Beyond Insights: Shaping Business Decisions and Strategy with Vijay Raj

[00:00:00] Vijay Raj: What really sets apart a wow insight from a great insight is really commercial acumen. Yeah. And I say that because a good insight needs to be both operationally feasible and commercially viable. 

[00:00:13] MRII Announcer: Welcome to MRII’s Insights and Innovators podcast, where we talk to top market research professionals to get their inside stories about innovative and enduring best practices.

[00:00:24] MRII Announcer: Now here’s your host for today’s episode. 

[00:00:26] Stan Sthanunathan: Hi everyone. Thanks for joining. Today’s episode of Insights and Innovators. I’m your host, Stan. Today’s episode is all about how insights are used to drive business impact. In other words, making sure that insights function finds its mojo and is seen as somebody, something that is critical for driving business decision, particularly at the C-suite level, the kind of question that they’re grappling with.

[00:00:57] Stan Sthanunathan: To bring that to life, we have a [00:01:00] perfect guest, Vijay Raj, who’s EVP of Consumer and Market Insights at Unilever. Vijay has spent a long time in the world of insights, both on the agency side and on the client side, and therefore has a very balanced point of view on the discipline. In this episode, which I shares his perspective on how to take the insight function to the next level, and as someone who has a solid and credible seat at the table.

[00:01:28] Stan Sthanunathan: So therefore, his point of view would be really interesting and valuable for all of us. So whether you are on the client side or on the agency side, you will find really good input from him on how to shape your career as well as shaping the role of your agency or the function. Welcome, Vijay. 

[00:01:48] Vijay Raj: Thanks, Dan. Really great to be here and to share some of my thoughts on the world of insights.

[00:01:54] Vijay Raj: I’m really excited to be here because this is actually the first time I’ve been on a podcast, so I’m really [00:02:00] excited and a bit nervous. Go easy on the difficult questions. No. 

[00:02:04] Stan Sthanunathan: So let me start off with a difficult one. No, I’m kidding. Great. I’m gonna start by asking you a few questions, but before that before you gimme your perspective on the state of the industry and so on, why don’t you give the audience a quick intro into your career and your role today?

[00:02:20] Vijay Raj: Yeah, so I started my career at a small research agency in India called OG Mark. And therefore I have a bit of an appreciation for the workings of an agency, but I’ve been with Unilever since 2000, so that’s a little more than 25 years. And in these 25 years I’ve done multiple roles. I’ve done.

[00:02:40] Vijay Raj: Category roles. I’ve done country roles, I’ve done global roles, I’ve done regional roles, done a role in capability development, done roles in specialist roles like, media and shopper. I even did a short stint in marketing. So I have an appreciation for the. Pools and pressures that a marketer experiences.

[00:02:59] Vijay Raj: And [00:03:00] I’ve worked across India, Indonesia, Singapore, and London. And to be honest, I’ve been at Unilever for longer than I’ve been married. And the reason for that is because it’s really been a career and not a job. Yeah. And today I head up CMI for Unilever, but I also double hat as the head of CMI for one of the business groups, which is personal care.

[00:03:20] Stan Sthanunathan: Awesome, awesome. You had a incredible career so far based on all the experiences that you’ve had, what do we need to do to get the status we deserve, given the importance of consumer centricity in every company? Everybody talks about it, but what do we need to do as a function? 

[00:03:40] Vijay Raj: Absolutely San and you, I think start by rereading what you just said, which is, consumer centricity, customer centricity is really key for any organization and for the way I look at it is I almost think of a pyramid of insights. Yeah. At the base level of the pyramid, you have really wow insights. You then move from [00:04:00] insights to action, so insights leading to action. And then at the top of that pyramid, you’ve got insights leading to transformative actions.

[00:04:07] Vijay Raj: Yeah. And therefore, if you start at the bottom of the pyramid. Around Wow. Insights. The fact is that the insight functions do a really good job of identifying insights. Yeah. And therefore, that is not the issue. However, if you think about it, as insights functions, we tend to be very good at, keeping secrets and not letting our insights really be visible.

