It’s an observation no less true for being banal: organisations that do not continuously innovate will stagnate and perhaps fade away for good. The fast-changing composition of leading stock market indexes shows just how tough it is for firms to survive, let alone thrive. This newsletter looks at how today’s businesses are rising to that challenge by analysing vast troves of data to better understand their customers’ behaviour.
Making the best use of that data is difficult. We suggest a good place to start is to draw up a data map charting how data can help the business model. What goals are served by investing in data? What levers need to be pulled to reach those aims? Can the business link its data insights to those levers? Does it generate the sharpest insights from its data? And just what datasets is the business going to assemble? Data scientists are able to identify patterns in this mass of data so business managers can see what their clients are doing. But, as practitioners of behavioural economics, we believe BE helps uncover why people act as they do and illustrate how businesses can add value to their data by using BE tools.
Construction is one industry whose weaknesses can be traced in part to its failure to move with the times. We look at a public-private initiative aimed at boosting poor productivity in the sector by coaxing firms to adopt innovative manufacturing techniques to build more affordable, energy-efficient homes. A further article spells out our concerns that UK government proposals to regulate large tech firms will harm consumers by stifling innovation. The final word goes to Dave Lewis, who distils in an interview what he has learned down the years about the importance of innovation: “The ability to keep reinventing yourself, to improve, to modify, sometimes to radically change, is actually something that needs to be present in absolutely every organisation.”
Team Thoughts
