Are you turning your business data into actionable insights?

Actionable insights drive actions that lead to results.

Market research, customer analytics or competitor intelligence are all ways of collecting information, but they are not insights and they are certainly not actionable until they have the following six attributes:-

1. Context

Insights in isolation cause confusion.Anyone following the figures put out by the Government on the number of Coronvirus cases will understand this confusion.

The number of new cases per day shown as a single figure is difficult to understand, but put this figure into a wider context and compare it to last week’s figures, or to the population as a whole, or in comparison to the number cases in other countries, and this daily figure become understandable.

2. Alignment

If we continue with the Coronavirus daily stat example, we’ve firstly put it into a context so the stat can be understood, and if you move on a step and align this stat with government targets such as daily vaccination figures, hospital capacity, economic recovery, unemployment figures, and it starts to become an actionable insight.

Insights become actionable when they are put into context and aligned to organisational targets #actionableinsights Click To Tweet

3. Clarity

When a wide range of insights are presented, there will be some (often alot) of ‘insights’ that are not clearly communicated or understood.

These will get overlooked or dismissed because they lack clarity. They are difficult to add to an action plan because they don’t show a clear way forward

4. Impact

More is less when it comes to actionable insights.

A few interesting or unusual insights delivered with clarity will create energy and stimulate action far quicker than a long list of familiar insights that don’t challenge the status-quo.

A few interesting or unusual insights delivered with clarity will create energy and stimulate action far quicker than a long list of familiar insights that don't challenge the status-quo. Click To Tweet

5. Relevance

Actionable insights are subjective and only when the right insights are presented to the right audience do they become actionable.

Insights without relevance are ignored by their audience.

Insights that lack relevance and are not specific will be ignored by their audience Click To Tweet

6. Specificity

An insight can be interesting, but if it is too broad and lacks sufficient detail it won’t drive action.

Broad insights need further investigation to be actionable, and if this investigation can drill down as far as the difference it will make in terms of £’s, this will become an insight that can be responded to.

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How actionable are your insights? Take the scorecard and find out