the whole human and zoom out in, you know, I need to have that ability instead of being like, just myopically looking at e-commerce in isolation, for example.

Ryan: Yeah. And I do have empathy, right? Like those, like you talk about channels, whether that's a market PNL or your business, you have direct access to consumer and food service and all these other varying facets, e-commerce, et cetera. And, you know, those people are going to be governed by that PNL. And so I understand, but to your point, the day that they can zoom out and connect the human, it is a competitive advantage for them.

Ryan: Um, but you know, BAU takes over in a lot of cases. And so I think in your case. I go back, I mean, at the beginning of our journey with ADA, it was a strategic imperative for PepsiCo. And so I think there was a really exciting, uh, vision from your perspective. But also, it was great sponsorship from Ramon and others to like, really enable this.

Ryan: And, and, you know, perhaps not every company gets that, that sponsorship. But it doesn't mean that your journey from, say, level one and a half to three was easy. I want to make sure people around here that are listening to this can get some advice if they're starting off, but I think You're many years into this.

Ryan: Most of your data does speak. You're spending time and energy on learning and development, up leveling your insights people. They're strategic. The tools are being used everywhere. But I guess in addition to what I said, what are some of the other things that once your data is a source of advantage that you're able to spend your time on?

Ryan: And I guess what's some of the from to you've seen from the talent you employ around the world? 

Stephan: Well, look, right. First of all, the, uh, let me use a picture I saw on Instagram as a, as a metaphor, there was a guy, uh, it was a picture of a guy who stands by the, by the marathon course, and he says, Due to inflation, the finish line is now at 30. 4 miles.

Stephan: And, uh, that's, and I thought this was funny, Ben, um, why did I think it was funny other than it was just funny? It's also, you know, this, this, this feeling of somebody running ahead of you with the finish line is very much applicable to the type of journey that my function is on. Right? So the moment you are describing that, that we are based on a lot of progress we can build over the last couple of years.

Stephan: The organization is basically not really seeing it, first of all, maybe they're seeing it, but what the organization is, is really seeing and also what the organization should be seeing is, Hey, uh, what we really need is actually, next level real time, hyper granular, totally human centric insights that are end to end connected .

Stephan: And at the same time, we need a whole framework, uh, for, um, our businesses, uh, that is human centric and that connects all these different KPIs that are scorecarded and all these different, uh, types of scorecards across the business, whether it's net revenue management, whether it's a brand scorecards, whether it is distribution numbers, we, we, we need to look at all those different inputs as predictive indicators, at least for the ones that matter as predictive indicators of what our business is going to do so that we can skate to where the puck is going instead of just, you know, uh, where it is right now.

Stephan: And, and so that is a next level. I mean, that is really turning the organization into a connected human centric machine if you want that focuses on the predictive indicators for in market success and that is now what my team and I are mostly focused on.

Stephan: Uh, now we have not all, but some of the core capabilities in place, right? Uh, you know, there's, there's this guy with a sign that says, uh, you know, you've got to run another 10 miles instead of, instead of two. Uh, and, and, um, I bet you when we're at 30 miles, uh, He's going to be there again and he's going to say, sorry, the finish line has moved again.

Stephan: So that is what gives this excitement, right? 

Ryan: Yeah. I love the metaphor. It's like, uh, as somebody who's been building a business from the ground up, I could feel that it's like talking to a new hire the other day and like, this is existential. And I'm like, yeah, and last year it was something else. And next year it'll be something else.

Ryan: Um, that's just, yeah. What have you done for me lately? I think that's why you had to get it. You have a really good disposition for the 37 mile marathon you're about to run because you never get too high or too low. As you know, I run a lot, so I gotta chill out every so often. 

Stephan: Trust me, I have my moments of running up as well, right?

Ryan: What's great about what you're saying, like, to go from the full marathon to 30, You're actually equipped for it, right? Because your data is intentional. Your tools are consistent. I think if you were asked to do that without that, it'd be kind of a nightmare because you'd have a Western Europe brand view and a beverages brand.

Stephan: Yeah. But, uh, look at the scale of our business and this and the type of markets that we, you know, we do with all of our business, we have. Of data. Yeah. Um, but like anybody else in our business, it's really hard to get good data all the way from home consumption.

Stephan: And it's really hard to get, uh, uh, data, you know, about the traditional trade in Mexico and India. Um, those are gigantic businesses for us as well. So that challenge is, uh, is pretty, you know, can get pretty existential still. And so it's not, again, you know, where I started things are not black and white.

Stephan: Right? It's, it's not, it's not that you're either there or there. It's always a little, it's always fuzzy. Um, we're gonna make a lot of progress on this, on this journey, beyond where we are today, I'm sure. But the starting points are still very different, right? So, yeah, I mean, it's not that you can very easily say it's not like a staircase if you want. So yet another step. I mean, you're constantly raising the ceiling, but you have to drag the floor up with you as well all the time. Yeah. So in some areas we are, we booked a ton of progress for sure.

Stephan: Well, creative testing, uh, you know, advertising effectiveness. We booked a ton of progress and still are booking a ton of progress. Um, but also there, the tools can, you know, we were talking about it earlier. We see opportunities to make the tools better again. Uh, and, uh, and then we will constantly be working on that while we're inventing completely new data sources to deal with the issues I just mentioned in those core markets.

Ryan: Yeah, it's true. I mean, nothing is linear. So we laid this out in a linear way, but I mean, I got C I know so many businesses that might be level three in one area, but in other areas, they're not, or one business unit. I mean, I remember going back to the beginning of, of, I think our journey, you're in my journey with PepsiCo.

Ryan: You had a couple of businesses in PepsiCo that were operating in a really sophisticated way and perhaps some others that just hadn't got there yet. And so it's that sort of, um, or in your case today, I have some outages in a couple of key areas and I know that. And so I think the ability to know that and intentionally attack it is a really good, uh, vision to have because if you don't know it, you can't really solve the problem in the first instance.

Ryan: Yeah, true. So let's start, uh, people listening to this. They're going, I want my people to be strategic. I'm using some software tools, but you know what? My staff hasn't gotten more productive. We have seven different ways to do something. If you're starting a new job today in one of those paradigms, give some people some advice, because I think a lot of folks have seen you talk on stages of the whole journey, but where do you start?

Ryan: Like what are the first couple of steps you'd look at if you're in a non competitive business and you're starting off and everything is really. I hate to say a negative word, but it's quite tactical in the way that the business learns from customers.

Stephan: Yeah, good question. I can tell you where I started. I started with literally getting on a plane and visiting all the key insights leads in all the different parts of PepsiCo. In Asia, Latin America, in Europe, in Africa, in North America, and talk with them about what is working well, what is not working well and what do you think are the top three priorities that you have with your function in, in, in your business? And then, you know, I got like, God knows how many notes and ideas coming out of that. And then I got them all together and uh, I suggest that these are the, I think it was seven. The seven top priorities that if we tackle those we will be a lot better in, in adding value to the business, because it's going to free us up to focus more on what our friend Tim calls the work before and the work after the work.

Stephan: And so where I got lucky for sure is that I had a team of really capable leaders that ran insights in parts of the world that were, all very good and also all massively frustrated about, about the tools they had to do their work with. And so, you know, that creates a very kind of, it's kind of easy, at least from my perspective, to create a common, uh, objective then, right.

Stephan: And then envision for, for progress for the next couple of years. And then we just got going. One of my favorite sayings is that, you know, it's very often, certainly in business, by the way, better to act yourself into new thinking than to think yourself into new action. 

Ryan: I love that. I've never heard this before.

Stephan: No, it's kind of a, kind of a cheesy, a little bit cheesy and maybe smart sounding way of saying, let's just go and do it and then we'll figure out the strategy later. Yeah. And so that's, we got to work. We said, we didn't do rocket science beyond what I just said. We just, if these are the seven things, let's get to work.

