Nailing the Business Issues

Understand context, pressures and trends that are impacting your organisation.

Course context

As insight professionals, we can drive bottom-line, strategic growth if we align all our work and output to our organisation’s greatest growth opportunities. To do this, we need fully to understand and clarify the wider context, the pressures and trends that are impacting upon the organisation, and thus both the strategic and tactical priorities of the business's key stakeholders.

This highly practical workshop will enable insight professionals to 'nail' those priority needs and issues by really connecting with those key stakeholders. You will learn tools, techniques and behaviours to maximise your chances of developing trust and rapport, by honing in upon the broader business issues and by talking the stakeholder's language rather than focusing on tactical process, methodology and research jargon. The result should be incisive answers to key business questions, rather than a data dump, so increasing your impact and others' perception of the value that you deliver.

Who will benefit from this course?

Anyone who would like to 'up their game' in being seen to deliver impact and growth within their (clients’) organisations. This workshop is equally appropriate for both clients and agencies, in research/insight or broader marketing/strategy roles, regardless of seniority, and is suitable for both ‘beginners’ and those more experienced looking for an ‘MOT’.

Aims and objectives

• To understand the potential impact of insight upon an organisation – the business issues that it could address, priority questions that it could answer, strategic decisions it could enable to be made.
• To be able to translate all business conversations into specific issue- and need-based priorities.
• To have greater confidence in approaching top managers and in their own ability to actively drive business performance.

Learning outcomes

• Have practised the tools and techniques to identify the right opportunities.
• Have rehearsed the commercial language necessary to engage senior stakeholders with clients.
• Positioning oneself to obtain senior stakeholder input and buy-in.
• Analysing external forces and pressures impacting upon the organisation.
• Identifying and prioritising opportunities for growth.
• Analysing and interacting effectively with stakeholders.
• Analysing where and how an organisation creates value.
• Asking the right ('what/why/who') questions to get the answers you need and actively listening (and then responding) to them.
• Defining (and then delivering) what stakeholders term 'value'.
• Identifying the ‘central question’ that once answered by 'insight' will have the greatest impact upon the business.

Testimonials

“Fantastic training course for the insight professionals who want to succeed by better understanding the wider bonus and stakeholder perspective.”

“What is insight and how to maximise the chances you are providing effectively.”

“Really good, very useful on practice.”

“Very informative.”