Transforming Market Research in Big Companies with Stephan Gans, Pepsico

[00:00:00] MRII Announcer: Welcome Tori’s Insights and Innovators podcast, where we talk to top market research professionals to get their inside stories about innovative and enduring best practices. Today’s episode is sponsored by Sawtooth Software. Sawtooth Software is a leading provider of advanced tools for computer and internet interviewing, conjoint analysis.

[00:00:22] MRII Announcer: Max Diff scaling, perceptual mapping, and more. All backed by our unparalleled support team. Now here’s your host for today’s episode.

[00:00:32] Stan Sthanunathan: Hi everyone. Thanks for joining today’s episode of Insights and Innovators. I’m your host for today, Stan Tan. Today’s topic is all about transforming the function in a large multilateral corporation.

[00:00:46] Stan Sthanunathan: In other words, making sure that the function is fine tuned and future proofed. To create positive impact on the business. Today we have lined up the perfect guest for this topic. Stefan Gans, [00:01:00] senior Vice President and Global Chief of Insights and Analytics at PepsiCo. Stefan is a well-known person in our insights industry.

[00:01:09] Stan Sthanunathan: He recently wrote a book title, the Consumer Insights Revolution. In this episode, Stefan shares his perspective on how to take the insights and analytics function. To the next level, whether you are on the client or on the agency side, you’ll find his insights incredibly valuable in shaping your career as well as shaping the role of your agency or the function.

[00:01:36] Stan Sthanunathan: Welcome Stefan. Thank you Stan. Great to be here. Now I’d like like to ask you a few questions about you, but before that, uh, I want to ask you about the book that you have written recently. Can you tell me what are the biggest takeaway from your new book, the Consumer Relu Insights Revolution? What are the single most [00:02:00] important thing you want our listeners to know?

[00:02:04] Stephan Gans: I think, um, thanks th for the question. Uh, Stan, and by the way, I haven’t written the book by myself. Right. Co-authored it with three others.

[00:02:13] Mm-hmm.

[00:02:13] Stephan Gans: I’ll get back to that later. But the single most important thing. I, I, I think, is that it is, um, essential to, uh, when you want to, um, eh, if I, if I echo what you just said, Stan, if you want to future proof your business, if you really want to have a positive impact on the business as an insight, you have to make sure that you.

[00:02:39] Stephan Gans: That you have total ownership and control of all the data that, uh, all the testing tools and, and insights tools that you deploy, uh, generate. Because without that, you’re gonna be too slow and you’re not gonna be able to build competitive advantage. Mm-hmm. That’s the single most important thing. And there, [00:03:00] there’s, there’s, there’s a whole bunch of other things that I, that I personally think are, are, are critical in the book.

[00:03:06] Stephan Gans: One of them, and that gets me to the co-authors also, is that, um, you, I believe it’s my, my strong belief that you shouldn’t try to do everything yourself. Um, however, you should also not delegate the really important stuff.

[00:03:23] Mm-hmm.

[00:03:24] Stephan Gans: And, and that’s how we as PepsiCo landed. On this concept of partnering with technology firms.

[00:03:32] Stephan Gans: Mm-hmm. And, and this book is written with, with, uh, the, so far our most important partner, Zai, uh, partnering with firms like that, that are basically a bunch of data scientists and computer scientists who happen to work in insights, right? Mm-hmm. And, and, and, and really develop an inch wide mile deep. Set of solutions with them.

[00:03:53] Stephan Gans: Awesome. That, uh, that drives competitive advantage.

[00:03:57] Stan Sthanunathan: So that’s, um,

[00:03:58] Stephan Gans: yeah, that’s

[00:03:59] Stan Sthanunathan: it. That’s [00:04:00] it. Okay, great. We’ll circle back to your book, but first, why don’t you give the audience a quick intro into your career and your role today. It is fascinating to me that you did not come up through the ranks of insights.

[00:04:15] Stan Sthanunathan: I’ve heard you say that has been beneficial to your ability to lead change at PepsiCo. How so?

[00:04:24] Stephan Gans: So, yeah, so I’m a marketer by training. 15 years of Unilever of, of, of doing that. Then 10 years of consultancy, marketing, consultancy, uh, most of that time as a, as an entrepreneur. So as the CEO and co-owner of a, of a consultancy firm. And then I, um, was approached for this role in, in PepsiCo. And I, to your point, Stan, I think, uh, I, um, the fact that I.

[00:04:52] Stephan Gans: Of course, I, I, I’ve worked very closely with consumer insights function all my career. Mm-hmm. You know, when I started in this role [00:05:00] seven years ago, but I’ve never really done it myself. Mm. And there is a. There’s a benefit, uh, uh, to that in that you can, I, I, I think I’ve always been sufficiently informed about what insights, let’s say could be.

