The Role of Insights in Delivering Sustainable Business Growth

In this episode of the Consumer Insights Podcast, we speak with Edwin Taborda, Global Head of Insights at Electrolux.

Nielsen research estimates 85% of new CPG product launches fail within a year of launch. To avoid this, businesses need to ensure every innovation is grounded in insights. By doing so, and positioning insights as a strategic function rather than a service function, organizations can achieve long-term and sustainable growth.

In this episode of The Consumer Insights Podcast, Thor is joined by Edwin Taborda, Global Head of Insights at Electrolux.

They cover:

• What qualifies as an insight
• Practical recommendations for sourcing consumer insights
• How  insights guided Electrolux through the pandemic
• The evolving role of insights professionals
• Tools to support insights generation, including both: 
  • Curiosity
  • Ability to create positive change
  • Capacity to utilize reframe potential
  • Knowledge management systems
  • Information sources systems
  • Information integration systems
• The human tools:
• The tech tools:
• The DNA of a successful insights team
• The opportunities & challenges facing insights professionals
• Advice on how to get an entire organization onboard with a new insights-driven initiative

If you’re interested in learning how effective consumer insights can deliver sustainable growth for companies, tune into this episode of The Consumer Insights Podcast.

You can access all episodes of the Consumer Insights Podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, or use the RSS feed with your favorite player. Below, you'll find a lightly edited transcript of this episode.

Thor Olof Philogène: Hello everyone, welcome to the Consumer Insights Podcast. Today I'm super excited to have a fantastic insights leader joining me for what I know is going to be a really interesting conversation. 

Edwin Taborda is the Global Head of Insights at Electrolux. He also has more than 15 years experience working across multiple categories in the consumer packaged goods industry. From Kimberly Clark, Mondelez, to Procter & Gamble. Edwin, thank you so much for joining me today.

Edwin Taborda: Thanks to you Thor Olof for inviting me.

Thor: Firstly, could we take a couple of minutes for you to tell us a bit about yourself, your company, and how you got to where you are today?

Edwin: Yes, absolutely, Thor. About me: I was born and raised in Colombia. I am part of a family with two sisters and me. I married a French woman a few years ago, and I have a four years old daughter. I have lived in seven countries, and I have worked in four or five or six, you count the continents. 

I have been part of big FMCG corporations like Procter & Gamble, Mondelez International, and Kimberly Clark. A little bit more than three years ago I landed here in Stockholm, Sweden, and started my adventure with Electrolux.

I started as part of the Chief Marketing Officer’s team in insights, devoted to marketing and capabilities. Since a little bit more than one year ago, I have been heading the insights organization for the group. I think it's a wonderful team of talented and extremely smart people. Every day is an opportunity to learn from them and to shape living for the better, which is the purpose we jointly work for.

Defining insight

Thor: Thank you so much for sharing that Edwin. Being an insights leader, how do you define an insight?

Edwin: That's a wonderful question, Thor, because it's one of the struggles I normally have in business meetings. It's something I normally call out because I think that before defining what an insight is for me, I would say it is definitely not a fact. 

What I would say is what an insight is not. It is not a fact. It is not an opinion. It is not something I might believe. I think an insight is a combination of information that needs to comply with three criteria in my view. 

What I would say is what an insight is not. It is not a fact. It is not an opinion. It is not something I might believe. I think an insight is a combination of information that needs to comply with three criteria in my view. 

First, it needs to be true. It needs to be real. It needs to be founded and grounded in data, in findings, in facts.

The second is that it needs to hold a motivation. It needs to have some reason behind, some additional motivation, desires, either from a person or from a market, whatever. 

The third element, it needs to hold a tension. For me, one of the most critical parts of an insight is the tension. It's what we normally miss. Normally, we find people saying, "Oh yes, but the insight is that the market is declining." 

That may be one of the first three elements. It's a fact, if it is true, it's a fact, but then you are still missing two. What is the motivation for the market declining? Maybe motivation is not the right word in that sense, but the reason it's declining, why? The answer to that will hold a tension.

I will say following this example, that when we sometimes confuse "The market is declining" with an insight. That's a fact. The insight will be something like: “I would like to win in the market because I need to grow my business, but the market is declining because there are not sufficient or relevant innovations there”. For me, that's an insight because that holds the integration of these different elements.

