Customer Insight vs. Management Information

We talk to a large number of companies who believe they are maximising their customer insight opportunities. However, on further examination it becomes evident that, whilst many do have effective management information systems, they are not taking full advantage of the insight they can gain through their customer interactions.

So, what are the differences between customer insight and management information? There are no hard and fast rules and often they overlap, but the following provides some basic distinctions.

Management information is delivered by developing prescribed data queries based on a pre-determined requirement. Customer insight is delivered through database and knowledge base exploration, evaluating theories and developing data models, sometimes utilising complex data mining algorithms.

Of greater significance is that, whilst the output of management information tends to be paper based/electronic reports and/or presentations (e.g. weekly sales reports/campaign response rate presentation), the output of customer insight will tend to be deployable and measurable customer relationship initiatives used to acquire, develop and retain the right customers (e.g. retention programme/targeted direct marketing extract/pricing rule change).

We’d like to hear you views on this subject matter. Do you feel that management information is used effectively in your business? What would you like to get out of your systems?