[00:04:29] Vijay Raj: Yeah. And therefore, I think one of the things that we have to do better is not just do market research, but actually we need to be marketing the research. Yeah. And that will really help with the base level of just creating awareness of the insights and maybe a consideration of the insights. Yeah. Then when you move from the base level to the second level, which is around insight to action there, we need to move away from being invited to the table to have a discussion, to actually having a seat at the table.

[00:04:59] Vijay Raj: [00:05:00] And it’s important because when you have a seat at the table, you can then start to influence the decision making and therefore start to move insights to action. Yeah. And as they say, if you’re not on the table. Then you’re likely to be on the menu. And then when you move from, insights to actions, to insights for transformations, that’s really where we need to move from having a seat at the table.

[00:05:25] Vijay Raj: To actually hosting the table. Yeah. And that’s important because when you host the table, you can actually answer questions that no one is asking, but really they should be asking. Yeah. And hosting the table might sound a little bit boring. Think about it as hosting the party. Yeah.

[00:05:43] Vijay Raj: And hosting the party has got the other benefit of really. Allowing, you to be the person who facilitates cross pollination of ideas. Yeah. Get interesting connections going. And it is those interesting connections and that cross pollination of ideas that will actually [00:06:00] come up with those few transformative actions that will really change the game for the trajectory of a brand category.

[00:06:07] Vijay Raj: And indeed the company 

[00:06:09] Stan Sthanunathan: love it. Vijay. I particularly love the notion of. Market research versus marketing the research and also the whole notion of hosting the party. Because, then you dictate the, whether the party is one party or it’s a dull and boring party. So I really love those notions.

[00:06:27] Stan Sthanunathan: Fantastic. Now all the things don’t come easily. So based on your experience, what are the leadership and influencing skills that are required? To do exactly the three levels of things that you’re talking about. Can you give an example of or two from, your experience? 

[00:06:47] Vijay Raj: So I think Stan, I’ll go back to the pyramid that I talked about.

[00:06:50] Vijay Raj: Yeah. And if you think about the base of that pyramid around wow. Insights now again, as I said, the insights functions across the world. [00:07:00] Tend to do a good job of identifying insights, but I think what’s a, what really sets apart a wow insight from a great insight is really commercial acumen.

[00:07:09] Vijay Raj: Yeah. And I say that because a good insight needs to be both operationally feasible and commercially viable. There’s no point in having an insight that leads to an idea that, for which there is no technology today Yeah. To make it to come alive. Or it raises regulatory concerns. Or is environmentally sustainable?

[00:07:30] Vijay Raj: Yeah, you need to ensure that the ideas that come outta the inside are operationally feasible. Equally, they need to be commercially viable. There’s no point in chasing an idea where you’re gonna sell five units for which you need to set up a factory or something, which is profit dilutive. Of course, it also needs to be in line with the strategy of the company.

[00:07:48] Vijay Raj: So the strategy is around premiumization. There’s no point in having an insight that’s that would lead to potentially down trading of the category. And generally a good sense check is to do a business [00:08:00] case around the insight that’s, that you’ve come up with. Yeah. So that’s the that’s the base level.

[00:08:05] Vijay Raj: Then when we move to insight to action I think one of the things that we need to do is to be a solution provider and not just a problem identifier. Yeah. And, that could take many different shapes. If it’s a very simple pack design that’s being tested and consumers don’t really like it.

[00:08:22] Vijay Raj: Can we come up with a couple of thought starters for what modifications to the pack design might actually start to then appeal to consumers and shoppers? Yeah. It’s not to say that insights people need to become graphic designers. No. But it is to say that can we facilitate the start of a conversation Similarly, it could take the shape of, just taking inspiration from other brands or other categories on what they’ve done with a similar kind of a challenge.

