We talk to Raphael Meillat, Nissan’s Global Market Intelligence Expert Leader, about lessons learned from the past year and his plans for the future as the global vaccine campaign raises hopes for greater consumer spending.
Economies have shrunk enormously during the COVID-19 pandemic but the impact has been uneven across different sectors and regions. What have been the key changes for Nissan over the last year?
Meillat notes that sales performed well in some markets as cars were considered to be safer than public transport but generally people had to stay at home meaning business slowed and the market for cars shrank drastically. In addition, the manufacturing process was heavily impacted when China went into full confinement at the start of the pandemic which hit the supply chain as so many car parts come from China.
Now as some markets head towards recovery, the company is trying to move forward to be more agile than before. Normally research and insights in the auto sector feature a lot of face to face and qualitative which meant a lot of changes. Meillat comments “We had to cancel or postpone a lot of projects as we didn’t want to take any risks in collecting information online that could be sensitive. Sometimes we can rely on feedback from employees on certain features or products we need to test and this can be an interesting approach. Something we will continue to explore further in the future. We also moved increasing amounts of work online. This was already happening so we quickly boosted the share of online studies.”
Challenges and opportunities
For Meillat, who used to spend a week a month in Japan and is now working from home just outside Paris, the past year has also seen an acceleration in switching to digital data sources, and using more big data and AI. His responsibilities include the development of new methodologies and frameworks, as well as the exploration of growing hot topics inside Nissan’s Market Intelligence entity.
He says that the pandemic helped his entity realize that they needed to streamline their processes in terms of data mining, increasing data linkages and centralizing the data in order to achieve the “single point of truth” vision the industry leaders strive for. The cancellation of projects freed up time to accelerate this process.
“We were already going in that direction, and realized we could be way more agile if we were ready to use the data at our disposal. When all the changes were happening, the company was counting on us to give them data on the status of each market and the mindset of consumers very quickly. They wanted to be responsive and to understand where there were opportunities which forced us to look at our strengths and weaknesses and work on them. In a year or two, we will definitely be in a stronger position than a year ago with better tools, processes and know-how in the team.
“We will continue to increase our capabilities, knowledge and ideas to make the most of the growing amount of data coming in. As cars become increasingly connected, the data that we can collect, analyze and interpret is growing drastically so we have put some additional investments into that space.”
What works better?
Whilst many changes are here to stay, there are certain things that don’t work so well remotely such as certain types of brain-storming and ideation sessions and workshops which need face-to-face interaction whereby participants’ ideas can naturally bounce off each other. However, Meillat expects that working from home is likely to stay for at least 30 percent of the time so remote approaches will also grow.
Will this have implications for the types of companies that he will work with in the future?
“I can’t say it will bring massive change because market research companies are very flexible already. Large market research companies have dealt with the pandemic quite well and have been very willing to help. They have organized get-togethers with other clients to help us share ideas and experiences so it was a good time to connect with other clients and hear how everyone’s coping with the crisis.” Meillat adds: “As for further industry changes, we will continue to bring some adjustments in terms of agency roster as we also try to work with new players, smaller specialist companies with particular skills in innovation and agile research.”
Given this recent global reset, with many people unable to consume as per usual, some might expect research clients will need even more research to understand where there is pent-up demand. According to Meillat, this will likely be more about different types of research rather than more research. “We are trying to set up faster processes for anything that is tracking related, so we can free up time to invest more energy in trend analysis and foresight, experimentation and research and innovation lab type of work which means that hindsight and ongoing trackers might be downsized. We might have the same budget going forward… if we are lucky! But we need to spend smarter and focus our efforts on more forward-looking and agile activities.”
Nissan introduced Leaf in 2010 as the world’s first mass-market electric vehicle and it was the first electric car to pass 400,000 unit sales. As most electric cars have built-in features that generate data, this provides huge opportunities for analysis and insights.
Meillat comments “It gives us a much better understanding of actual as opposed to stated behavior. It is more precise and factual. Yet you always have to reinterpret the findings. Sometimes we see numbers where we might not understand the full context, so ideally, we would want to mix traditional research with the data collected from these new sources.
“This data really helps us to optimize our products and understand how people use them, what is working and what we can improve, what is less popular and what we can remove. However, the data is not clean so we must have a good work flow to be efficient at cleaning and sorting the data and understanding it through machine learning techniques.
“We still need a broad range of skills but in the short to mid-term we will emphasize our need for data analytics skills so we have a mix of data scientists and analysts either in our team or outsourced. We however, still need people who can manage projects, people with a background in psychology, behavioral economics or communications as we continue to build the brand, launch new products, and imagine the future.”
Central role
Many researchers say their role has become much more central because the ongoing changes in consumer attitudes have made insights more critical. Companies need to know what will continue to change and how. In some cases, there are indications that COVID-19 has accelerated lasting trends that were present pre-pandemic, and in other cases, the auto sector might be dealing with completely new types of consumer behavior.
“In the short term we will have to deal with a tough economic situation so we will need to look at what this means in terms of business model, and what we can do to help people benefit from our products and services without having to engage in a huge financial burden. We need to think how to make our offer fit the financial environment.”
The insights team will also need to explain not just preferences about cars, but also the more unpredictable uncertainties surrounding consumer behavior such as whether people will go back to the office, move away from cities, or rethink their mobility needs.
“The level of uncertainty is at an all-time high so we need to be better at building stories that are fresher, more compelling, encompassing the changes in context. Something we were starting to see which COVID-19 accelerated, is a shift in generational behavior across Gen X, Gen Y and Gen Z. The context in which these generations are evolving, and the challenges and changing conditions they are facing – strained economy, divided politics, climate change, etc. – making sense of it all is going to be an interesting undertaking! We will need to workshop these topics with our stakeholders, engage the younger generations inside and outside our company, and empower them to think about bold Nissan solutions. There are a lot of co-creation opportunities ahead of us.”
To what extent is Nissan thinking about the trend for car sharing rather than car owning that can be seen in cities like Berlin or Amsterdam indicating a new business model for the auto sector? “This is interesting as we think more markets will go in that direction because of climate change initiatives and new city regulations. We will be testing new business models, products and services so we can adapt to new business environments and consumer expectations. Our job is to guide our stakeholders with robust data and fresh points of view that enable them to future proof our brand and grow sustainably”
Ongoing change
Auto researchers have seen a lot of change in recent years – not just in the type of work being done but also in the environment.
“The last crisis was more of a classic economic crisis and this one is a massive global shutdown compounded by the climate change challenge which might even make the pandemic look small in comparison. The last two years have seen more changes than the last ten and the growing move towards both electrification and car connectivity will certainly create a new environment for our business.
“It can be heart-breaking to see what’s happening in some markets in terms of economic downfall, but the challenges we must address together make it very exciting at the same time! Working with the younger generations to help them build a better world is truly the opportunity of a lifetime. I can’t think of a better time to be a market researcher than now. The growing amount of data at our disposal, the skills required to mix qual and quant, the growing expectations of both speed and precision at the same time… Many factors that create new opportunities for market researchers.”
“This new environment also requires a mindset change. A decade or two ago, it was all about representative samples, data robustness and margin of error discussions! Accuracy was pretty much everything. While it still matters today, there’s now a stronger emphasis on speed and action-ability. Iterative innovations and speed-to-market deliver stronger pay-offs for the business. Meaning that one is better off being 80% right quickly, than 100% right too late! This requires a strong shift in mindset and skills.”
