The Insight Innovation Challenge: Defining The Unmet Needs Of Clients

We’ve been talking to a lot of clients that have told us that they have critical business issues that they can’t adequately address because they can’t find supplier partners that have the right solutions. We get that; it’s their job to create business impact, not scout through thousands of companies that might or might not be able to help them. The insight space is changing fast and becoming increasingly fragmented for a lot of reasons, and it’s tough to cut through the clutter and figure out who’s doing what.

Many of the solutions clients are looking for don’t even come from the research supplier community; other sectors are far ahead in the innovation curve and are developing solutions that they often don’t even think of as meeting research needs, but certainly can be applied in that way. Regular readers of this blog won’t find it difficult to find many examples; we try hard to cover them here.

We think we have a solution to this issue. We call it the Insight Innovation Challenge.

The upcoming Insight Innovation Exchange North America event is built on connecting business need with potential partners to meet that need, with a focus on bringing together the innovators, disruptors, visionaries and change agents that are redefining business insights. As part of the conference we want to highlight the unmet insight needs of client organizations and bring in potential companies that might be able to meet that need.

Thanks to our friends at KL Communications we’ve set up a co-creation site with one topic:  “What is your most pressing insight-related business need that currently is not being addressed by your supplier partners?”. Only clients know the answer to that question, so if you’re on that side of the table please click on the link below and you can either tell us what that need is and/or see what your colleagues are saying and vote on theirs.

Submit Your Unmet Needs Here

By the way, you can do this totally anonymously  or you can create an account and let the world know about your frustration; it’s your call. The only caveat is that if you are anonymous we won’t be able to match you up with potential partners to meet your needs.

And that is the point of this exercise. We’re going to take the Top 10 issues voted on by client side organizations and share them with the world (although we won’t publicly divulge who submitted or voted on what issue).

Then we’re going to challenge the global supplier community across many sectors (insights, IT, social media, academia, business intelligence, marketing technology, etc..) to step up and submit solutions.

We’ll give 10 of those companies that think they have the fix to client issues 5 minutes on stage at the Insight Innovation Exchange event to pitch their solution.

Now here is the really cool part. If you are attending the event ( we hope you do, it’s going to be pretty awesome if we do say so ourselves) we’ll set-up a special channel via our conference app so you can let us know which companies at the conference you would like to meet with and we’ll arrange for you to have an opportunity to chat with them.

If you are not at the event, afterwards we’ll post a summary of the proposed solutions on the IIeX website and you can reach out to us and we’ll help you get connected then  too, although nothing beats being there in person and having the chance to “kick the tires” yourself.

So that’s the deal. You tell us your problem and we’ll help you find folks that can fix it.

It’s fun, impactful, efficient, and most importantly we’ll be your innovation scouts so you can focus on doing what you do best: moving the needle for your organization.

And just to be clear for all you suppliers out there,I know it’s going to be tempting to “seed the discussion”  with your own solutions. Don’t give in to temptation.

Our Advisory Board is made up of brands like Coke, P&G, Campbell Soup, Lowe’s Home Improvement, ESPN, Merck, Ericsson and others who will be vetting the submissions. No gaming will be tolerated and if we catch you doing it you’ll be disqualified from potentially participating in the solution submission phase. Just because we are making it publicly anonymous doesn’t mean registration isn’t required; we will have emails or social media links and I promise you we’ll figure it out.

So in other words: Play nice. You’ll get your chance.

It’s totally OK to look at what’s being submitted in preparation for working with us in the next phase to submit your proposed solutions, but this is a “look, don’t touch” experience for you right now.

And that brings me to our final point.

The Insight Innovation Challenge is NOT a replacement for the Insight Innovation Competition either; it’s more of a targeted extension. We’ll be relaunching that shortly and you can submit your ideas through that channel as well as through the Supplier Challenge   process. We’re going to give everyone plenty of opportunity to promote your solution, get exposure, and make connections with potential clients, partners, and funding solutions. Again, that is what Insight Innovation is all about.

Stay tuned; there are lost of other cool things in the works that I know you’re going to want to be a part of!