Insight & strategy Perhaps the clearest example of this approach to insight is the mini MBA (Master of Business Administration) in deep human understanding, launched at the start of 2023, which is available to all employees globally. Sallows team started working with University College London in early 2022 to develop the course, and there are currently 2,000 employees studying for it almost none of them are in insights, Sallows adds. The course consists of nine modules covering areas including storytelling, semiotics, behavioural science and macro trends, and ends with students writing a capstone project about how insights could benefit their field of work within the business. Reading this groundwork of really interesting kick-starter projects has been absolutely fascinating, says Sallows. They include ideas like how to increase diversity in the workforce, how to use behavioural science to look at employee engagement and how to leverage insight to drive efficiency in supply chains. When the team established the course, they acknowledged they faced a barrier to take-up of people thinking it wasnt for them. So they went quiet internally. When we launched it, we did zero communication from our function. We did not go out to the business and say, Weve developed this thing. We went to The pay-off is not the project, but the halo impact of the project functional heads in all other areas of the business, and got them to tell us why they think deep human understanding is important for them, and used them as the mouthpieces to the rest of the business. We build it, we curate it, we run the programme but internally, we dont actually talk about it ourselves very often. Understanding new spaces In a competitive market, research is helping Haleon to understand more about whether a drive towards self-care and other changes in peoples behaviour towards their health during the pandemic have stuck, or reverted back to preCovid behaviours. The company is also carrying out a lot of work in demand spaces areas of untapped opportunity beyond its current products. Sallow says: People dont look at their health through the lens of a condition, which is how a healthcare business [typically] looks at health. If you suffer from back pain, for example, youre not defined by that back pain as in which molecule and which strength youre going to take. Its more about whats the impact on your quality of life and the impact on those around you. On that note, the team has carried out research work focused on understanding the carers of pain sufferers while not the target consumer, they have their own specific set of needs and challenges. Haleon is also partnering with non-profit organisation The Human Library to bring the voices of people who have historically suffered prejudice into the business to speak to senior leaders. In addition to helping it understand where the demand space is, and that some growth spaces may lie beyond the traditional view of the businesss, the scheme led to the business taking away nine key actions to be a better partner and ally, according to Sallows. For some of the companys bigger strategic questions, it has seen challenges in terms of working with insights suppliers, for example, because it might be working on insight briefs at a much earlier stage, and agencies can struggle with that. In some cases, were trying to be more forward-looking and more maybe progressive. Sometimes we struggle with some insights suppliers to see that, explains Sallows. There are exceptions, but we do see a real resistance, and we do find some agencies say to us, Come back to us when you have the brief fully-formed, because they dont want to participate in the refining of the questions. There are other agencies now that understand probably a bit more about the way were going, and that will work with us on that refining. Research can be considered differently from a financial perspective, as not just the project, but what Sallows calls a halo impact of the work after it is delivered. From an internal perspective, the company now produces insights cards for a central repository that are used to integrate insights within the business and add value beyond the life of a project and asks the same of its suppliers. This is a personal belief of mine: there 36 Impact ISSUE 43 2023_pp34-37 Haleon.indd 36 18/09/2023 12:13