Stephan: And, uh, of course, everything went at its own speed and whatever, but you quickly then, create a fabric in a, in a functional team. Also not because I didn't say, okay, if these are your priorities. I am going to do those seven things. No, I said if these are your seven priorities, Ryan, I heard you had a lot of passion for priority number three.

Stephan: I suggest you take that on top of your day job. I am going to provide you with some resources so you can actually, you know, hire somebody to work with you on this. And have some budgets, uh, et cetera. I am going to call your boss and tell her that I would love for you to take that on and that you are keen to do it and then we get going.

Stephan: But so, the first thing I would do is, create that joint agenda. And then, uh, get people to work with you on the agenda instead of doing it as kind of a global team, because nobody, the global team is always wrong, right? I mean, that's, that's always everywhere. So, we've created a team that is actually a global team.

Stephan: We call it the Global Insights Council. And that is not the same people anymore because a lot of people moved on and shifted jobs. And some, some are, by the way, still there. Um, but we created the global insights concept that actually runs our function. That is incredibly connected around, around these core capabilities in which they really have vested interest.

Stephan: And over time, the dynamic has changed a little bit over time. We all matured and the global team also matured now. So for some cases, I do have a global team that really runs a set of capabilities so the local teams can focus more on their, uh, in market or in, region deliverables. So, and that's great.

Stephan: But it took five to six years to get there. 

Ryan: What I love about, there's two things I really like about the start of this, right? So particularly for those of you in global roles. Got to get on airplanes and listen, right? Like, you know, you can't project from New York City how things work in Amsterdam or Sri Lanka or Egypt.

Ryan: I mean, you just can't do these things. And so I love the discovery that you did and then sort of serving back to people. Hey, these are the problems I see. There's a great book, a company group of six engineers created Waze. Six total employees, I think. Maybe it was five, maybe it was six. Six total people created Waze, sold it to Google for over a billion dollars, and they wrote this wonderful book called Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution.

Ryan: And I think so often in business, we have ideas for toys and tools without saying, what are we actually trying to achieve here? Um, and if you understand the problem, then you can do as Stephan suggested, which is like, hey, let's listen, let's, let's just start doing some stuff. We know that this problem is here.

Ryan: We know we want to be connected and strategic and. I mean, in our specific paradigm, we were going to do 10 times as many things as we actually achieved. We ended up doing four things really well. And I'm, we didn't know that when we started, but we got into it. It's, you know, we're much better off just focusing on a few things.

Stephan: It's always easy to post-rationalize and create a strategy looking backward, right? 

Ryan: Yeah, yeah, that's right. 

Stephan: And, um, but that grew organically, right? Yeah, that took us easily three years or so to get, to get to the strategy done. But, we didn't waste time and money creating a strategy and then take three years before we got started with the work, we got started with the work.

Ryan: Yeah. And I think from your, from your desk and others sitting in it, having a council of, you know, cause let's be honest, most global heads of insights, it's a dotted line report at best. They're not hard line reports. And so you need to be able to influence a regional president and a dotted line and find those common problems, because you are going to be adding work, getting their boss to prioritize it in their QBRs, getting them to invest money.

Ryan: And, and it's not until you deliver things centrally that money transfers are even something you're going to remotely talk about because, um, and even when you do create value, the budget transfer is still a hard thing for people to be comfortable with. I want to ask you a question then, so let's flip this on its head with two separate vectors.

Ryan: The first one, you're a country lead. You're not a global lead. Where do you start?

Stephan: Well, if I were a country lead, if I were to join an in-country team for the first time, I would start the same way, but then, you know, the people I would interview would be all the different business leads and brand leads.