[00:08:50] Vijay Raj: Then when we go to the top level of, insights for that lead to transformational actions, I think there the most critical thing is around having empathy. Having empathy [00:09:00] with the stakeholders. Just the ability to look at things through the lens of the stakeholder, because the stakeholder will have different pools and pressures.

[00:09:09] Vijay Raj: Yeah, they’ve got pools and pressures from sales. They’ve got pools and pressures of profit Ask. They’ve got different set of objectives. The horizon of the objectives could be different. Some maybe, a six month horizon, some maybe a three year horizon. Understanding each of those is extremely critical because it then allows you to pitch your insight and your idea at the right level in order to be able to help to drive that transformation that we are seeking.

[00:09:35] Stan Sthanunathan: Great. Thank you. Thanks. That’s very clear in my mind. Now, sitting where you are you earned your stripes and you’ve gotten to where you are. But what advice would you give to members of your team who, some of them might be starting their career, some of them might be the middle stage of their career.

[00:09:52] Stan Sthanunathan: What kinda advice would you give them to accelerate the journey so that they can be the best that they’re capable [00:10:00] of? 

[00:10:01] Vijay Raj: That’s a very big question Stan And I’d probably say five different things. Yeah. So do bear with me. The first thing I would say is embrace contradictions. Yeah. And not just embrace contradictions, but dig deeper to resolve those contradictions.

[00:10:16] Vijay Raj: Yeah, so it was, I think it was f Scott Fitzgerald who said something along the lines of genius is the ability to hold contrarian thoughts. And I’m of course, paraphrasing what he said, but I would modify that to say that a genius insight professional really should have the ability to hold contrarian thought.

[00:10:35] Vijay Raj: And resolve them. And I say that because in the world of research there will always be seemingly different results from different sources. And you have to resolve them. Yeah. For instance, if you think about the whole oo gap, that’s true across most research probably, gets heightened in areas like sustainability.

[00:10:56] Vijay Raj: Yeah. Everybody will say that having [00:11:00] sustainable behavior is great for the planet. We care about the planet, and yet do we buy plastic free solutions? Yeah. And why not? Because there are other things that are important. And, anecdotally, I was in Bali a couple of weeks ago on holiday, and I asked the cab driver saying.

[00:11:15] Vijay Raj: Now, I don’t see a lot of plastic on the beaches in Bali. Have people stopped using plastic? And he said, yes, they have because the government has banned it. And if the government had not banned it, nobody would’ve stopped using plastic. Yeah. Another example, a question that we get asked these days is, are influences good at changing behavior?

[00:11:34] Vijay Raj: Again, you’ll get contradictory responses. On the one hand you have this whole social media wellness trend of, ice water bath. Which is being pedaled by a number of influencers, which have led to a sudden spit of increase of, kidney stones in otherwise perfectly healthy individuals.

[00:11:51] Vijay Raj: So you would say yes, influencers work and look, here is an example of, influencers at work. But then you step back and say, look at what happened in the US [00:12:00] elections where every single celebrity influencer supported Kamala Harris, and yet she didn’t win. And therefore you would say it does not work.

[00:12:08] Vijay Raj: But actually you need to take a more nuanced view to say, f. Which category are we talking about? Which influencer? What is the message? And then you come to a resolution as to is it likely to work or not likely to work. And the corollary to that, that I would always say is do not rely on a single source of information.

[00:12:26] Vijay Raj: Always try to find a validation or a point which will support that that data source. So that’s the first thing that I would say, which is embrace contradictions and dig deeper to resolve. The second thing that I would say is look at alternative sources of insights. Yeah. So for instance, and if I give you two examples, pop culture, particularly movies I do believe, is a mirror to society and a window into the future.

[00:12:53] Vijay Raj: And so last weekend I saw two Hindi movies one called Dodo pr and the other was called osh. [00:13:00] And the first one really was all about extramarital affairs. And you say extramarital affairs in India. Really, and that’s a window into the future and where a part of the society is already there and other parts will get to.

