FOLLOWING OUR NORTH STARS. WHAT WILL NOT CHANGE

#ESOMAR Insights Festival address Day 4

This is the fourth and last address message to the #ESOMAR Insights Festival audience. To get the full picture of my message, I recommend to read or watch all four, all inter-linked below. Hope you find them interesting. Best. Joaquim

During the whole conference there has been a constant message: “change”. This is why today, I want to talk about the “no-change”, the “permanent”. Because being fascinated by what will change is easy, but companies survive by remaining fascinated by what will not change. As emotional creatures that we are, there are certain aspects of us that will not change as they have not changed for centuries. As business responsibles, there are some permanent realities that will certainly prevail in the next decade. Realities such as:

• The business cycle of profitable sales, production, delivery, cash collection and innovation

• The business questions, regardless of the approach keep being the same: how do people perceive our brands and how we can improve our business according to our objective and measure of success
• Being close to our customers and accompanying them in a mutually profitable relationship will still be the secret for business sustainability and growth
• Our capacity to go beyond the data and evidence, our ability to join the dots and bring the context to the consumer understanding will still be our differentiator
• A genuine and healthy organizational culture that respects people, fosters their engagement and creativity will still make the difference
• People will still make the difference.
• The smart and effective adoption of Technology to boost our individual skills and performance will still be key
• Our personal and collective continuous training, the effective learning and adaptation to our moving reality will still be required
• The passion to comprehend the world we live in, the devotion to understand people and our societies that characterizes our profession will still be determinant
• The continuous search of new methodologies, new approaches and experience backgrounds while safeguarding our basic values will keep enlarging our community.
• Cooperation and partnership will still be needed to get further in our goals

This is a list of aspects that I believe will not change in the next decade. I am sure that with your help we can make it longer. There is one more aspect I would like to add though. This is the need to be part of a strong community. A community that advocates for the profession, promotes the exchange of knowledge, boosts the global networking and facilitates business. Because, all this is what we need to, quoting our Council colleague Ray Poynter, better decision making through understanding people

On the first day, I invited all of us to re-draw our maps to navigate in this new world. But a wise man once said: in order to be able to leap into the future, one leg must be firmly placed in the present....In uncertain moments it is key to trust our strengths, our certainties. Like the ancient sailors trusted the sun, the moon, Venus, Mars or the North Star when sailing the open oceans, we can trust some solid certainties to navigate with. Let’s focus on them and reinforce them. Let’s have our North Stars well fixed in our new maps!

We all know that these are difficult times. Many companies and colleagues within our broad community are struggling. It is in moments like this one that the bonds of a community must shine. Empathy and solidarity have to be actively practiced and expanded. And more importantly, the best we can do to revert this situation is to show the value that we, as a collective, bring to corporations and institutions. The best we can do is to demonstrate in every single work we do the business and social benefits that our profession provides. Let’s deliver and let’s speak up. Let’s create the path to recovery and growth that maximizes our profession’s potential.

I leave you with Day 4, the last one of this ESOMAR Insights Festival. I am sure you will enjoy it and I will see you later. But before this, I want to express once again my gratitude to the sponsors of this event. Thanks to our sponsors we can all enjoy this so compelling event. Thank you. 

1. Day 1: It's time to re-draw all maps
2. Day 2: Will we allow the shoemaker's son go barefoot?
3. Day 3: Innovate or Renovate?