Why insights are important

Thor: I really like that definition, Edwin. Just playing it back, what you're saying is an insight is a combination of different types of information that needs to be true, that needs to be backed by data. It needs to hold the motivation or a reason what you also called “the why”. It needs to hold that tension. That tension is actually critical. I really like that. 

You started to answer this question implicitly, but why would you say that marketing consumer insights are so important? What is it that accessing and analyzing those insights and integrating them allows a business to do?

Edwin: In my view market and consumer insights are important because they somehow connect our head and our heart knowledge. These facts, the data that we have with the more emotional, or the more passionate side of the business or the people around the business, I will say it's a combination. 

It's somehow like art and science, like information and inspiration, because I said information describes phenomena, but not necessarily the clear path of what to do with it. 

Insights is a source of competitive advantage by not only showing or sharing or identifying the data, but by helping the company define the path and to define what to do with it.

Then I think that's exactly the role that insights play in an organization, to somehow reveal the behaviors or the phenomena that we are identifying, to go beyond, and also map the path, which will follow to act on top of those findings. 

Also making sure that it is done in a sustainable way, not only from a sustainability perspective and climate and taking care of the planet but in a way that the business can sustain competitive advantage. 

If I could summarize, I will say insights is a source of competitive advantage by not only showing or sharing or identifying the data, but by helping the company define the path and to define what to do with it.

Insights leading to innovation

Thor: I really like that. Again, playing parts of that back, when we talked about the role of insights, I think the beginning is revealing that phenomena, revealing whatever has happened in the market that is of value for the organization to know, but I think more importantly, and this is where the competitive advantages comes in is to highlight, the path the organization should take as a result of that. 

I think that that is such an interesting question because there's so many insights leaders I've spoken to who basically say that the challenge they face is that they raise something and then the organization says, "So what?"

The answer to that “So what” is, well, “So you need to take this path”. Maybe you could highlight an example or a particular time when Electrolux had such an integrated insights that has fueled some level of innovation, but it could also be how that path has guided you towards a better campaign or a better project, or a better product.

Edwin: I think I have many examples. I will pick one that I feel really, really close to. It goes back to a little bit more than two years ago when COVID started. With this, I will also highlight my view on data versus insights. 

When COVID started, maybe you remember, the first quarter of 2020…  Up to that moment, everything was cool and seemed normal. Then there were a lot of discussions about what normality is and the next normal, new normal or whatever we were going through, but what happened was a storm of information.

If you remember during the first half of 2020, there was a lot of news about the possible origin of COVID, what were the reasons why it appeared. It was uncertain, the spread, the scope. There was a lot of uncertainty. I think uncertainty is one of those dimensions that businesses currently face more and more. 

As probably with any other company, we also started to wonder what is going to happen? How is this going to affect what we do on our business, on our projections, on our targets?

Basically, what we decided to do as an insights team was  sit down and put in place what we call the hindsight, insight, and foresight perspective. Which is also something that people could confuse. Normally people confuse insights with research, which is not the case, or we confuse insights with the fact, which is not the case. 

Basically, what we decided to do as an insights team was  sit down and put in place what we call the hindsight, insight, and foresight perspective. Which is also something that people could confuse. Normally people confuse insights with research, which is not the case, or we confuse insights with the fact.

These three consciousness levels. The hindsight part was, “Let's sit down and let's try to review prior crises, prior pandemics, prior similar situations. Let's see what happened back then”. That's what I call hindsight. “Let's learn from the past. Let's see what the companies, the countries, and the people did in those cases”.

Then let's focus on the insight part. What we did was dekstop research gathering a lot of sources of information. Reports from the Boston Consulting Group, from McKinsey, from The Economist, also reports from our trends sources. We went and collected all of this information, plus the research that we had done recently, to somehow understand where people really were.

Then in the foresight side, what we said was, we propose 10 behaviors, 10 avenues in which people are going to start behaving differently during the pandemic, and more of for sure after the pandemic. With those top 10 behaviors, we did a synthesis of the hindsight, insight, and foresight dimensions and then we brought to the company a potential path forward. 

One of the main outcomes of that was, people were starting to be in lockdown. While diet represented a lot of challenges, it was representing a big opportunity for our categories, because we sell appliances. Actually, I will rephrase that, I will say, we sell an idea of a good life at home, through appliances, and through services. 

Let's say what we somehow proposed to the company was that our categories are becoming sexier. Before, thinking about a fridge, thinking about an oven, maybe was kind of somehow a call decision. Now, people started to relate in a different way with our categories, people started to think that actually, the fridge existed at home and that we coexist with the fridge and with the oven.

It generated a lot of different actions from marketing, wondering how our communication should be adjusted to this redefinition of the relationship of the category with the people at home through sales, and how we could respond to an increase in demand. 

I'm sure you know about the challenges we have been facing since then, in supply. What happened was that actually, the demand increased. This redefinition of the categories that we worked for at home, was redefined in line with what we had done.

We helped the organization to focus on 10 avenues and no more than that. Out of those 10 each team, either R&D, marketing, sales, finance, different organizations pick the one or two or three top priorities to focus on. Then I think just by doing that integration of information and proposing the path forward and redefining the relationship of our categories, we help the company to keep focus, and to improve the execution during one of the most critical situations globally in recent years, which was COVID.

Tools for insights professionals

Thor: That's such a fantastic example, Edwin. The way you very methodically started out, with mapping out the hindsight, the insight, and the foresight, I think that's brilliant. Really powerful. Thank you so much for sharing that. 

When you think about tooling and when you think about insights professionals, what would you say are the tools that you believe are essentials to support this group of people, these insights professionals, and why?

Edwin: Yes, that's also a very good question Thor. I will refer to something that the Boston Consulting Group defines as the bionic organization, bionic meaning the combination of human skills with technology. 

What we need is exactly that combination. I see our tools from a human perspective, I will see curiosity as an extremely powerful tool for anyone in any scene in life, but mostly when it comes to insights, I will see curiosities at top of the skills.

The second I will call the ability to positively challenge the business, and I will say the third one is the capacity to reframe either a question, a business situation, or a business issue or problem, whatever we want to define. 

The bigger the audience, the bigger the potential impact that insights will have.

Then when it comes to technology, one of the most important tools I will refer to Stravito. Maybe I am biased because I really like the tool, but a knowledge management system, a tool that really allows insights, to reach more and more people in the organization for the information, the findings, to go beyond business meeting, to go beyond a room, and to go beyond one specific site to spread across as many people as possible.

The bigger the audience, the bigger the potential impact that insights will have. I will say one very critical tool, internally is our knowledge management system. I quote two more tools on that line, which are our sources of information, from a technology perspective, the tools that help us understand where our target audiences are. 

Let's say our social media trackers, our brand trackers, all of these tools are really, really powerful. As a third tool related to technology, I will say the tools that we can use to integrate information, like sources to integrate different data sources, our dashboards, how we can visualize and help our teams to visualize the data we collect.

Those will be my three top tools when it comes to the human side, and the technology side.

The DNA of a successful insights team

Thor: Really appreciate that Edwin. To make sure that I've understood, you started out with this concept of the Boston Consulting Group, if I remember it, the bionic organization, which is ultimately the perfect blend of those human skills, and the technology. 

On the human side, you talk about curiosity, the ability to positively challenge, and the capacity to reframe. On the technology side, you talk about knowledge management, the ability to allow insights to reach the many, because the bigger the audience, the bigger the impact.

Then also the source of information, social media, brand trackers, and then tools to integrate information. They're really the data visualization of the data you have collected. How can you actually help people see it, experience it? 

Let's spend a bit more time and you already touched on it, on the human side, talking about curiosity, ability to positively challenge, and the capacity to reframe. What do you believe is the DNA of a successful insights team? You talked about the individual, because those are skill sets. What about the team?

Edwin: I love thinking of teams. That's why I mentioned the insights community, talking about teams, communities, this group of individuals whose collective intelligence goes beyond the individual one, I think, is just a fantastic idea. 

When it comes to the DNA of the insights, organization, there is something that also relies within us, which is how we perceive ourselves. I have to acknowledge, Thor, that up to some extent, many insights professionals still believe that insights is a service function, or is a support function.