[00:13:13] Vijay Raj: On the other hand, the other movie was all about really the struggles of a lower middle class woman and how she has to struggle just to get by. And that’s a mirror to current society. And so you can get a both a mirror to current society and a window into the future just by observing what’s happening in pop culture.

[00:13:32] Vijay Raj: Similarly, people struggle to articulate what they need, but if you just look at their Google search history, it gives a very good indication of exactly what they really need. So that’s the second thing. And look at alternate sources for insights. The third that I would say is look at the fringes to see what the future could look like.

[00:13:52] Vijay Raj: Yeah. And you think about it, break dancing. It was at the fringes three decades ago now it is an Olympic sport. [00:14:00] Yeah. Similarly, if you could think about instead of doing research with influence, if it’s consumers, could we look at research with influencers, with script writers? Yeah.

[00:14:09] Vijay Raj: With fashion designers, you then start to get a very different perspective on some stimulus that you expose, but also. Potentially what’s happening around in society and what could happen in the near future. So that’s the third thing around look at the fringes to see what the future could look like.

[00:14:27] Vijay Raj: The fourth that I would probably say is look. Don’t worry about winning the short-term popularity contest. Yeah. Instead, aim to win the long-term respect contest. So not the short-term popularity contest, but the long-term respect. Contest. Contest. And the reason I say that is because. Sometimes I get told why is it that you are always bringing bad news?

[00:14:51] Vijay Raj: And my response is that, good news travels on a horseback, but bad news needs an insights person to transport it. And I remember it [00:15:00] was 10, 12, maybe 13 years ago. We would. The world was talking about, social media followers and why brands should be chasing social media followers. And I remember standing up and saying, it doesn’t work.

[00:15:11] Vijay Raj: Yeah. It doesn’t lead to a business outcome. And I still have sc, scars on my back from, the criticism and the pushback that I got. But you have to stand your ground and say, no it is what’s what’s working and what’s not working. And it got played out to be correct over the following years and therefore.

[00:15:27] Vijay Raj: I earned the respect over a long period of time, while in the moment I was certainly not popular. Yeah, so that’s the fourth thing that I would say, which is, think about the long-term respect contest and don’t worry about losing the short-term popularity contest. And the fifth thing that I would say, which is probably a little more behavioral, which is, display empathy with stakeholders and not sympathy for, and, without getting into the psychology of it too much.

[00:15:52] Vijay Raj: Very simple things like the language that we use. We lost share as opposed to you lost share, or, the innovation we created sucks as opposed to your [00:16:00] innovation sucks. Yeah. And it just helps to create a sense of bonding with the person and therefore to influence much better, to ultimately land insights to action, and then to get to some of those transformative actions.

[00:16:13] Vijay Raj: So those are the five things that I would say. 

[00:16:16] Stan Sthanunathan: Brilliant. Thank you so much. Now a slightly tricky one. Just go back to the day you started your career. What advice, given the benefit of all the knowledge and experience that you have today, what advice would you give to the VI 24 years ago?

[00:16:38] Vijay Raj: That’s that’s an interesting one. Stan I wish I had some of the maturity back then, but looking back on, the 29 years that I’ve been in insights, i’d probably say three things. Yeah. The first I would say is have the curiosity. The curiosity to go behind the obvious. And, this is all about just unpeeling the onion to get to the true insight, [00:17:00] but I think that’s heightened in today’s world.

[00:17:02] Vijay Raj: Yeah. And that’s heightened because you have to go beyond things like factoids, which is generally a piece of information which is presented as though it is a fact, but it is not verified and there are, there are good examples of that. You probably remember the whole thing about the Microsoft report.

[00:17:18] Vijay Raj: That stated that humans have an attention span of eight seconds that is less than that of a goldfish. And that is very often quoted as the basis for, a lot of marketing interventions. But the fact is that, that report was a indeed published by Microsoft, Canada. But the report actually quoted another study from Statistic Brain and that actually quoted another study and I was one of those who followed the trail.

