Innovation Team
Innovation Team, currently the research and advanced analytics unit of MBS Consulting, was founded in 2013, with the awareness that there can be no change without research and stimulus for innovation. Our team of researchers and business analysts use their wide methodological know-how and specific sector skills to assist clients, through customised services to: monitor competitive positioning on markets; assess changing scenarios, trends about sectors and consumers and companies needs; develop forecasting models necessary to govern business dynamics; support innovation related to the offer, to the services and to the distribution channels.
We work with our clients to design and create customised market research and analysis models. We firmly believe that any survey, in order to be truly valuable, must provide information that allows business decisions to be made.
We believe in innovation, not only in terms of markets, products and distribution, but also in terms of research, tools and methodologies. This is why we constantly develop new initiatives, invest in big data and analytics and hire resources with advanced analytical skills.
The belief that development of business has to be accompanied by growing attention to sustainability has led us, over the years, to launch market research on this topic, extending the analysis to the evolution of public, corporate and family welfare.
Innovation Team is the landmark for our clients for competitive positioning monitoring activities to support product, service and channel innovation. Product and pricing benchmarking is a key factor in our services. It is based on a methodology that we have developed and tested over the years, which analyses:
- the value offered to the client, through a detailed breakdown of the product based on its material and service characteristics;
- the pricing levels, using numerous in-field surveys.
Product and channel innovation is strongly connected with listening to the consumer: we assist our clients in the design and development of new products, combining benchmarking with the voice of the customer through concepts and products/services testing, carried out both through qualitative and extensive quantitative surveys.
Our in-depth knowledge of offering and pricing also enables us to support our clients in building advanced pricing systems.
We support initiatives for development and improvement of sales networks, also through benchmarking of sales performance of products and services.
Using the most sophisticated Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence techniques, we offer services that countless companies have come to rely upon for Risk assessment and Growth on highly competitive markets:
- Pricing optimisation models in various sectors (e.g. Insurance, Energy, etc.);
- Propensity and behavioural models (Cross/Up selling, Retention, Conversion);
- Advanced customer profiling systems for determining the Customer Lifetime Value, and therefore the targets to be focused upon;
- Models for estimating the size, potential, and competition level
- Models for estimating the size, potential, and competition level of the local markets;
- Models for forecasting the economic sustainability of distribution networks.
All this is complemented by the development and provision of Data Visualisation tools, which offer a quick and easy way to utilise the models created and the insights generated.
We help companies evaluate, seize upon opportunities, and manage the complexities arising from the availability of data and information in vastly greater quantities than in the recent past, whether generated by the company itself, acquired from outside, or obtained through our own Market Research activities.
We work side-by-side with our customers, applying and testing the most advanced analytical techniques in order to develop an innovative and data-driven approach to their business needs.
Consumer surveys are still an extremely powerful tool for anticipating emerging trends, identifying new purchasing behaviour and supporting product and service innovation. However, on markets characterised by an increasingly vast and widespread availability of information on consumers, this type of survey is gradually losing value.
Although we are aware of the importance of analytical models, we are convinced that, used on their own, they cannot fully describe and anticipate consumer choices, as these are not influenced solely by financial, territorial and demographic factors, but, above all, by behaviours and lifestyles.
We therefore firmly believe that research can continue to play a central role in influencing company decisions when it is closely combined with the company’s own internal data, and when consumer choices are linked to lifestyles, purchasing behaviour for different goods and services, channel propensities and all the numerous «qualitative» factors that describe the experience of each and every one of us.
This is why we offer our clients vast market research plans that, when combined with the internal data, allow a plurality of factors to be examined and a probabilistic allocation to each consumer of a set of behavioural drivers (such as approach to new technologies, value of time, approach to consulting, etc.).
Behavioural drivers are therefore the starting point for data-driven strategic profiling activities on customers, micro-targeting and construction of customised sales and consulting models.
We have always considered listening to distribution networks to be essential in increasing their loyalty, improving sales processes and contributing to innovation of the offer and the service.
In the insurance sector, for example, we have developed major know-how on distribution, due to extensive research into sales agents and collaborators, with the purpose to:
- monitor satisfaction with the offer and the services of insurance companies;
- position the company in terms of satisfaction with its insurance brokers compared with its direct competitors;
- support the identification of improvement actions.
We also employ listening to sales experience for innovation and improvement of company processes supporting the distribution networks, through mapping of touch points, assessment of the “joy” and the “pain points” and identification of improvement actions. Our research and analysis on distribution channels also monitors:
- evolution in the presence of sales networks in the territory and forms of brokerage;
- economic performance of the channels;
- marketing initiatives targeting the customer.
We have always considered sustainability issues to be extremely important, aware that evolution of business cannot disregard an in-depth consideration of its impacts on the environment and on the various stakeholders.
For this reason, we have launched various market research initiatives on social issues, extending the concept of sustainability to corporate and family welfare and supporting our clients in social activities that have a strong impact on communication and are focused on redesigning competitive positioning and developing new business models.
Among our initiatives related to welfare sustainability, we cannot help mentioning:
- «Welfare Index PMI”, commissioned by Generali Italia, with the participation of the main Italian business associations, which has been monitoring for five years the evolution of firm’s corporate welfare initiatives with over 5,000 interviews, rewarding the most original cases;
- «Observatory on the welfare budget of Italian families», which analyses in detail income, expenditure and sacrifices of families in the various areas of welfare, in order to draw the attention of institutions and companies to the major challenges that will be faced by public welfare over the coming decades and to the room for private initiative;
- «AGRIcoltura100», an initiative launched in 2020 by Reale Mutua, with the participation of the Confagricoltura association, aimed at monitoring and highlighting the contribution of the agricultural sector to the environmental and social sustainability of the country;
- « Termometro Italia», a monthly survey on families and companies focused on the impact of Covid-19 on their economic conditions, their capacity to save, their purchasing behaviour and their organisation of work.