This document summarizes insights from a presentation on insights and research trends for 2021. It discusses how research is being conducted in turbulent and uncertain times, and that insights are needed more than ever as organizations fly blind. It highlights winners and losers from the pandemic and economic changes. Research is facing challenges of doing more with less as budgets decrease but demands increase. Key trends include greater automation, a 360-degree customer view, democratizing insights, integration, iterative learning, and showing ROI. The presentation provides tips on transitioning to focus on speed, stakeholders' needs, and delivering value across organizations through collaboration and agile approaches.

1. Insights 2021
Powering Human Experience
Ray Poynter Chief Research Officer

2. © Potentiate 2020
Agenda
• The research context
• What’s hot & what’s not
• Key developments in insights generation
• The challenges and threats being faced by
insights
• Tips for transitioning from 2020 to 2021 and
beyond
• Q & A
Insights 2021
Powering Human Experience

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The Research Context
• Research is not an island – we are in TUNA times
• Turbulent, Uncertain, Novel & Ambiguous
• May 2020 - review
• Scenarios
• Winners and Losers
• Sneak Peek at research buyers’ global study

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The World in May 2020
Most Expectations

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The World Today
Source: https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386938

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Four Compound Scenarios – May 2020
Virus is NOT
Controlled Soon
Economy Recovers
Soon
Economy does NOT
Recover Soon
Back to
Normal-ish, but with
lots of deaths
Whole new
world
Virus is Controlled
Soon
Economy Recovers
Soon
Economy does NOT
Recover Soon
Back to Normal-
ish
Major recession
Still True – September 2020

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Most leaders surveyed expect large scale changes in their ways
of running their business
Most of these
changes need
(or would at least
benefit from) Insights
& Research

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Why do organisations need insights?
Everybody is flying blind.

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Winners
• Apple becomes the first $1 Trillion company in August 2018
• Becomes the first $2 Trillion company in September 2020 (stock up 134%
in the last year)
• Amazon and Microsoft hot on Apple’s tail
• Amazon $1.65 Trillion (stock up 80% in last year), Microsoft $1.61 Trillion
(stock up 55% in last year)
• Walmart
• Online sales up 97% on last year, Q2 ’same stores’ sales up 10%, year-on-
year (driven by food)
• Other winners include
• AMD (chip maker), Nvidia (technology), & Netflix

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The Research Context
ESOMAR & Partners, Global Study of Research Buyers Sneak Peek
Internal,
38%
External,
62%
How much research is conducted
internally or via suppliers?
Increasin
g, 42%
No
Change,
45%
Not Sure,
5%
Decreasin
g, 8%
Change in Internal %
Note, more than 20 Partners, including
Potentiate, study leader – Ray Poynter,
sample = 416

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Volume of Work Up, Resources Reduced
in Aggregate
From Buyers of Insights Study we see:
• Quantity of projects clients expect to conduct in 2021
• Increase 59%
• Decrease 14%
• Change in budget/resources 2020
• Decreased 41%
• Increased 22%
• Change in budget/resources 2021
• Decrease 29%
• Increase 28%
The ESOMAR Global Market
Research Report expects the
global spend on Research to
fall in 2020 by 25%, about US
$20billion (from $80billion to
$60billion).
But, we need to be aware that
some sectors/companies are
doing better – e.g. 22% are
spending more.

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Doing More with Less
The Key phrase From GRIT, ESOMAR and NewMR
Key examples of how companies are doing this include:
Using insight communities for a larger
share of projects – blending self-serve
with outsourcing
Using survey engines themselves
Automating and using AI to streamline
services, for example building text
analytics into CX dashboard – giving more
insight in less time
Integrating projects, sourcing information
from the whole organisation
Democratising the process, adopting lean
and agile approaches
Re-processing existing data to find more
answers

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The World in 2021?
• COVID-19 - better, worse or similar?
• Vaccine - yes, no or somewhere between
• Global Economy – in recession or recovering?
• Australian, European, North American economy – same as global, or not
• Trade problems (e.g. with China) – probable
• Climate problems – probable
• Regulatory problems for big data – probable, starting with Facebook and Google (and WeChat & Tik Tok)
• Business - a curate’s egg (good in parts, bad in parts)
• Cruise liners, airplane manufacturers, pop concerts – not good
• Amazon, Apple, online shopping, Netflix – fantastic
• Unilever, Coke, P&G etc – could be good, bad, or marginal
• Another surprise (ash cloud, war, floods/fires, IT breakdown, terrorism, asteroids, etc) – it always could happen,
it usually doesn’t happen

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What’s Hot and What’s Not
Hot!
• Digital Qual
• Agile
• ‘X’ – UX, CX & HX (Human Experience)
• Insight communities as default options
• Democratising insights
• Automation (including AI)
• Video

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What’s Hot and What’s Not
Not!
• Anything face-to-face
• Most shiny new toys
• Augmented reality, Neuroscience, Biometrics, Facial Coding
• Large-scale tracking studies
• Traditional reporting
• AI when not involved in automation or augmented intelligence

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Key developments in insights generation
Automation
(including AI)
360-degree view
of the customer, client, citizen,
viewer (human-centric
approaches)
Democratising
sharing the insights in snackable,
accessible formats, couched in
the language of the user
Integration
treating each project as a piece
of the jigsaw, rather then a whole
picture
Less research, more often
Using approaches from Lean and
Agile – iterative learning, with
multidisciplinary teams
Measuring and
showing the ROI
of insights

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The challenges & threats being faced by insights
• Budget and resource cuts
• But that is often a consequence of reduced relevance
• Establish ROI, answer real problems, offer solutions
• The growing need to recognise Diversity & Inclusivity in insights
• The regulatory environment for data is going to get stricter
• The EU proposes to legislate on AI (and it means algorithms)
• Stay informed, use trade bodies to lobby on your behalf
• Fighting today’s needs with yesterday’s tactics
• Stakeholders don’t care about methods, they want reliable answers
• We can’t focus on significance testing, cross-tabs, and ranking scales
• We need the equivalent of the change from waterfall to agile, what is our MVP?
• The need for speed
• Insights are on time, or they are useless – they have to be affordable too

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Transitioning from 2020 to 2021 and beyond
• Do more with less
• Blend self-serve and service, integrate your solutions, use your existing research to deliver more (e.g. Communities as a
hub, measuring trends with CX, longitudinal analysis of concept tests)
• Make better use of existing tools, focusing on speed, stakeholders’ needs, and the requirements of customers as people
• Deliver value to the rest of the organisation
• Collaborate to deliver agile. Democratise the process. Less research more often. Become iterative and brave. Be the
number 1 voice for the customer. Measure the ROI of insights.
• Use Automation, AI, Machine Learning, & Standardisation to make your research more efficient (i.e. faster,
cheaper, easier)
• Focus on tasks, tools & approaches that you can use and re-use – avoid a shiny toy that you might only use
once in 2021
• Develop lean approaches, using multidisciplinary teams, less research more often, focusing on the
human experience

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HX – people at the centre of the enterprise

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hx@potentiate.com
Thank you