Corporations Need Startups for Strategic Insights

Corporations are drowning in data but starved for insights. This analysis argues that startups — with their speed, fresh perspectives, and frontier technology — are the missing ingredient that helps corporations turn data overload into actionable strategic intelligence.

“We are surrounded by data but starved for insights.” -- Jay Baer The corporate world today contains more data than ever before; companies are flooded with data tracking product development, customer behavior, and market trends. But data in and of itself is worthless without a way to generate meaningful and actionable insights for a corporation’s business strategy - insights into emerging technology likely to disrupt the status quo; views of their customer’s pain points, demands, alternatives; awareness of the competitive landscape and trends; familiarity with core and emerging markets; and technical expertise to guide the company’s research, development and product roadmaps for years to come. Traditionally, corporations have used a variety of methods to gain insights on their business strategy. Historical methods are tried and true, and in the vast majority of cases, should continue. However, they are no longer sufficient for companies that need to stay ahead of the curve. Where do they fall short? Let’s take a look at some of the most common techniques. Research & Development → Expensive and binary. R&D is often done in a vacuum, without enough consideration for customer demand and market trends. Consultants → Consultants often identify a point-in-time plan and hand it off to the company, where it sits on a shelf, never to be looked at again. Customer interviews and focus groups → Customers don’t always know what they want, and when they do know, their demand is typically immediate. If a customer asks for XYZ feature, will that need still be around in six months once your team has developed and commercialized it? Competitor analysis → Timing is again an issue; if you’re over-indexing on your competitors, you’ll always be a step behind. Industry research → Industry and market research is usually expensive, and since it’s forward-looking, there’s no guarantee that it will be accurate! Academic research and university partnerships → Academic research is great

By Kaitlyn Doyle at TechNexus Venture Collaborative