Sponsor downturn, recovered more quickly, and achieved three times the total shareholder returns in the long run, compared with the market average. There are clear parallels with the financial crash and the current crisis, according to Engines Shaw. He believes that data analysts and insight executives could feed into the business imperative, as risk managers did back then. Suddenly, risk management was central to the banking industry and was transformed from this grey, dull area into this central intelligence agency of their businesses. Thats akin to the insight function of a business battling the Covid-19 fallout today, he says. Insight is going to be instrumental in getting the C-suite around what the state of play is now and for future strategy setting. Data that allows businesses to understand the current picture and measure changes over coming months will ensure that they are best placed to continually respond to changing situations and consumer behaviour. Brand resilience is built on authenticity, so understanding the sources of data that can measure perceptions and building blocks of authenticity will be key, adds Shaw. It requires measuring business data, such as employee wellbeing and the employer brand, as well as the customer side. 22 Shaw advises businesses to use data to predict behaviour, rather than assuming what people have done is what they will always want to do but, he adds, building models that predict and expect the right answers immediately is a major challenge. There is a process to go through to ensure the right data sources, the right quality and the right structures are in place. Then, brands need to adopt a test and learn philosophy, he says. Data, in itself, will not be gospel. There are many other elements that need to be part of the decisionmaking. Any data models and methodologies need to capture these as well, so it is critical to build the right feedback loops to understand what works and recognise that the data will not always result in the right decision. It is important that businesses look to the future and anticipate what lies ahead at both a macro and micro level, says Shaw. One of the big challenges of that is reconciling passive data with consumer sentiment such as needs, feelings, thoughts and intentions as the same behaviour can be driven by very different motives. Where most organisations struggle, according to Shaw, is in integrating the observed data across digital and customer relationship management (CRM) channels with softer, survey data looking at