[00:17:45] Vijay Raj: And you end up with a 4 0 4 error. Yeah. So effectively there is no scientific basis for the statement that the human attention span has declined and is now only eight seconds. And yet it has become a part of marketing folklore now. So a [00:18:00] good insight person would really dig into things. To really go beyond the obvious and to unpeel the onion.

[00:18:07] Vijay Raj: So be curious to go beyond the obvious is the first thing I would say. 

[00:18:11] Vijay Raj: Second thing I would say is be aware of your biases. Yeah. Because your viewpoint determines your point of view. Yeah. And the fact is that we are here to represent the views of people across the spectrum. Yeah. Though some of those beliefs often clash with my own personal beliefs. They clash with my religious beliefs, and yet they are the beliefs of citizens of the world. And therefore my role as an inside person is to ensure that I do not allow my biases to come in the way of how I represent the views of the citizens of the world.

[00:18:46] Vijay Raj: Yeah. And of course the world changes. Yeah. And we’ve all been brought up on the notion that globalization is a good thing. Till it no longer is a good thing and therefore we need to be able to change our views as well. Be aware of your own biases is what [00:19:00] I would say. And the last thing that I would say is, strive for small constant improvements versus striving for, huge change in capabilities. And I’ve been through this where, you try to change yourself completely and you get completely frustrated because nothing is moving. But on the other hand, if you do the maths and you just improve by 5% every month at the end of the year, it’ll be 80% better if you improve by 10% every month.

[00:19:26] Vijay Raj: At the end of the year, you’ll be three times better. And you’ll see, you might not see the results every month, but every six months you’ll see a difference. And certainly over a year you will see a difference. Yeah, so I think of course, 25 years back I probably didn’t have the patience to recognize that, this whole thing about constant improvement versus striving for huge transformations, especially in capabilities, is something that I would certainly advise a younger version of myself.

[00:19:51] Stan Sthanunathan: So given all this and given the kind of impact that you’re created in the business and so on, what do you think is the biggest [00:20:00] opportunity for the insights industry going forward? 

[00:20:03] Vijay Raj: Yeah, I think, look Stan, I think there will be a lot of opportunities for the insights functions moving forward.

[00:20:09] Vijay Raj: Why? Because the INS insights will continue to remain central to any organization, because at the end of the day, it’s all about selling to consumers, selling to shopper. Who bought with their wallets. And I think one of the big big opportunities for the insights function is really to move beyond insights to actually get into a more foresight, a territory where we can actually move away from just understanding what was, to actually predicting what will be.

[00:20:39] Vijay Raj: So really adding foresight to insights is what I would say would be one of the big opportunities for for the insights functions moving forward. 

[00:20:47] Stan Sthanunathan: Then where do you see this technological revolution that is happening around us playing a role in that? 

[00:20:54] Vijay Raj: And I’m really glad that you said technology and not just ai because I do think [00:21:00] that there. I think there are three different things that could happen. Yeah. I think one is definitely, there’ll be a dramatic improvement in productivity. Yeah. And a lot of what we do in terms of, repetitive tasks thing, even something like creation of questionnaire or things like putting out of data to explain a phenomena of, share loss or share gain or market growth.

[00:21:20] Vijay Raj: That’s a lot of grunt work and a lot of that can actually be done through automation. Yeah. So that’s one big thing, which is dramatic improvement in productivity. I think the second thing that, technology is now allowing us to do is to actually measure what we need to measure versus restricting ourselves to what we can measure.

[00:21:39] Vijay Raj: Yeah. And one example of that is, media, ROI, we’ve historically measured it on an annual basis because that is what we could measure because the whole process was very labor intensive, getting all of the data, et cetera. But now we should be striving to get media ROI on a continuous basis, and there are technology solutions that allow us to get [00:22:00] there.

[00:22:00] Vijay Raj: Yeah. And I also think that, it’ll impact the skill sets that will be important. If when I reflect back 29 years back when I started in the industry we used to do presentations on transparencies. And they used to be a huge premium for having a good handwriting to write your transparencies.

