As a manager in Pepsico, India, a few decades ago, I encountered two senior global leaders based in the US with contrasting styles of approaching international markets. Both left a lasting impression on me.
The first leader was truly inspirational. He travelled to each country, got first-hand experience of the markets by visiting retailers in different cities, listened to local executives to understand the opportunities and issues, supported them with resources, knowledge and ideas, interacted deeply with the local marketing agencies, and then presented the global strategy and elicited feedback. He exemplified an inspiring way to approach global work.
The second one, despite being a global leader, was focused entirely on the US. He treated going to international markets as a chore. He had no curiosity about the business in India despite it being a high priority growth business unit. Whilst leading a global project on retailer satisfaction, he wanted the India business unit to participate with a ridiculously small sample size (I think it was 100!) at four times the price that we were used to paying. Neither accuracy nor usefulness was a consideration. He wanted to tick a box. This is the wrong way to approach global work.
In the nineties, in the book, “Borderless World”, Kenichi Ohmae presciently wrote about national economic borders weakening with companies needing to operate globally and consumers across the world becoming a dominant force. Whilst there have been challenges by recent geopolitical events, the vision articulated in the book has prevailed for most large companies, and in fact, been accelerated by technological progress. He also described the negative consequences of the “headquarters mentality” that refers to seeing the world as a reflection of the home country, interfering too much and not trusting local leaders, or not bothering to learn enough about international markets. After over 30 years of the book being written, this phenomenon plays out in global insights work often. Consider the following examples:
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A global tech player based out of Asia struggled to succeed in the US market because their entire market research was controlled by a team and agency in Asia who refused to immerse themselves in the US market or collaborate with the US team sufficiently. Eventually they saw the light, transformed their way of working, and became a market leader in the US.
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Sometimes US based pharmaceutical companies, even when they want to source growth from Europe conduct segmentation studies where they treat Europe as one unit with UK + EU4 countries individually having sample sizes that are so small that you can’t even analyse two sub-groups within a country. They also insist on having the same segmentation across the globe usually the one that they developed in the US. This goes against the very idea of segmentation which is to acknowledge that customer needs are heterogeneous and need to be addressed accordingly.
There are many other such examples. Developing a consistent global strategy for products and brands is important. However, if it is arrived at simplistically by ignoring real differences between consumers in different markets, it leads to the disappearance of insight and poor business impact despite high investments in market research. Besides it’s at odds with the fundamental job of an insights professional which is to listen to customers. There are three things that anyone who leads global insights projects must do.
First, cultivate a unified view of the global organisation and see oneself as a facilitator of impact rather than a controller The best global leaders, whether they are CEOs, CMOs, or Heads of Insight, see their global organisation as one. They create an open and collaborative environment and encourage diversity of opinions. One of the core values in McKinsey & Company is operating as “One Firm”. The company headquarters serves an administrative function and plays no role in the way clients are served. One could fly from New York to Seoul, Amsterdam, or Bogota and work intensely and seamlessly with colleagues to create value for clients. Working on one’s mindset also means framing one’s role as a facilitator of powerful insights and strong business outcomes as opposed to being a controller. Control stifles curiosity, serendipity, and experimentation that are vital for game changing insights to appear and evolve.
Second, design a sensitive, immersive, and collaborative approach for gaining insight. There are five concrete actions that can be taken:
1. Understand the eco-system of the business. Far too often people start doing market research without understanding the broader eco-system affecting customer behaviour - the role of suppliers, distributors and retailers, regulatory agencies, etc. For instance, if the second Pepsi leader had understood the complex distribution system in place that serves a multitude of town classes in India, the absurdity of the small sample size might have struck him without my needing to convince him of it. Similarly, if pharma insights people could appreciate that different healthcare systems could result into significantly different behaviours of physicians – something we have discovered repeatedly – they would be less inclined to see UK and Germany as one unit.
2. Elicit priorities and insights from the country business leaders. Local business leaders should be interviewed to understand the big questions on their mind and to tap into their experiential wisdom. Their careers are at stake and they are likely to be thinking deeply about how to succeed. Such conversations sharpen the research and makes it more relevant. You also avoid the “we already knew this” response when you are communicating the insights at the end of a project. It’s surprising to see how often this step is skipped in actual practice.
3. Choose partners who immerse themselves in the local market You might get rid of your own "headquarters mentality", but might hire an agency that has one, and that outsources everything to contractors on an adhoc basis. The team that serves you might be detached from the international markets. They may not have or observe real conversations with consumers, and work off transcripts or even outsource that activity. Such behaviour is an insight killer. The team that is responsible for developing insight must attempt to gain first-hand experience of the markets. For us a humbling milestone was achieved when Italian clients used us in Italy, US clients in the US, and Japanese clients in Japan. That was an indicator that they trusted us to serve them effectively in their home markets.
4. Gain cultural insight using deep methods such as ethnography and semiotics. Qualitative research that goes deep into the culture and context is needed for global insights work. Methods such as ethnography and semiotic analysis must be used to gain deep insight. One can augment these with other methods such as social listening and sentiment analysis. Imagining that one can substitute these methods by online focus groups or AI agent-based interviews is pure fantasy at this stage. Things might change over time, but right now qualitative research is a semi-contact if not a full-contact sport.
5. Conduct analysis at a market level with large sample sizes in quantitative research. This is an obvious point that sample sizes should be large to allow for rigorous analysis and for discovery of segments at a country level. But it is ignored often, and is therefore worth mentioning.
Third, arrive at global recommendations by abstracting up from the findings from the different countries, and pressure-test with country leaders. To arrive at a common global strategy, it’s better to abstract up the insights from the different countries and find common themes. Often this process requires human judgement rather than a mechanistic analysis of data that’s been aggregated. Finally, the recommendations must be ideally co-created and definitely pressure-tested with country stakeholders.
As someone who has lived in 3 continents and worked in many countries, it’s worth stating that global insights work, when executed well, is an enjoyable and enriching experience that generates a lot of value for businesses. It requires getting rid of the "headquarters mentality".