[00:05:18] Stephan Gans: Mm-hmm. Or you could argue should be.

[00:05:20] Mm-hmm.

[00:05:21] Stephan Gans: But I haven’t been bothered by this is just the way we do things because. Right. And so I’ve, I’ve, uh, um, I’ve, I came to the role with both, uh, a lot of background and relevant, uh, experience, but also whole bunch of naivety. Mm-hmm. Thing too. And I think that’s actually, if you wanna drive, if you wanna drive change, if you wanna real change, it’s actually great to put a leader, uh, in, in, in charge who, um, you know.

[00:05:52] Stephan Gans: Who’s knowledgeable enough about the playing field mm-hmm. But not bogged down in certain ways of working. Awesome. And,

[00:05:59] um,

[00:05:59] Stephan Gans: and [00:06:00] companies often make the mistake of making what I call the best surgeon head of surgery.

[00:06:03] Mm-hmm. And

[00:06:04] Stephan Gans: the best surgeon should do, should do surgery. Mm-hmm. Right? And, and you need to find somebody else who loves to do, do all, all things around mm-hmm.

[00:06:15] Stephan Gans: To build a team and, and, and, and make the schedule, and negotiate the budget and all that stuff. Got it. And so that’s my role. Got it.

[00:06:23] Stan Sthanunathan: And I was, um, uh, reading your book and you talked about what you inherited in 2017 and more importantly, how you transformed the function. Tell us about the journey. Yeah,

[00:06:36] Stephan Gans: that’s a big question, Stan, but, uh, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll try to keep it short.

[00:06:40] Stephan Gans: So what I, what I found was, first of all. Hundreds and hundreds of people spread all over the world, all over the PepsiCo world in all those different business units.

[00:06:50] Mm-hmm.

[00:06:51] Stephan Gans: Were super experienced, super smart, working very hard to, uh, to deliver a positive impact on the business. Um, [00:07:00] secondly, what I found is that by and large, most of those people were very frustrated with the tools that they had, uh, to do their work.

[00:07:08] Stephan Gans: They felt their tools were slow, expensive, and outdated. Um. The third thing I found is that there was not a lot of energy with the big players in the industry to, to make the change that, that all those smart people, at least in my company, were asking for.

[00:07:29] Mm-hmm.

[00:07:29] Stephan Gans: Well, you know, the big player. The market research com, uh, industry for a very, very long time has be, has truly been o an oligopoly.

[00:07:38] Stephan Gans: Right. A couple of big players. They don’t really have a lot of incentive to change things mm-hmm. Because they’re their margins and mm-hmm. Things are going well and, um, and so. That really urged me to, to look, you know, to, to assemble a team together and say how, how are we as a global leadership team about a group of 15 [00:08:00] people that we, in PepsiCo we call the Global Insights Council.

[00:08:03] Stephan Gans: I think you had a very similar type of setup, uh, in, in Unilever when you let, uh, insights in Unilever stand. Um, we ran the function with the Global Insights Council and, and still run the function with, with that council.

[00:08:16] Mm-hmm.

[00:08:17] Stephan Gans: We made agreements. We said, these are the top five priorities of things that we want to tackle.

[00:08:22] Stephan Gans: And then we, we made very clear, uh, agreements on who’s gonna do what and how we’re gonna help all those local businesses and ultimately deliver what I call the global might for the local fight, right? Mm-hmm. So how, looking for ways to leverage or scale, so the insights leader in, uh, Spain or Argentina or Russia or Canada, um.

[00:08:47] Stephan Gans: Uh, can do her or his job better. Mm-hmm.

[00:08:50] Stan Sthanunathan: Awesome. You know, this journey has been an incredible journey and as I read through the book, it was quite fascinating. Uh, if you can distill it [00:09:00] into two or three critical success factors that actually drove this transformation, that will be wonderful.

[00:09:08] Stephan Gans: Um, one, uh, develop, uh, superior.

[00:09:16] Stephan Gans: Tools. Mm-hmm. Not only tools that are cheaper or that are faster, but tools that are cheaper, faster, and better. Mm-hmm. Uh, and, and, and do that in partnership with, uh, with, uh, with external companies. Mm-hmm. So you can, so you can really drive, uh, speed. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because the agility of that setup, that’s one and two, um, don’t make the mistake to think that if you hand somebody a, a, a new tool.

[00:09:46] Stephan Gans: That she or he is then going to do their work differently.

[00:09:50] Mm-hmm.

[00:09:51] Stephan Gans: Uh, what typically happens in, certainly in large organizations is that you can give people different ways of, uh, you know, uh, different tools to different [00:10:00] toolkits and, and different capabilities. But, but the. The way, uh, things are usually being done, the weight of that is so heavy that people are pushed into just doing, uh, uh, mm-hmm.

[00:10:13] Stephan Gans: Keeping, keeping, uh, uh, with, uh, doing their work the way they’ve always done it. Mm-hmm. So you have to, it’s not just about the capabilities in the tools, it’s really as much, uh, uh, about change management. Helping people, uh, figure out what, uh, new type of role they can play. Um, and, and, and three, uh, the third point, and sorry for the cliche, um, um, you know, approach it like a marathon, not a series of sprints.

[00:10:45] Stephan Gans: Mm-hmm. Because it’s, you know, I’m, now, this is the first time in my career that I’m doing a, a job for seven years.

[00:10:50] Mm-hmm.

[00:10:51] Stephan Gans: I hope to be doing it for a bit longer. Uh, I’m loving it every day. Uh, but you know, this is not a job anybody can do [00:11:00] for, you know, people can do it for two or three years, uh, but then you are absolutely not gonna drive the impact that that is required, right?

[00:11:08] Stephan Gans: So, so that’s, that’s the three most important things to come to mind.

[00:11:12] Stan Sthanunathan: Very, very, very interesting and useful. So, you’ve been on the journey for almost seven years now. What next in this journey?

[00:11:22] Stephan Gans: You know, that’s such a great question, Stan. I, um, every November, uh, there’s the New York City Marathon, like the first weekend, or, or of November.

[00:11:36] Stephan Gans: And last November, there was a, uh, an Instagram post that came across from somebody who was, uh, uh, who had been standing by the sidelines cheering on, uh, a friend. And, uh, he had a sign up. I, I took that picture and used it a lot, and the science said, uh, you’re doing great. Uh, but due to inflation, the finish line is now at [00:12:00] 43.6 miles instead of what it normally is.

[00:12:05] Stephan Gans: I forgot the number. Thankfully, I’ve never run a marathon myself. You can tell. But anyway, but that’s the reality. If, if you are. If you’re transforming a function in a, in a, in a business environment like, uh, like today’s business environment and specifically in a company like that is as agile and as as dynamic as PepsiCo, people are running away with the finish line for you.

[00:12:28] Stephan Gans: I mean, it’s so, there is no, so, so back to your question, Stan. What’s next? It’s staying at it and, and getting more and more closer to driving business impact. Awesome. And, um, that, that’s what, that’s what we’re doing.

[00:12:44] Stan Sthanunathan: So, you know, having been in this game for a fair amount of time, you have seen the function evolve over time.

[00:12:52] Stan Sthanunathan: And interestingly, you’ve been on both sides of the table. So therefore, your perspective on how the function has evolved. [00:13:00] Would be incredibly valuable having seen it from both sides of the fence.

[00:13:05] Stephan Gans: I think Stan, I mean, this is at the core of why we decided with the four of us. So, so, uh, my colleague from Kate, chart from my team, and Ryan and Steve from, from Zepi, the reason that we decided to write a book is that, uh, starting about two and a half years ago, um, uh, I started getting all these inbound requests from, uh, people that have, let’s say.

[00:13:31] Stephan Gans: More or less my job at, at other companies. And, um, and if I’m really honest, and, and this is where my experience as a, as a consultant, I think also, uh, uh, becomes helpful.

[00:13:42] Hmm.

[00:13:42] Stephan Gans: I, I quickly saw the, the, the, the parallels, uh, uh, between the questions they were asking me like. It’s almost as if literally every insights leader mm-hmm.

[00:13:53] Stephan Gans: Whether you are thinking or consumer goods or in SER services, everybody is [00:14:00] struggling with the same set of key strategic challenges.

[00:14:03] Mm-hmm.

[00:14:04] Stephan Gans: And so we, and, and if I’m really honest, I think, um, in many, many companies, too many companies, the insights team is a, um. To put it really blunt, the, I think in too often the insights team works as a glorified project management organization.

[00:14:27] Mm-hmm.

[00:14:28] Stephan Gans: They’re like, I, I, I, I compare it to the man or woman behind the counter at the post office mm-hmm. That you go to, you say, I got a letter, it’s gotta go to Stan. Stan lives in Paris, uh, uh, over to you. And then they do it. But what, what you really want, uh, to use the, you know, to apply the metaphor to a business is what you really want, is that the, the, the person behind the counter at the post office says, um, are you sure Stan lives in Paris?

