Name: Michael A. Lotti
Title and Company: Director and VP, Business Research, (Retired)/Eastman Kodak Company
Education:
MBA (Marketing and Finance), Simon School of Management, University of Rochester;
BA / MA (Statistics and Mathematics), Western Michigan University
Work Experience: 31 years with Eastman Kodak. Began career as a coordinator of Market Research for Asia, Africa and Australasian Regions, then worked as Director of Advertising Research, Marketing Communications, Marketing Planning, Business Research and finally retired as Vice President of Business Research.
What I do: Before retiring, led the group that combined Marketing Research, Competitive Intelligence, and Economic & Trend analysis for the corporation. We developed insights into marketplace, customer, and consumer wants, needs, and trade-offs to inform brand, product, and business strategy.
How I got there: Over my career, over one-half of my assignments were in Marketing Research positions (global research, brand/advertising research, business performance assessment). I had 1-2 year cross-assignments in Marketing, Advertising, Strategy Development, and Manufacturing.
Skills needed: Understanding of branding and marketing to define the most effective research program. Research and technical experience to select the right tools to understand consumer motivations and behaviors. Distilling lots of conflicting information into a quick, compelling story. Financial skills to put the results into a context for business decision making.
Where would I go from here? I’m setting a small consulting enterprise to apply these experiences in other industries. I’m interested in uncovering insights that will define and reliably deliver a winning customer experience. I want apply approaches that will more directly understand customer needs and the commercial viability of solutions.
Advice: Learn to check your preconceived solutions at the door. Everyone starts with an idea about how things work. The researcher’s job is to test that theory against the facts. When they disagree, find out why. That’s where competitive advantage is found.
Biggest misconception: That research is all about numbers. Finding a valuable consumer insight is a creative process. It uses qualitative as well as quantitative information. You have to see the patterns in the information (data, behaviors, stated and unstated needs) that no one else has seen. You have to imagine how to convert your insight into a business action.
To succeed and enjoy this position, you need to: Love to learn. You have to be curious about why people do what they do. You want to learn how to make the total experience better for the customer and profitable for the business. This trade-off breeds a never-ending set of puzzles to solve.