Stephan: Within that sector. And then, but I would add one thing to that. And that is because if you it's, it's just like when you ask consumers what they want, they'll, they'll tell you, they want a faster work ship. So, it's like if you, if you ask people that have worked in the business for quite a while, and they've used the consumer insights team in all sorts of different ways and leverage their skills and capabilities. But most of them don't know what they don't know. So they, so if you, if you go and ask them, like, what should I be working on? You'll get an answer, but you get an answer that is framed in the context of what their expectations are and what they're used to.

Stephan: Um, and that is not necessarily enough of a stretch. So you need to then be, That guy with that sign that, you know, that the finish of the marathon is a couple of miles further down the road. You need to be that guy for yourself. Or you need some external guidance, or if you're lucky, you have a CMO that has a vision for consumer driven decision making processes, for example, or for what, what end to end human centricity looks like in that company. If you're lucky and you have a partner in a CMO like that. You can use her or him, uh, for that kind of challenge.

Stephan: If, if you're not, uh, or not enough, then you need some external inspiration. Not so much from consultants or so would my fault would be, uh, certainly in, in our function is to talk to peers. I mean, the number of times that you've connected me with people in my role in different companies is, I don't know, like I haven't kept count, but it's in the dozens and I've learned from talking with people each and every time.

Stephan: Um, and so that is invaluable. That is literally incredibly powerful. So I do that a lot and I've done that a lot from the beginning.

Ryan: All right, so I got one more question for you, I see the biggest driver of fragmented, disconnected insights being because it's the lowest common denominator. So because we're localized into channels, you usually have an insights person tied to a brand and that and I won't go down the tangent of how messed up corporate remuneration structures are for brand managers.

Ryan: That's probably a separate episode. I'll do it on my own so I don't have to get anybody in trouble. But there's a lot of incentive schemes, not within PepsiCo, but in businesses that say, you gotta ship something and the money sits with the brands and the insights manager gets commissioned by that person.

Ryan: And I can't tell you how many times the head of insights in a market doesn't actually control what the teams use underneath them. So, you're a forward minded, early in your career, or maybe not. Maybe you're trying to reinvent yourself, but you're an insights manager. Where do you start?

Ryan: Because you kind of, in a lot of ways, you have discretion in some things and no discretion in others. It's sort of, it's a tricky place to be, but I sort of see that as the, the, the catalyst of keeping teams as order takers without anybody even knowing. 

Stephan: Yeah. It's a, I hear you. It's like, um, it's a bit of a lame answer, I feel, but I'm going to give it anyway, because it's the only way out.

Stephan: The only way out, the only way out is through. And in this case, through means that you have to get it between the ears and eyes of, of the marketer in your example, or whoever you're working for and with. Uh, what the business value is. Of whatever it is you're, you're advising. And all too often, insights people themselves are also over focused on the deliverable, which is like the ad test or the market segmentation map.

Stephan: Whereas if you create a great market segmentation map, you know, it's actually a relatively small step to showing the incredible potential all those different segments have for your particular business and how you could really tap into a market that is actually a lot bigger.

Stephan: Then, uh, then your business tends to think, right? What is the business we're in? We're being measured by our market sharing potato chips. But that is a construction all of our own, right? I mean, that's like a retail driven type of construction. People buy or decide not to buy potato chips you know, while comparing it to many other categories, right?

Stephan: And so, so your, your market share in that particular subcategory is only very partially relevant. 

Ryan: Yeah, it's true. The only way up is through folks. And the example works because. If you map to your specific stakeholder and get intentional and get those wins, that helps the Stefan's of the world. actually latch on to momentum that can drive a more consistent agenda across the organization.

Ryan: And who knows, maybe you'll be like Oksana at Clorox and you'll just be running the team in a few years because you did such a good job in your own domain. That'll do it for this season of Inside Insights. I'll be back in the fall, uh, and we'll all be in touch soon because we're very excited to share our book, The Consumer Insights Revolution with you.

Ryan: Stephan, good to see you, my friend. Have a good afternoon. 

Stephan: Good to see you again, Ryan. Cheers.