[00:14:55] Stephan Gans: I think he lives somewhere else. And first of all, why are you sending this? Uh, I, I [00:15:00] think he already knows this. And by the way, you know, what’s in it. Uh, are, are you sure it’s relevant information? And, and what’s, what do you expect him to do with it? In other words, you need to. You need to get those people, those insights people out of the project management mode into strategic business partner mode.

[00:15:17] Stephan Gans: That doesn’t always make life necessarily short term, easier for the marketers and the innovators. Um, but the overall outcomes are gonna get a lot better for the business. Right.

[00:15:29] Stan Sthanunathan: Going forward. So that actually lead me to my next question. What kind of leadership and influencing skills are required to become the kind of change agent, uh, that you’re talking about?

[00:15:42] Stan Sthanunathan: Can you gimme a couple of examples from your own personal experience?

[00:15:48] Stephan Gans: Oh, yeah, that’s a great question. I think, uh, the, the key things that come to mind for me is, um.[00:16:00]

[00:16:03] Stephan Gans: The first thing that comes to mind Stan, is like, you know, uh, set a very clear vision.

[00:16:10] Mm-hmm.

[00:16:12] Stephan Gans: But, um, but don’t pretend that that is, and certainly not in my case. Yeah. Don’t pretend that that is kind of cast in stone. Mm-hmm. So, really important, if you wanna drive change to start with a vision of what could be.

[00:16:29] Stephan Gans: But that evolves over time and in, in our case in PepsiCo, that, that that has evolved and become only became bigger over time. Mm-hmm. At a very high speed. Um, so a vision, having a vision is very important and, and, and communicating about it is very important, but. But the vision needs to be able to morph constantly.

[00:16:54] Stephan Gans: And even though at a very high level, it may remain, you know, I see the certain key outcomes.

[00:16:59] [00:17:00] Mm-hmm.

[00:17:01] Stephan Gans: But you, but you need to constantly evolve it. And, uh, that’s one, that’s one. Two in a, in a, in a, certainly if you, you know, based on, on what I said earlier about my own background. As a leader, you need to be able to deal with the fact that you’re simply not the smartest person in the room.

[00:17:18] Stephan Gans: Mm. Right. I, and I, I, I’m comfortable with that. Mm. Not everybody is. Mm. I am in my function.

[00:17:26] Mm.

[00:17:26] Stephan Gans: Absolutely not the, the best, uh, in inside leader. Not the smartest person, not the most knowledgeable about the analytics, data science scorecarding or whatever. Um, that’s just a fact. And, um, and that, but. I think, uh, uh, that can work really well.

[00:17:45] Stephan Gans: Mm-hmm. Uh, if you’re comfortable with it yourself.

[00:17:47] Mm-hmm. Right? Mm. Uh,

[00:17:49] Stephan Gans: as a leader. Um, and I think, uh, yeah. The third thing that comes to mind is, is, is that balance between say, toolkits [00:18:00] and, and, and ways of working. Mm-hmm. I, I’ve, and we’ve. That was certainly not part of the original vision because I just know I was also doing this for the first time.

[00:18:10] Stephan Gans: Mm-hmm. And the team as well. Um, but finding that right balance between giving people better tools mm-hmm. And helping them use them better mm-hmm. Is essential for driving change. Yeah, I, I could go on for another

[00:18:25] Stan Sthanunathan: half hour, Stan, on this question. No, that, that, and I, the passion is coming right through, uh, Han thank you so much.

[00:18:32] Stan Sthanunathan: Now, uh, I mean obviously you, you know, you cannot close the interview without asking a question about, uh, how do you see technology impacting everything that we do, and therefore, where do you see the insights industry, uh, particularly on the client side? Uh, yeah, let’s say. Two years down the road, because in the long run I don’t even know how things will change, but let’s take a shorter term view.

[00:18:58] Stan Sthanunathan: Yeah.

[00:18:59] Stephan Gans: I feel so [00:19:00] lucky that, uh, over the past week I spent, uh, uh, four days with 30 colleagues from, uh, from senior colleagues from PepsiCo at Stanford University in, in the Bay Area to talk about, to talk about, uh, the impact that. Um, uh, artificial intelligence can and will or maybe should have on our business.

[00:19:23] Stephan Gans: Not just insights, but I was just one insights person there, but there’s very cross-functional.

[00:19:27] Mm-hmm.

[00:19:28] Stephan Gans: It’s, um, so first of all, the. C back to the very first question you asked me in the, in these interviews, Stan, when you said, look, what’s the most important thing that, that, you know, that, that people should get from that, from that book, from this transformation journey we’ve been on?

