by Behind the Scenes at MRMW Europe 2024: Insights and Strategies from IKEA. Interview with Joel Renkema and Sofia Bergström who will present at the upcoming event.
MRMW: We are happy to have you both with us, Joel and Sofia! Without giving too much away – what is the core message of your talk at MRMW EU and what would you like delegates to remember?
Joel&Sofia: Insights are only as good as they are understood and actioned. We often focus all of our time on generating insights and very little to no time in embedding them in the organization, but as an industry, we need to do a better job at doing both to ensure we are making the difference needed.
MRMW: How has this impacted your own work and your organisation?
Joel&Sofia: Hugely. We, like many insights and analytics functions, easily get caught in perfecting the insight and forgetting or running out of time to action it well, so we try our best to plan the deployment part from the beginning.
MRMW: MRMW EU focuses on new tools, methods, and technologies. What do you hope to crowdsource more information on in your conversations?
Joel&Sofia: Learning about new tools and technologies is always interesting, and we need to do it to stay up-to-date. However, personally, what I’d love to speak with people on is how they are driving insights through their organisations well (or not), so we can help each other do it better.
MRMW: How do you envision the future of market research and insights, and who is driving industry growth?
Joel&Sofia: We need to be impact-makers, efficiently. It’s easy to spend lots of money and time on research and insights, especially as we live in such a technological revolution, but for us to improve as an industry, we need to balance the hard skills (incl. tech) with the soft skills.
MRMW: The market research and insights community is a passionate one and generates a lot of dynamic and engaging reflections and resources for itself, especially off-the-clock. Any favourite peer podcasts, zines, newsletters, blogs, vlogs or initiatives you´d like to recommend?
Joel&Sofia: The one I’ve been getting a lot from lately is the Zappi podcast, as they interview insights and non-insights people, and aren’t afraid to have the hard-hitting conversations.
MRMW: Outside of work, what should delegates talk to you about at MRMW Europe?
Joel&Sofia: The terrible summer weather we’re having in Sweden and the Netherlands this year 😊 haha. Seriously though, anything important for you, we are there to get to know people more, so we would love to learn about each other.
MRMW: Thank you very much. We look forward to hearing more from you at at MRMW Europe 2024!
Hear more from Ikea, as well as international experts representing Burger King, Nestle, Philips, Givaudan, Warner Bros Discovery, Swarovski, Ikea, Reckitt and many more at MRMW Europe 2024. Book your tickets at https://eu.mrmw.net/.
