The most innovative companies focus on truly understanding their customer's needs and design products to meet those needs. The right research and analytics enable them to gather, synthesize and extract data-based insights about their customers, and ultimately gain significant competitive advantage.
Think about the retail company that sends you coupons for products you always intended to buy on your next shopping trip, the telecommunications company that proposes a special six-month deal on bundled phone, cable television and high-speed Internet just for you, or the credit card company that offers you loyalty bonus features and spending limits which directly map to your lifestyle. Is this accidental? Think again!
While these examples intuitively make sense as they are highly transactional in nature, the fact is that every corporate function in just about every industry benefits from the insights research and analytics yields—not just marketing functions. Here...
