The global pandemic put the Guide Dogs charity into a firefighting mode, forcing a short-term mindset, but there was a need to reset the strategic horizon to build more long-term vision for the business. Aligned to this has been the rapid advancement in consumer and medical technology which had the potential to completely disrupt the traditional operating model meaning it was more critical than ever for the Guide Dogs to explore how the charity may have to adapt to the changing demands in the future.
The challenge is how do you predict the future, and overlay a range of varying disruptive challenges, in a robust data-centric way?
In this session we will walk through the challenges the Guide Dogs charity faced, and how we collaborated with SKIM, taking a traditionally oriented charity who are singularly focused on critical logistical elements – such as breeding and welfare of Guide Dogs – to bring a range of future scenarios to the front of mind, forcing leaders out of their comfort zone to address the challenges that the 21st century will throw at such an important part of the UK services to the visually impaired population.
What you will learn:
- How deep qualitative understanding of the emotional benefits of a service being provided are equally as important in demand forecasting as robust data modeling.
- How easy-to-adopt principles of scenario planning can stretch the thinking of all levels of the business to embrace a more adaptive strategic mindset
- How the combination of these factors enabled the business to change the way Guide Dogs understood the service they provided, delivering a new lens with which to view the benefits a Guide Dog provides
Date: Wednesday May 8, 2024
Time: 10:45 AM – 11:15 AM
Location: InterContinental London – The O2
SKIM Booth: 516
Meet our team of experts at Quirk’s London
Stop by booth #516, meet the SKIM team, and pick our brains. Learn how we can help you better predict how people make decisions, in the context of different communication, pricing, and digital strategies. (Get your ticket 20% off with promo code: Q20)
About the presenters
Aileen Bradley is head of strategy at Guide Dogs UK and is responsible for developing the organisational strategy and strategic planning. She has been with the organisation for 2.5 years and it is her first charity role. Prior to Guide Dogs Aileen spent 6 years in a head of insight role for McDonald’s UK & Ireland where she led the delivery of insights spanning everything from segmentation, menu development, customer journeys, advertising testing and brand health. Aileen’s career in strategy and planning started agency-side where she worked mostly in quantitative market research and brand consultancy for FMCG clients.
Stephen is a director based in SKIM’s London office. For the last 15+ years Stephen has been consulting across multi-methodology research programs, bringing together the best practices from all sectors of the industry. Stephen regularly employs a range of methodological skillsets in his work covering rigorous analytical processes all the way through to ethnographic observation of buyers during their shopper journeys. His experience covers telecommunications, technology, automotive, consumer packaged goods, and consumer health (including healthcare).
About Quirk’s Event
Quirk’s Events are two-day gatherings of client-side researchers and their vendor partners featuring concurrent tracks of 30-minute sessions on all aspects of marketing research. Adjacent to the session rooms, a lively expo hall forms the center of the action. With ample networking opportunities and a fun, collegial atmosphere, the Quirk’s Event is designed to be inclusive and collaborative.