Beyond Market Research: The CEO Gut

Nowadays data and information are the new currency. The more data, sources and insights based on a research businesses has for planning the higher competitive advantage they may gain. Of course it’s also about interpretation of all the data and inputs and getting to conclusions and further, applying them.

Clients and executive boards are no longer in favor of hearing “This is based on my gut feeling…”. They want to have feasible numbers, reports and studies that they can rely on.

But than, is the good old “gut feeling” something CMOs and CMOs should not take into account when making decisions?

It is not a secret that successful CEOs, CMOs and other chief officers are valuable not only because they can “only” come to great conclusions that are based on outcomes of a particular market research but what really matters is their experience.

And not just that.

Sure, numbers are beautiful, all the focus groups and insights gained from surveys are most of the times helpful. But in some cases what really matters is knowing how and when to trust your gut feeling.

And sometimes there’s really a tiny gap between success and total failure that can cost billions. Or a job.

CEO.com published lately a nice infographic explaining how the decision making process at top levels is made. If you thought that CEOs, CMOs and other Cs spend time on all those 100+ slides PowerPoint presentations, you’re wrong (though I’m not omitting the executive summaries, but not sure about them either).

Even if in doubts, the gut feeling is probably not wrong – common sense, experience in combination with data and insight can really make the difference and be helpful in the most difficult situations when everything relies on the big decision that is needed.

Do you trust your gut in business or are you more into all the data and sources?

 

Source: Infographic: The CEO Gut