[00:19:46] Stephan Gans: I, my answer was about getting, uh, control of your data and being, and, and being the master of your own data, because that is where the source of competitive advantage ultimately sits. [00:20:00] Um. In the age of ai. Right. And you’ve written a book on, on, on AI yourself. Right. So you know this, uh, uh, arguably even better than I do.

[00:20:09] Stephan Gans: Um, uh, AI is only useful if you’ve, if you can feed it with relevant data.

[00:20:14] Exactly.

[00:20:15] Stephan Gans: Exactly. And so, and so what I feel is, uh, uh, you know, the, the journey we’ve been on for the last seven years is great. Uh, we now have control of these, these, uh, important data sets. But it’s like, to my earlier point about the finish line, running ahead, away from you, it’s only just begun because now we have the data and, and now we are actually well positioned to, to really start leveraging AI for mm-hmm.

[00:20:42] Stephan Gans: Superior, not just superior insight, but superior deployment of insights capabilities. So, so to, so that we’re making sure that,

[00:20:52] hmm.

[00:20:53] Stephan Gans: That the right type of human centricity. Mm-hmm. Fingertips of everybody [00:21:00] who is involved in commercial decision making. And that is where AI can play an incredibly, uh, powerful, important role.

[00:21:06] Stephan Gans: Important role.

[00:21:07] Stan Sthanunathan: One last question. Uh, Stefan, are there couple of threats that you see lurking around the corner that could disrupt who we are, what we do?

[00:21:22] Stephan Gans: Yeah, I think, um, I think, uh, first of all, I mean, there’s, there’s always a threat of a race to the bottom. Uh, I think in, in our industry, and I’ve, I’ve I, my background is, I, I grew up in, in Europe and spent most of my years as a marketer in Europe. And, uh, in many cases, let’s, let’s say the retail environment there is, is, I would describe it as a, as a risk to the bottom in, in the sense that there.

[00:21:56] Stephan Gans: There is so little room left to look [00:22:00] for ways to add value to propositions for, for consumers. Mm mm Um, and that is now exacerbated, you know, with, with the, the, just the, the fact that that, uh, life has become a lot more expensive for, for, for, uh, uh, uh, everybody in the United States as well, which basically means that, uh, uh, it, it becomes even more important than ever before.

[00:22:26] Stephan Gans: To, uh, to be very clear about why your brand, why your product is worth paying more for. Mm-hmm. And I, on the one hand, you know, it’s, that’s an opportunity. On the other hand, it’s also the, the, you know, it, it becomes such a, an in intensely competitive, uh, uh, situation that I. Worry sometimes that we are getting even more impatient with, with innovations and that we’re getting even more impatient with really leveraging consumer insights for competitive advantage and, [00:23:00] and, and relevant propositions.

[00:23:02] Stephan Gans: So that, that, that is, that is one thing. I think another thing is that, uh, I, what I see for the industry, I mean, I don’t know about you Stan, but I, I get,

[00:23:13] Stan Sthanunathan: I don’t

[00:23:13] Stephan Gans: know. At least twice a day. I am, I’m, uh, uh, connect. I’m, I’m contacted by companies I don’t know, uh, who say that, uh, their AI driven solution is gonna make all the difference, uh, to, to my work.

[00:23:28] Stephan Gans: And, uh, and I, I feel that that technology is, uh, we run a risk of technology, you know, going in all these different directions and then we lose. Uh, the, the, the, the authentic quality, uh, that, that, uh, uh, consumer insights needs to bring to decision making, right?

[00:23:49] Mm-hmm.

[00:23:50] Stephan Gans: Uh, people jump on the AI bandwagon just because they’ve got ai, fomo, right?

[00:23:56] Stephan Gans: And, and, and if they don’t have it, then their CEO has it. Hmm. [00:24:00] And so, you know, and, and so I think, uh, we need to be strong as in such functions and, and, uh, educate, uh, uh, companies that you need the right balance of what, what I to call, uh, between big and thick data, right? I mean, um, uh, you still. Uh, very often, not always, but very often, need qualitative, very inch wide mile deep insights into understanding why people do what they do.

[00:24:29] Stephan Gans: Data can tell you everything.

[00:24:31] Stan Sthanunathan: Awesome. Stefan, thank you so much for really, really stimulating sessions today. Uh, I’m really grateful to you for having spent this time for us, uh, and uh, to all the audience, uh, the book that he has co-authored The Consumer Insights Revolution. Transforming Market Research for competitive Advantage is a book that I would recommend personally.

[00:24:54] Stan Sthanunathan: Uh, it it, it’ll really make you think about your, your role a little bit differently. Uh, [00:25:00] so thank you again, Stefan. Uh, take care.

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