[00:22:18] Vijay Raj: And I always lost out because my handwriting is awful. Yeah, and you’d remember we used to have a typist pool. And being friends with them was very important so that your proposal could go out on time. And those are things that you know, are not relevant anymore. Yeah. Similarly, now that once automation comes and there’ll be other skills, which will become.

[00:22:38] Vijay Raj: Far more important. So skills like storytelling, I do think we’ll come to the fore. So I, I do think technology and AI being a component of it, but technology in general will have a dramatic effect on the insights industry. 

[00:22:51] Stan Sthanunathan: So you briefly alluded to ai. So in closing, I want to ask you one question, which could be a bit of a controversial question.[00:23:00] 

[00:23:00] Stan Sthanunathan: Everybody sitting and wondering, will AI replace humans? Will it make people. Irrelevant. And think about that in the context of the insights industry. What do you think is the role of insights and how will it impact people? And more importantly, what do we need to do to make sure that we stay relevant in a world where AI is going to become more and more important?

[00:23:26] Stan Sthanunathan: Okay. So there are lots of questions within that. Yeah. At 

[00:23:29] Vijay Raj: least two different questions. One is will AI take away your jobs? Second, how should insights evolve within that? Yeah. And maybe there’s a third question there, which is what are potentially some of the challenges that the whole AI industry poses to us?

[00:23:43] Vijay Raj: Yeah. Yeah. So if I start with the third one maybe in terms of what are some of the challenges that AI more broadly the technology revolution poses to us? I think firstly. We should be very aware of and be very wary of the shiny toy [00:24:00] syndrome. Yeah. Because it’s, just because something can be done does not mean that it should be done and, activity is not progress.

[00:24:07] Vijay Raj: Let’s be very wary of the shiny toy syndrome. Second thing that we should be very wary about is measuring progress against current yardsticks. Yeah. For instance, if you just think back as an industry, we were rather slow to engage with technology and qualitative research because we were always measuring it versus, the benefits of having face-to-face interaction, which Yes.

[00:24:28] Vijay Raj: Is there, and yet there are other benefits that came from, video based interviews, et cetera. A good example though, on the other hand, is the way the industry has indeed engaged with social listening, which is different. You can argue it’s imperfect. I could argue it’s just different to conventional ways of doing research.

[00:24:45] Vijay Raj: And this becomes important. ’cause as we get into things like synthetic data and synthetic personas, let’s not try to validate it versus current tools, but try to validate it versus what happens in market. Yeah. Because it is going to be genuinely different. And [00:25:00] I think the third thing that it’s going to do is that it is going to ch force us to change our framework.

[00:25:05] Vijay Raj: They become far more dynamic. Yeah, so today a lot of our frameworks tend to be a very good description of the current state. Think about consumer journeys or demand spaces. But those need to become far more predictive. Yeah. And for instance, if we think about consumer journeys the fact is that, today you’ve got e-commerce tomorrow, it could be something different.

[00:25:26] Vijay Raj: Think about quick commerce in India, how it has completely transformed the consumer journeys. Yeah. Or you think about demand spaces and you. Categories like restaurants or foods, how it’ll change as a result of things like GLP ones becoming more common. And that poses a challenge to any framework that is very static.

[00:25:43] Vijay Raj: But if we focus on what is the underlying diagnostics, then we can start to make these tools far more predictive of what future behaviors might look like. Yeah. And this might sound a bit esoteric, so if I give you one of my personal reflections from earlier this year. I was very [00:26:00] obsessed with my weight and I continued to be, so every morning I would stand on the weighing machine and it diligently told me the same number every single day.

[00:26:08] Vijay Raj: And it’s a bit meaningless and a bit pointless to measure my weight. And I realized that what I should have been measuring is my sleep as a proxy for stress should be measuring my diet as a proxy for calorie intake and my exercise regime. And if I change those three the way it would automatically follow.

