Inspiring transformation at Unilever CMI in a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous World
By Selin Cetinelli, Unilever Consumer and Market Insight Director, NAMETRUB (North Africa, Middle East, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus).
In an increasingly fast-paced environment with big data pouring in from all directions, using the word “tough” to describe the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity of business context nowadays is probably an understatement. We are now faced with principles such as perseverance and well-being as necessities in order to survive this VUCA world. So what does that mean for organisations and more importantly for functions like market research or consumer insight departments in how they operate and how they manage research? This article focuses on how Unilever has managed to balance this with its consumer-centricity and “insights engine”.
In pursuit of becoming consumer-centric, more and more companies are now transforming their market research groups into true insight engines with a fundamentally strategic role. The vital role of the insights engine was revealed in a global market-research study led last year by the strategy consultancy Kantar Vermeer. The study, led by Millward Brown Vermeer, The ARF, ESOMAR, Kantar, Korn Ferry and Linkedin, called Insights2020 (i2020), involved interviews and surveys of more than 10,000 business practitioners worldwide. Of the factors that were found to drive customer-centric growth, none mattered more than a firm’s insights engine, embodied in its insights and analytics function.
At Unilever, CMI (Consumer and Market Insight)’s mission for the past two years has been “to inspire and provoke to enable transformational action.” Note that there is no reference to the word “insight” ─ intentionally. That’s because insights merely provide a means to the desired end ─ action that drives business growth.
By 2030, there will be approximately 50 billion connected devices (roughly six for every person) on the planet. This means a new platform of connectivity which also brings about the need for new ways of navigating through this big data and making sense of it. It means deeply understanding the new emerging lifestyles and fulfilling the needs of these consumers. Every day, new tools and techniques originate, each aiming to unfold a new piece of insight or opportunity. Therefore, the focus of the CMI function in Unilever is to transform data into insights about consumers’ motivations and turn those insights into strategy. This innovative organisational capability is what we call the ‘insights engine’.
Introducing the logic
There are two basic processes at the core of the insights engine which allow companies to understand and meet their consumers’ needs. The first is about gathering data from different sources, collating into a sharing platform, connecting the dots for insights, and then making strategy and marketing related recommendations to the business. The second is more experimental and includes trialing new technologies. The mission of the insights engine team is to ensure a consumer-centric mindset throughout the organisation, while driving capability development through training, tools and collaboration.
In order to resist crumbling under the pressure of this VUCA world, organisations need to be fast, agile and connected more than ever before. Taking decisions, implementing alternative solutions or identifying ways of being first in route to market are all being redefined in this new context. The need to operate as such has also opened up a whole new world of going back to re-evaluating our values. Values are the roots of our upbringing that shape our behavior and form the habits that drive our actions which ultimately deliver results.
In Unilever, there are four values identified globally that underpin all behavior in the company. These values define how we do business and interact with our colleagues, partners, customers and consumers. They are respect, integrity, responsibility and pioneering.
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