Creativity, analytics and brand purpose as pillars to grow your company
Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2024 8:59 am
Since COVID arrived in March 2020, I have been thinking about the best way to define a strategy to get out of the crisis or to try to protect ourselves from it.
I recently talked to you about multi-scale strategies and antifragility , but it is something I have been mulling over since the beginning of the crisis. Some examples are this Marketing Guide in Times of Coronavirus (with which this series of articles began and which ended up becoming a book), the need for brands to become relevant again in order to connect with their audience or the keys to trying to reinvent marketing to adapt it to the new context .
That's why every time I read or think about uk telegram number a new approach I start to reflect on it. It's my way of sharpening the axe to cut more trees when I get down to tactics with my clients.
In this case, I was interested in the McKinsey article: “ The growth triple play: creativity, analytics and purpose ”. Usually, this type of article is focused on large companies (the client profile of this consultancy firm), so I am going to try to bring it down to the reality of most companies.
As a starting point, I don't think there are magic formulas, only approaches that are more successful than others. And the success of these proposals often depends on the type of company and who leads it.
The article, based on a study, begins with a headline as powerful as this one:
Companies that apply creativity, analytics and purpose in a combined way manage to grow at least twice as fast as their competition
Obviously this attracts the attention of any entrepreneur and/or manager: “How? If I do this, will I grow x2? Tell me more!”
But of course, as with most of these spectacular numbers, there is a trick. First, you have to be able to implement the three elements correctly and use them in combination to benefit the company. And this is not so easy.
The logic behind these statements is common sense (and brilliant). We need to be creative to innovate, to give the right message, to define the products our customers want. To power this creativity, we can use data to find creative ways to solve problems and innovate. And to do this for the benefit of the company, we can use this data to find new ways to connect with our audience through purpose.
As I said a moment ago, the theory is brilliant, but what I find difficult is its application to reality.
What has caught my attention is that using one or two of the three pillars of this strategy also generates very positive results for companies.
Creativity, analytics and brand purpose as pillars of a business strategy
Maybe I should have used “or” instead of “and” in our case.
Just as when we define our company's brand purpose, we have some pillars that serve as a guide to direct our steps. When we define a strategy, we can have our reference points to focus our activity. And creativity, analytics and purpose seem like great options to me. Even more so when it is proven that it is not necessary to be a master in all three to improve, that the use of one or two in a combined way already brings great benefits to the company.
What does creativity mean in a company? How can a company foster creativity?
When we talk about creativity, we instinctively think of communication, of texts and images that convey our value proposition in a relevant way. But this is only a small part of its application in a business.
Being creative in a business implies having a broad and challenging vision of each of the company's areas. We can apply it from the definition of the business model itself, through to product, distribution, marketing, processes, etc. It must be present in each of the aspects of its activity.
Formally, it can be centralized or promoted by an innovation department, but it is something that depends more on the culture and mentality of the company itself. It is something that must be in its DNA.
What is the role of analytics in a company? How can we use data as a lever to foster creativity?
I simply used analytics because we are not just talking about digital, it is about taking advantage of the data that the company manages to find new approaches for the business in any of its areas.
Whenever I talk about analytics, I refer to it as a business tool. And to have a global vision we must use data as a lever in all areas and have dashboards that give us visibility in all of them and also in a combined or global way.
This is step 1, but obviously the transformation of data into information and this into knowledge for the company goes far beyond a series of dashboards.
It is at these stages that you start to see the difference between companies of different sizes and data cultures. Most companies are far behind in this scenario, let alone in the following stages.
Whatever the level of data culture in the company, if we combine a creative approach or mindset with the data needed to detect opportunities or solutions to problems, we have a winning combination.
For small businesses, my advice is to start small and start bigger. First, they must take control of the data generated by the company in each of its areas, and from there, grow towards the ideal scenario. This is only the basic approach to a much more powerful scenario, but it serves as a guide for companies for which the scenario discussed above is a utopia.
I recently talked to you about multi-scale strategies and antifragility , but it is something I have been mulling over since the beginning of the crisis. Some examples are this Marketing Guide in Times of Coronavirus (with which this series of articles began and which ended up becoming a book), the need for brands to become relevant again in order to connect with their audience or the keys to trying to reinvent marketing to adapt it to the new context .
That's why every time I read or think about uk telegram number a new approach I start to reflect on it. It's my way of sharpening the axe to cut more trees when I get down to tactics with my clients.
In this case, I was interested in the McKinsey article: “ The growth triple play: creativity, analytics and purpose ”. Usually, this type of article is focused on large companies (the client profile of this consultancy firm), so I am going to try to bring it down to the reality of most companies.
As a starting point, I don't think there are magic formulas, only approaches that are more successful than others. And the success of these proposals often depends on the type of company and who leads it.
The article, based on a study, begins with a headline as powerful as this one:
Companies that apply creativity, analytics and purpose in a combined way manage to grow at least twice as fast as their competition
Obviously this attracts the attention of any entrepreneur and/or manager: “How? If I do this, will I grow x2? Tell me more!”
But of course, as with most of these spectacular numbers, there is a trick. First, you have to be able to implement the three elements correctly and use them in combination to benefit the company. And this is not so easy.
The logic behind these statements is common sense (and brilliant). We need to be creative to innovate, to give the right message, to define the products our customers want. To power this creativity, we can use data to find creative ways to solve problems and innovate. And to do this for the benefit of the company, we can use this data to find new ways to connect with our audience through purpose.
As I said a moment ago, the theory is brilliant, but what I find difficult is its application to reality.
What has caught my attention is that using one or two of the three pillars of this strategy also generates very positive results for companies.
Creativity, analytics and brand purpose as pillars of a business strategy
Maybe I should have used “or” instead of “and” in our case.
Just as when we define our company's brand purpose, we have some pillars that serve as a guide to direct our steps. When we define a strategy, we can have our reference points to focus our activity. And creativity, analytics and purpose seem like great options to me. Even more so when it is proven that it is not necessary to be a master in all three to improve, that the use of one or two in a combined way already brings great benefits to the company.
What does creativity mean in a company? How can a company foster creativity?
When we talk about creativity, we instinctively think of communication, of texts and images that convey our value proposition in a relevant way. But this is only a small part of its application in a business.
Being creative in a business implies having a broad and challenging vision of each of the company's areas. We can apply it from the definition of the business model itself, through to product, distribution, marketing, processes, etc. It must be present in each of the aspects of its activity.
Formally, it can be centralized or promoted by an innovation department, but it is something that depends more on the culture and mentality of the company itself. It is something that must be in its DNA.
What is the role of analytics in a company? How can we use data as a lever to foster creativity?
I simply used analytics because we are not just talking about digital, it is about taking advantage of the data that the company manages to find new approaches for the business in any of its areas.
Whenever I talk about analytics, I refer to it as a business tool. And to have a global vision we must use data as a lever in all areas and have dashboards that give us visibility in all of them and also in a combined or global way.
This is step 1, but obviously the transformation of data into information and this into knowledge for the company goes far beyond a series of dashboards.
It is at these stages that you start to see the difference between companies of different sizes and data cultures. Most companies are far behind in this scenario, let alone in the following stages.
Whatever the level of data culture in the company, if we combine a creative approach or mindset with the data needed to detect opportunities or solutions to problems, we have a winning combination.
For small businesses, my advice is to start small and start bigger. First, they must take control of the data generated by the company in each of its areas, and from there, grow towards the ideal scenario. This is only the basic approach to a much more powerful scenario, but it serves as a guide for companies for which the scenario discussed above is a utopia.