[00:26:25] Vijay Raj: Yeah. So how do we understand the underlying behaviors to make our frameworks far more predictable? So then to come to your second question about will AI take away our jobs? So look, I firstly define AI as being augmented intelligence, which is, human intelligence, augmented by artificial intelligence.

[00:26:41] Vijay Raj: Yeah. And therefore, my own personal belief, and this is a personal belief of mine, is that AI will not take away our jobs. If we do not work with ai, then somebody else working with AI will take away our jobs. Yeah. So AI by itself will not, but some, if we don’t engage with ai, somebody [00:27:00] else working with AI will take away our jobs.

[00:27:03] Vijay Raj: And I think the fact is that, while AI can do a lot of things. It’s equally true that it cannot do a lot of things. Yeah. So for instance, the whole thing about finding new patterns or creating new ones? Yeah. That unlikely to come out of an ai, something like empathy with people. Be that with, citizens of the world or with stakeholders, it’s not gonna come from an ai.

[00:27:26] Vijay Raj: Yeah. The thing that’s, I do think that there will be a role for an insights professional, but that would be more around understanding people. As people in the cultural context in which they live. And too often we just reduce people to you’re a consumer because you are cooking, you’re a shopper because you are at a Walmart.

[00:27:46] Vijay Raj: You’re playing a game and therefore you’re a gamer. Or you’re creating content and therefore you are an influencer. But at the end of the day, it is the same human being. Yeah. And as we start to understand people and we start to understand the cultural context, that is when [00:28:00] we will unpeel, the best and the most robust insights.

[00:28:03] Stan Sthanunathan: So 

[00:28:03] Vijay Raj: therefore, to therefore answer your last question, which was around what will insights functions need to do in the future. Again, I go back to the fact that insights will, in my view, continue to remain central in organizations. Yeah. But the insights function itself will, in my view, evolve.

[00:28:23] Vijay Raj: And there are three dimensions along which that that evolution will happen. The first is, a bifurcation that will result in silos breaking down and rules merging. So if you think about it, today we have the classic What and why Tomorrow There’ll be some things where there’ll be a what and why, and there’ll be other things where there’ll be only a what.

[00:28:42] Vijay Raj: So for instance, if you think about media and you’ve got, thousand pieces of content going out. You find out that 800 are working, you put continue to put money behind those 800, why they are working. Is that relevant? Probably not. Now this is one where, you will have far greater integration of [00:29:00] tools between creation, media deployment, and CMI and those silos will start to break down and roles will start to merge.

[00:29:08] Vijay Raj: Yeah. Then on the other hand, you will have a second phenomena, which is, if you think about it over the last 20 years. We have democratized information. Yeah. But now with technology, especially things like enterprise versions of chat, GPT or Google Deep Research, we will see the democratization of insights.

[00:29:28] Vijay Raj: Yeah. And I think that is very exciting because I see a redefinition of the role of the insights function, which is currently, it is a gatekeeper of insights. But it will evolve as insights gets democratized, the road will evolve from being a gatekeeper of insights to being a gateway of insightfulness.

[00:29:51] Vijay Raj: Yeah. And that’s an exciting new opportunity for an insights function to play in. Yeah. The third thing, which I already said, which is around, we will need [00:30:00] to move away from understanding what was and what is to actually start to predicting what will be. And that’s really around adding foresight to insights.

[00:30:10] Vijay Raj: So personally, I do believe that insights will remain very central to any organization, but the role of insights will continue to evolve and will become far more exciting 20 years down the line than it was when I started my career. 

[00:30:26] Stan Sthanunathan: Thank you. Thank you Vit. Thanks for an incredibly stimulating discussion and I’m sure our listeners will get some good solid pulse of wisdom which they can take, act upon, and future proof their career.

[00:30:39] Stan Sthanunathan: Thank you so much for the time you spent. Thank you. Thanks, Sam. Thanks for inviting me. 

[00:30:43] MRII Announcer: Thanks for joining the Insights and Innovators podcast for Market Research Institute International. Click subscribe to never miss an episode and visit us@rii.org for more market research insights.