In the DNA of a successful insights organization, it needs to evolve from that self-perception because it starts by ourselves. We need to really believe that we are a strategic function. We are a strategy organization, we drive paths, we can help the organizations to map where the north stars are going to be, we focus on our foresight perspective and try to imagine the future. 

In the DNA of a successful insights organization, it needs to evolve from that self-perception because it starts by ourselves. We need to really believe that we are a strategic function. We are a strategy organization, we drive paths, we can help the organizations to map where the north stars are going to be, we focus on our foresight perspective and try to imagine the future. 

We bring a strategy to choice. I think we can help the organizations to really hand pick the best initiatives or ideas we have. To do that, we really need to be self-convinced that we are a strategic function, and not a service or support function. That's the first element. You have probably identified that I always come to three things.

The second thing will be a combination of the individual skills of curiosity and reframing. At the core of a successful insights organization, it's the leverage of curiosity, and how we can use that to leverage our capacity to reframe that to be told, our marketing friends, our innovation friends, our commercial or sales friends, they love what they do, and we also love what we do.

It is not about who is best at something or who's better at something. It's just about bringing the facts to the table and maybe if we can have an amazing commercial idea, a successful insights organization will be able to positively challenge that and say, "You know, actually, we might believe on a personal note that your idea is great, but the facts say something different." 

Then I will say that is the capacity to reframe and the capacity to happily accept that sometimes we are not going to be the most popular team in the room, but we will bring a lot of value to that reframing exercise.

I will say the third element is actually three components. I think a successful insights organization can do three things. They can inspire, they can catalyze, and they can verify. 

I think the three elements are really embedded in our DNA so we need to somehow inspire things that even the organization hadn't seen, or maybe they had seen, but maybe they didn't pay attention to it in the first place. Then we bring it to an inspirational narrative and through a really good visualization, and we help them move in that direction.

A successful insights organization can do three things. They can inspire, they can catalyze, and they can verify. 

The second is once they create ideas, we catalyze them. We are this filter that helps the organization to really choose and be efficient and then we verify. Once we execute, we go, we verify, we check the performance, and then we retrofit. 

With that, I think with the combination of these three things, in brief, what the insights needs to have in their DNA is to create a virtual cycle of continuous improvement through the integration of these different skills.

Thor: I think it's so interesting because I think if I play elements back, you talk about inspiring, catalyzing, verifying, but you also implicitly talk about some level of courage that these people need to have because yes, you need to reframe and sometimes that reframing challenges your own beliefs, but sometimes it also challenges the organization's beliefs. 

That makes it really hard for that organization to swallow whatever you actually have. You need a level of courage to actually be able to come with that message.

Similarly, and I think this is your initial point, which I believe is core, is that getting away from that service function mentality to really have the courage to say, "Hey, no, that's not what we are. We are a strategic function." 

It's that change of mindset that actually yields results, and that makes it easier to actually write and define that path forward derived out of those insights. Really powerful messages there, Edwin.

Edwin: Thanks, Thor.

Opportunities for insights teams to challenge the status quo

Thor: Building a bit more on that. What opportunities do you think there are for insights professionals to do even more business impact and to do more than they have done in the past to challenge the status quo?

Edwin: I will start by highlighting what you just summarized, Thor. I think courage is the first and foremost opportunity because it's not easy. It's not easy to be in front of your friends, the multifunctional friends you work with in your day to day, or to be in front of a very senior audience and just tell them something they probably don't want to hear. 

It comes down to the biases that we have as humans and the confirmation of being one of the top biases that we experience in our day-to-day life, but mostly in the corporate setup.

To be able to challenge the confirmation that our friends are really requiring, it implies that you need to really believe in yourself, really be sure that your data and your insights are on the table, and then have the courage to bring that point. I will say the first and foremost is courage.

I will say the second is agility. We have a wonderful history of traditional research, traditional methods, but as Irene Rosenfeld, who used to be the CEO of Mondelez while I was working for that company, she used to say “Speed is the currency of our time, so we really need to be fast”. 

