by BSH’s Qualitative Insights: Unlocking Strategic Business Decisions
Editor’s note: In the lead-up to Qual360 Europe 2026, Deniz Akyurt, Head of Consumer Research & Brand Intelligence for Emerging Markets at BSH Home Appliances Group, shares how qualitative insights can drive strategic business decisions, inform product innovation, and shape market growth.
QUAL360: Without giving too much away – what is the core message of your talk and what would you like delegates to remember?
Deniz: Cross-cultural research should move beyond stereotypical thinking; instead, we should focus on how to deeply understand underlying human needs in different contexts. And how very surprising gems can raise out of the tension of global patterns and local realities. I would want audience to leave with a more critical and confident approach to interpret insights across markets. And I would want them to remember the core principle of research: “always assume”.
QUAL360: What motivates you to join the Qual360 Europe conference, and what are your expectations?
Deniz: An opportunity to be in the space to meet with insight leaders, heavily deep-dive on what happens in our discipline, and exchange on how different organizations are seeing the qualitative insight landscape in 2026. I expect to learn from diverse perspectives and see where our work is evolving from a contemporary perspective. I would feel glad and satisfied to leave with questions raised on the strategic relevance of qualitative research within the business. Not the least, I see this opportunity as a space to sharpen my own thinking, and foster a more collective dialogue with leaders on how to shape the future of qual (or how to shape the future with/through qual).
QUAL360: How are you effectively landing qualitative insights in the business decision making ecosystem?
Deniz: Very effectively, of course, with room to grow. Though being a qualitative researcher in the origin point, I do believe in non-compartmentalizing “qual” and “quant” arenas in the research sphere. Research unfortunately, has shaped itself as an industry that mostly puts these two worlds into different corners. Or more dangerously, researchers have been defining & describing themselves as “qual” and “quant” researchers (me included, even) – which is a limiting and outdated form, keeping our profession away from being proactive players.
Putting this principle into the core of my professional life, and the teams I build with this mindset, I enable my team to cherish and spread the power, depth and impact of a single qualitative insight, transforming it into a big business decision.
I have been in controversial business meetings, where a design decision of a product component could not be given for weeks, despite having large numbers of quantitative data for “consumer preferences, purchase intentions” in Likert scales. It’s mostly those times when qual steps into the picture, gives you the magic wand of “illustrating real life” with observational moments right from the consumers homes, and that insight becomes the final key to unlock the controversy, through its concreteness.
What I have learned and proven over the years is: the more you use the “real-life power” of a qualitative insight – be it with a direct verbatim, or a photo or a quote, the more the impact of qualitative insight is unfiltered and integrated into business decisions. In the end, if the insight is “true” enough and your researchers are “competent” enough, the qualitative insight will have the room to be quantified in the eyes of more analytical audiences.
If underlining emotions and showcasing behavioural tensions are the first step of making qual insights a big power in decision-making; operationalizing those insights, building up systems to validate, follow-up, and accumulate those “gems” are the real punchline. If you build up your product/communication/market development processes already with this in mind, then it is only a willpower to make qual insights the backbone of decision-making.
QUAL360: As the research landscape evolves, so does the role of the researcher, what are
two new skills qualitative researchers should be adding to their arsenal, and why?
Deniz: “Insight-to-impact” thinking: This will be a generalization, yet I see qualitative researchers as the romantic decoders of truth. Decoders, as great insights always are underlined by deep qualitative understanding; emotions, contexts, lived experiences. Romantic, because qualitative researchers have a bigger tendency to see their field as an area to be backed-up with other data. Especially when qual comes into picture with big business decisions.
For the contemporary qualitative researcher, this role must evolve beyond decoding insights into actively building systems to follow up where his/her insights have landed; and grow themselves more in the ROI of research.
Data visualization / Information architecture for storytelling: Industry pushes quantitative researchers to play more with the data visualization techniques, due to data structures. However, qualitative researchers should have the visualization principles embedded into their thinking, to make their insights delivered in a more precise, sharp, business-intelligence-oriented perspective.
AI as a must bonus, for sure. AI literacy and competence.
QUAL360: How are you responding to the availability of big data and the proliferation of AI tools when managing your qualitative consumer research?
Deniz: As accelerators, me and my team and have adopted new AI tools directly into our workflow, and started this from the qualitative research area. It accelerates, it transforms. AI-driven conversational tools bring real value with speed, limitless access beyond boundaries, and a nice adaptability to every moment with good empathy. Scalability is the biggest value. Of course, emotional intelligence is the part we should be careful with: human moderation comes also with its flaws, and sometimes flaws are the ones to bring gems. Creating a tension during moderation, and bringing the insight out of that moderation is still at human’s hands – as it should stay.
QUAL360: Apart from work, what should delegates talk to you about at Qual360 Europe– do you have any particular personal interests, hobbies or extracurricular activities and engagements?
Deniz: I do love talking about movies and TV series. I am interested in street photography, yet I have stayed distant to the field, might receive some clues if there are any street photographers in the crowd. And I would also enjoy some good travelling tips.
Favourite recommendations to make to industry colleagues for inspiration, innovation, guidance and leadership:
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In your ears – Podcast: Awkward Silences by User Interviews
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Must-read – Book: The Culture Map by Erin Meyer
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Working mode / inspiring music:
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Fugue in D Minor, arr. by Egg
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Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons
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🌍 Global Reach – Local Flavour: Qual360 Europe | January 28-28, 2026 | Berlin, Germany
Join the world’s leading qualitative researchers — from international brands, leading agencies, and independent industry experts— at Qual360 Europe 2026.
Qual360 is all about networking, learning and creating new opportunities. We will discuss innovative research approaches, learn about the latest methodologies and how to leverage new types of insight.
Connect with senior qualitative professionals from Sony Pictures Entertainment, Google, Bayer, Danone Research, Condé Nast, Mast-Jägermeister, REWE, Imperial Brands, Volkswagen Group, Sky, Hisense, and more — and learn from those shaping the future of qualitative research.
🎟 Last chance to secure your ticket — register now!
