INSIGHT on INSIGHT: Gathering and Incorporating Existing Information
Few companies operate with zero insight.
While they may not have much, they have most likely acquired some reports or data files that represent potentially useful insight for their business. These could be various forms of secondary insight or tertiary insight.
However, it is probably appropriate to call most of this ‘information’ because it most likely requires more analysis or interpretation to be translated into meaningful insight.
Because this information should be immediately available and free, it shouldn’t be ignored as a valuable asset. In fact, it could provide answers that eliminate topics needing new insight or shift the focus on where investments are made for additional insight. This may include prior primary research done by the company, an assortment of secondary research the company has acquired or has access to, or tertiary research that just needs to be further validated.
While numerous types of information may exist, here are a few areas to start your search:
Knowledge or information employees brought from previous roles
Information that can be anonymously shared through the back channels of professional networks
Information third-parties such as retailers or other service providers are willing to share
Reports or publications provided by industry associations
Information acquired through customer service contacts or call centers
Customer interactions captured through social media like Facebook or Twitter
Customer-generated content in the form or product reviews, questions, discussion boards or Pinterest boards.
Lessons learned from prior product launches, sales presentations or marketing program results.
Prior primary research conducted by the company
Google searches for publically available white papers, academic publications or information about the same topic as it applies to a different category
It might be easy to compile a lot of existing information or it might take a painful amount of effort to gather just a few superficial reports.
And lots of existing information is not always a good thing because it will require proportionately more effort to sift through, understand, and determine what value can be extracted and is worth sharing.
My experience, with my particular clients, has convinced me that existing information rarely produces significant new value or alters the focus on the underlying need for new insight.
However, it would be foolish not to invest a minimal amount of time to determine what (and how much) information can be quickly recovered from those archived inboxes, the back of file cabinets or professional networks. While this information may not completely answer pending questions, it could provide valuable information that guides the final scope of a new learning plan.
Here are some pros and cons to help you determine how far to dive into existing information before starting new insight work.
PROS OF EXISTING INFORMATION:
Existing information is often readily available and free. Being cheap and immediate is often a good place to start and can produce a great ROI.
The information or datasets may exist that cannot be easily or affordably acquired today.
Fully utilizing existing information avoids duplicating effort or relearning things that are already known.
Analysis and interpretation can be done in sequential stages, with preliminary learning guiding how much continued time and attention is spent diving deeper into the data.
Existing information can provide new context or perspective or spur new thoughts or overlooked opportunities not currently included in the scope of the learning plan.
Existing information can be used to develop, refine or test hypotheses before new insight is pursued.
A fresh analysis or interpretation of existing information can challenge the facts or perceptions a business is currently operating on and open the door for new learning.
Information may be discovered that is extremely valuable to other areas of the business beyond the scope of the insights work being done.
CONS OF EXISTING INFORMATION:
Information has a shelf life (particularly in dynamic categories), meaning information that is just one or two years old may be outdated and dangerous to base future plans on.
While the information may already exist, the labor to clean, understand and analyze it could be prohibitive from a cost and time standpoint.
It takes a unique skill set to comb through an collection of information, recognize what each document or file contains and understand how it could be used to produce relevant insight.
Existing information may be incomplete or inconsistent with what is needed to answer particular questions. Trends or new market dynamics can alter the context of information that would have previously been considered comprehensive.
Isolated sources of information typically can’t be merged into a cohesive dataset for thorough analysis. This forces some assumptions or speculation when associating conclusions across the different sources.
Existing information may be causing bias or limited perceptions that need to be overcome with a fresh approach or clean slate.
There needs to be confidence in the validity of existing information to act on any insights produced from it. Some decision-makers may refuse to listen to insights based on information they don’t have confidence in.
How much and how useful existing information is for your client will vary greatly. Knowing how much time and money to invest in understanding that information can also be difficult to determine.
However, allowing some window of time and some amount of budget to gather and explore existing information is almost always a wise investment.