Achieving Insights Success at Unilever

Not long ago, I interviewed Stan Sthanunathan, formerly the Executive Vice President of Consumer and Market Insights at Unilever, for our series, Getting It Right -Achieving Success in Insights. Stan recently retired from Unilever, where he spent the past eight years. This interview was conducted just prior to his retirement. Due to technical issues with the recording, we turned this into a blog post rather than our more common recording and transcript.

Before Unilever, he was the VP of Marketing Strategy and Insights for Coca-Cola. Some of his other affiliations are patron and fellow at the Market Research Society, past board member of the ARF. He has been a regular speaker at many industry conferences (and I have had the pleasure to see him speak several times). Stan also lectured at Cambridge, Sloan, Yale, Wharton, Emory, INSEAD, IE School of Business, University of Wisconsin, and co-authored a book titled AI for Marketing and Product Innovation.

This post covers:

• How does Unilever define a successful insights organization?
• How do the concepts of agility and data democratization fit into Unilever?
• How does Unilever look to suppliers to help support growth?
• Where are the insights function heading over the course of the next few years?

Unilever is a giant corporation with over 400 brands such as in-home care, personal care, food and beverage, etc. They are in almost every country in the world. There are many major initiatives that Unilever as a corporation is taking on, and therefore there is a lot to do within the insights organization.

Considering organization structure, an overwhelming majority of Stan’s team members are either assigned to a country, or they are assigned to a division. A division is home care, personal care, etc. There is a very small central team, but the rest are all aligned to individual divisions.

But having said that, they are a functional organization, which is what makes them somewhat unique. Even though they are all located in various countries they are assigned to, they all functionally report into Consumer and Market Insights (CMI) as an organization. And that gives them a unique strength in terms of speed and agility. That, in short, is the broad structure of Unilever’s CMI function.

How do you define success? How do you know that you have a successful insights organization?

“Very often in my 39 years of work in an insight function, I’ve always heard people moan about not having a seat at the table. My consistent reply to all those people is, if you do not have a seat at the table, you are probably on the menu. So, it is better to make sure that we get a seat at the table.   A seat at the table is never given. It is something that you earn. And the way you earn that seat at the table is by adding value to your company. And adding value is all about driving the growth agenda of the business. If you can drive the growth agenda, then any given manager, any brand would want the value, and they will find you almost indispensable. And that is how you earn seats at the table.

 

I always tell people, the way you do that is by creating enough and more ‘oh s&!t’ moments. That, to me, is a significant KPI. How many ‘oh s&!t’ moments will you create? How often your business partners come and look at you and say, oh my g*d, I never thought of it that way. And the more you create the more respect you will draw.”

 

How do you design a system to kind of help those watershed (or, ‘oh s&!t’) moments happen?

“The watershed moments are, they don’t happen by default. They happen by the right people who have a very clear roadmap for making that happen. And the road map for that all starts with keeping the end in mind, and the end being realistic and not the art of insights. The art of insights, do not get me wrong, is important.  To me, it is a means to an end. The endpoint being if you do great work, but if the business does not grow, it is ‘just work’. So, it is all about how do you keep the endpoint of growth in mind? That is number one.”

“The number two dimension is all around, do I want to present the ‘what’ from the research that I have done, or do I want to focus on the ‘so what’ and the ‘now what’ from the research? A good professional insight person would traverse the journey from the ‘what’ to the ‘so what’ to the ‘now what’. The more you do that, the more respect you earn, the more seats at the table you get, and the stronger the impact you create on the business.”

The journey implies that there is a close relationship between the business unit and the insights organizations. I asked Stan to talk about how he works with the business partners to make sure that happens as consistently as possible.  To make it happen he says you must be part of the team, not just part of the project, that is how you get into the fabric of the business.  The perspective is on how a problem needs to be solved, not about how a project needs to be done.

Our conversation shifted to agility and data democratization.  I wanted to understand a little bit about how Unilever is approaching these because it is very impactful for the speed of decisions. And sometimes the comprehensiveness versus the speed can be at odds with one another.

 

How does agility fit into Unilever’s insights system?

“Historically, insights are disciplined. We have delivered two out of the following three—faster, cheaper, better.  You could only get two of these. You could never get all three. But not anymore. Now you can be faster, cheaper, and better, and current. And that last one has not been seen before.

To a large extent, that has been powered by technology. And more importantly, the pace of the world is so rapid right now. When the business is moving at the speed of light, there is no way you can work on insights the same old way. I need eight weeks. But in eight weeks, the world’s going to change completely.”

 

How does data democratization fit into Unilever’s insight system?

“It goes back to a comment that I made earlier.  If you believe that your role is all about the ‘what’, then you guard your data, and it is all about control. But if you genuinely believe that it would be more around the ‘so what’ and the ‘now what’, then you would let go.   Democratization powered by technology is coming at you, whether you like it or not. You might as well accept that reality and say, what am I going to do with it? And the key thing is to make sure that data and insights are available to everyone within the company.”

 

Transitioning from the What, to the So What, to the Now What.

“It is not an easy transition to make, but it is actually an incredibly enjoyable transition to make. So very often, people who are very good at change find it a little bit difficult. 90% of people will want to change but there will be some who think, why bother?  But when we embark on the journey, we find function at a different level.”

 

How do you look to your suppliers to help support your growth?

“Suppliers can be viewed as forced multipliers. When we work together, we are much stronger. And when I say work together, it is not as a transactional partner. I am leveraging a specific thought partner. And therefore, how do you liberate them to think with you. How do you bring them in deeper to help solve some of these bigger issues?”

Unilever’s performance management system incorporates many of the principles of an employee performance management system, including expectations, reviews, and recognition programs.

 

What trends do you see influencing the insights industry most over the course of the next few years?

“I see the number one is democratizing. Today, insights are the responsibility of the insights department. But tomorrow Insights should be everyone’s responsibility.”

“The second is Augmented Intelligence.  Let me explain that.  Augmented Intelligence is artificial intelligence plus human intelligence.  With only artificial intelligence, we run the risk of being limited in our vision.  When we add human intelligence, we can create a fabulous journey.”

“The third dimension is the three I’s – Insights, Ideas, and Impact.  This mindset makes us think about what we do and our role.  When we think about the role in this way, we can think about ‘how is my role delivering ideas instead of just insights’.  And if we take that to the next level, how do we make sure that our ideas are launched.  That is going to be the next phase of the insights function.”

 

The Getting It Right series highlights both brands and suppliers that are making an impact in the insights industry. We discuss how success is defined, how to do it, trials and tribulations, successes and failures, relationships with clients and suppliers, and where things are headed next.

If you haven’t seen any of our other Getting it Right interviews check them out: Lisa Coutrade -Organon/Merck and  Nick McCracken – Ford Motor Company.

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash