Real-life best practices: How General Mills fixed a broken insights process

Geoffrey Precourt

General Mills, the consumer packaged goods manufacturer, has successfully strengthened its insights function at a time of immense complexity.

At General Mills, the Minneapolis-based global consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturer, the last quarter-century may charitably be described as too much of too many good things.

"Twenty-five years ago truly were the glory days for General Mills' market research," observed Laura Engstrom, General Mills' Global Consumer-Insights Manager. "We had one, really big, central consumer insights team."

Laura Engstrom, Global Consumer-Insights Manager, General Mills'

So massive was the group, she told an audience at The Market Research Event (TMRE), an event organized by KNect365, that had the insights team been constituted as an independent enterprise, it would have been the fifth-largest...

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