I am not implying that insights is slow, I am just implying that there is always an opportunity to be faster. Faster not meaning we lose debt or we lose quality. 

It requires a really deep degree of expertise so that you can assure the company that you are confident in the quality of the report that you're bringing, that your insights are really, really solid from a method and technical standpoint but you bring them on time. You bring them on time to influence the key decisions that the company requires.

The companies have an amazing opportunity to grow faster, to be more efficient, if they really give insights the position insights is to have, which is a strategic function and not a service function.

When you give insights as a company that possibility, you will probably waste less money if you waste at all.

As you have seen, I think those two opportunities are internal and I always have this kind of  Sun Tzu mindset, which is “The opportunities rely with me”. 

I will quote a third one, which is an external one and it is to the companies. The companies have an amazing opportunity to grow faster, to be more efficient if they really give insights the position insights is to have, which is a strategic function and not a service function.

When you give insights as a company, that possibility, you will probably waste less money if you waste at all, because as you have probably seen in FMCG, Nielsen used to report that probably more than 80% or 90% of initiatives die during the first year of execution. 

The reason is very simple, it's not because we don't know how to execute. It is because those initiatives are not grounded in real insights. They were grounded in facts, they were grounded in some ideas, but they were not grounded in true insights. True insights meaning what we started at the beginning of this podcast, which is what tensions are we solving? 

Going beyond needs, what are the jobs to be done that we are here to solve for, and how much can we really impact the organization and the life of the people who engage with us in the marketplace? I think that could significantly change if insights across different industries is just considered as it is, which is a strategic function.

The challenges facing insights teams

Thor: Super interesting. I think I really like what you said there because many of us have seen various versions of those data points, like the multiple failures of projects, and that actually, if I replay it, is often explained by decision being based on facts, but not true insights. Data points, not true tension. Super, super relevant. 

On the flip side, however, what challenges do you see that could face the insights professional and the wider industry in the near future?

Edwin: I think very probably not even in the near future, but in the immediate future Thor, there is a relationship between data and insight. I think we have a lot of data, and you could name it. 

You could go to different companies, industries, and probably in some cases you might find a lack of data. I will say in most cases, there is an abundance of data, many, many data points. The question is how many insights do we really have? What's the balance? Maybe we have a bunch of data and maybe very few insights because the time to sense-making is challenged every day.

Here I will probably quote a very good friend of mine, Jessica Adele. She used to be the Insights Head for Europe in Electrolux, and she normally said, "We need more time for sense-making." I think that's one of the biggest challenges insights is facing today, in the immediate future, and in the near future. 

Probably it's not exclusive to insights, but insights holds the accountability and the responsibility to take a breath, probably propose a pause and say, "Okay, guys, what are we going to do with all of these data points? What is it really that we want to drive?" Because many times we fall too fast into conclusions. Again because of the speed.

The challenge we're seeing now is this combination of “How can I be really agile? How can I make sense of a lot of data points and translate them into true insights?” Then “How can I guide the organization to really follow the path to articulate that insight into something that the consumer or the market really expect”? That's number one.

How we can drive sustainable solutions and how can we really take care of the planet with everything we do from our industry? How can we reduce the energy we consume? How can we really, really help the planet to survive going forward?

Number two, I think the challenge of reframing or probably catalyzing what we can do versus what we should do. I think in many cases, as organizations, we do what we can. Okay, why do we launch a new product? Because we can do it. The question is, do our consumers out there really need it? 

I think that connection and that challenge is for us to be even more and more instinctive as we move forward into a future of more connected things and more technology-driven.

I will say the third and probably the most important because this is connected also to my personal values, is how we can drive sustainable solutions and how can we really take care of the planet with everything we do from our industry? How can we reduce the energy we consume? How can we really, really help the planet to survive going forward?

I know this is extremely connected to the Electrolux purpose of sustainability and our commitment to making a future that is really good for the planet and for ourselves

But if I move a little bit, one step beyond the sustainability perception because maybe people will connect to it, or maybe people don't really know where the starting point is for their journey on sustainability, I will then reframe it as what is it our role in the system we play? 

What is it that we are bringing in a systemic view so that goes beyond the specific product or service, beyond the specific category? How are we really creating meaning for the whole system? We are just considering that we are just one of the agents that participate in this interconnected system of things.

