Cochlear strengthens insights

Cochlear has strengthened its internal insights function, allowing the company to focus on broader issues.

Michelle Yamine, research insights manager at Cochlear told a recent Sydney Qualtrics X4 audience its insights function work “generally falls across a few different areas” with “more tactical and short term focused and other parts are more strategic and longer term.”

According to Yamine, the implantable hearing solutions company didn't have an insights function nine years ago.

“When we started, it did tend to sit more on the more tactical side and it was a little bit more of a short-term focus.”

Despite the initial setup acting more of a “data waiter”, the new function in place at Cochlear was able to deliver insights with improved agility and cost-efficiency.

Yamine said as an insights function, regardless of how long you've been established, you're operating constantly across multiple areas “and it is a balancing act.”

“That tactical side is really, ‘hey, is this product right? And the strategy side is really about, ‘hey, one in five people have hearing loss, how do we get more people to do something about their hearing loss”.

“One of the things that was key for us was how do we spend more time on that strategy side and less on that tactical side.

“One of the ways we got our foundations right was by implementing a global insight community because to spend that time on the strategy side is really getting those foundations of insights right.”

Yamine explained the community was able to expedite research, as part of its main goals.

“It was a game changer for us. We needed a tool to do research. We needed a tool that worked with our CRM system.

“We wanted to build that longitudinal, deeper understanding of the customer. We needed it to seamlessly manage consents and queries because working on different projects previously, we always had to go through the markets and find a way to talk to our customers.”

This meant the team had more time to start spending on the strategy side “because we were able to get research projects into the field quicker and less time on the projects overall”, Yamine added.

“As an insights function, we have a vision for what we want to do in insights. Part of that vision was bringing together customer and business, data, information, the community, feedback, all those pieces together in one.

Yamine said its Qualtrics “helps us to fulfil that vision and achieve those goals we want to get.”

“Ultimately, where we're at now is that we've had a vision that aligns with the business needs, so when the business is ready, we're able to apply and be responsive and ultimately look good in the work that we do.”