Intelligence Capital 2020: Building competitive advantage through research

“We need to move beyond the gate-keeper model,” said Oliver Worsfold, Savanta associate director, as he previewed report Intelligence Capital 2020: A practitioner’s guide, which has been developed with the MRS. 

Delegates at Impact 2020 were given an overview of Intelligence Capital 2020, a revised practical framework that explores how organisations can best harness and activate insight to achieve organisational goals and better use evidence in decision-making.

Click here to download Intelligence Capital 2020: A Practitioner’s guide.

The framework consists of four sections giving practical advice across four different stages: gathering intelligence; liberating access; building a shared understanding and activating intelligence. 

It begins by exploring how organisations set about creating new knowledge, before looking at how information can be made universally available amongst stakeholders and how to create a shared understanding between different sources. The final activation stage looks to influence and inspire decision-makers to act upon this new-found intelligence. Each section contains best practice case studies and practical tips for improvements. 

The report will reveal the scale of the task many insight professionals face in raising the profile and usefulness of the function within both the business and with agency partners:

• Just 14% of senior client-side insight professionals think that data insights result in action based on evidence in their organisation
• 22% of them sees the insight function as “very important” in their organisation
• 34% of the same audience see research as sitting closer to being a “rubber-stamp” after decisions are made rather than bringing insight into the decision-making process

“These are powerful numbers that show why we need to do this,” said Oliver Worsfold, Savanta associate director. 

“We need a different lens of looking at the age-old problem in the industry. Intelligence capital is an outcome and without investment and careful nurturing intelligence capital disappears quite quickly.”

He concluded: “But if an organisation harnesses the power of intelligence capital, research moves from being less about measurement and ‘the rear view mirror’ to become more productive across all of the business.”

Click here to download Intelligence Capital 2020: A Practitioner’s guide.