How do we make meaningful things that impact the whole system highlighted sustainability, but it could go in many different directions as long as we can really help shaping or reshaping or redirecting where the whole system is going. Those will be my three things to answer your question, Thor.

Who Edwin would love to have lunch with in the world of insights

Thor: Super solid things. I think I'm going to keep that question to the very end. I think that's a very powerful question you're asking there. I do believe what you said echoes a great deal with what I've heard from some of the most inspirational people I've spoken to, including yourself, is we need more time for more sense-making. 

That is very clear to me. We're coming towards the end of this podcast. I have one last question for you, Edwin, which is who in the world of insights would you love to have lunch with?

Edwin: Wow, that's a really big question, Thor. I will refer to Socrates. Socrates used to say that “The intelligence of a person is not measured by the size of his or her answers, but because of the quality of the questions”. 

It's really challenging for me to pick one person because of this team and collaborative mindset that I have. If you allow me, I will have lunch with a group of people. 

I will probably start with one good friend of mine, a really smart colleague. His name is Jacques-Julien Rième. We probably didn't even pronounce his name in the right way. He is such an inspirational person and so connected to systemic things and really trying to drive sustainable solutions, so creative, so strategic. I would really love to have lunch with him. I have to say, every time I can, I propose to him to have lunch with me. 

I will say Simon Benarroch. He is now the Head for Insights Analytics in Visa. I think he is extremely kind, extremely calm but always brings his point to the table. He always has taught me and has up to the biggest then shaped my view and my way to act and challenge my teams positively.

I think I would also bring Byron Sharp, even if he's not really into the insights specific dimension, but a little bit broader. I think his ideas on how brands grow and how we can really challenge a little bit from the fundamental to the more emotional things, I think that will be fantastic. 

Insights honors the people who are willing to think differently and who are willing to challenge the expected. I think we can challenge the status quo, but I think if we go one step beyond, we can even challenge the expected, because the future is shaped by us. 

There is someone I would also like to bring to that lunch, but it's not possible because he has already passed away, which is Steve Jobs. I think Steve Jobs was always perceived as a marketeer, but in my view, he was a really good insights person. 

I would say the best marketeers I have known in my whole career are people who are really deep into insights. Then Steve Jobs used to say probably you remember when they were launching the brand campaign, like honoring the people who think differently. I think that's what in this launch I would like to drive as a conclusion of insights.

Insights honors the people who are willing to think differently and who are willing to challenge the expected. I think we can challenge the status quo, but I think if we go one step beyond, we can even challenge the expected, because the future is shaped by us. 

The future we live tomorrow or in one year or in three years is shaped by the choices that we make today. I think that will be a petite committee for that lunch. I could bring many other people.

I will bring basically anyone in my team and in the insights community around the world, a lot of friends from P&G, from Mondelez, from Kimberly Clark. Then it wouldn't be a lunch but a full buffet. I think that will be the core of that lunch, the people I would like to share it with.

Summary

Thor: I think many of our listeners would really like to join that lunch, Edwin. Wow, Steve Jobs as an insights person, that's a powerful quote. 

Before ending, in just in order to wrap up, I'm just going to play back some really powerful things you said today, which is you've really encouraged us to have the courage and to muster the courage to challenge the confirmation bias within the organization and to have the confidence in your own data, your own analysis, your own insights.

I really love the quote that you had from Irene Rosenfeld there, that “Speed is the currency of our time”. That's something we should all remember and think about because it is very true. Speed is the currency of our time. 

Lastly, the question that I think you asked, which is the question I think we all should bring with us, is “How can we drive sustainable solutions? What is our role in the system?” You're alluding to a system theory perspective of the world. “How can we create meaningful things for the system?” Such a powerful question.

This has been such an inspiring conversation, Edwin. It's always amazing to hear about how you think and what the work you're doing at Electrolux and in democratizing and integrating insights. I feel that I've learned a lot and I think many of our listeners have too from talking to you today, and I simply want to thank you. Thank you so much for joining me today Edwin.

Edwin: Thanks to you, Thor. It's been a pleasure to be with you today and I hope this conversation continues.