Our guest on this episode is Lisa Courtade, who is currently Executive Director of Commercial Insights and Analytics at Organon. Lisa joins us on The Day One podcast to share what things in the industry she’d like to see banished to Room 101 forever. The main pet peeves Lisa describes are: the idea that there is only one right way to do things, the language around buyer and vendor, and archaic definitions in market research for primary and secondary. Lisa provides meaningful criticism during our conversation, and we hope you enjoy it.

Key Quotes:

• “Some of that gets to some of the things that I think about in terms of how we speak about our industry and what we do. We have an opportunity to make it fascinating and sexy, or we can talk about it in kind of a boring old, traditional kind of way. Because my experience, and one of the reasons I've been a mentor with multiple universities, is for that opportunity to give them a peek into the world and the work that we do and the value of the work that we do.” (05:09)
• “What I often tell the young people on my team is “I do want to hear from you. Your perspective is different, your thoughts are different, and that's going to make all of us better.” So, keeping in mind that what you have to offer is a value and holding on to that, even when you're challenged” (09:35)
• The best answer is absolutely useless if it's not within the timeframe that decision has to be made, and I see this a lot. There's only one right way to do it. And again, the minute we do that we, one, limit our thinking and our ability to use different tools and solve new problems, because there's always new problems. But we also close out our opportunities with our internal teams because they'll say “well, we'll only go to that research team if we need something old and slow and expensive or when I need that rigorous answer”. So I find that really rate limiting on a lot of levels. I'd rather they came to us and said “how can you help me solve this within the level of the decision I have to make, the time frame I have in the budget that I have.” (14:15)
• “Why is it that no matter what I send as a business challenge, I get the same proposal back, the same method, the same approach over and over again, when clearly it's not a fit? He looked at me and he says “Lisa, if your business is selling hammers, every problem is a nail”. That limits the agency as well, because what I learn is I'm not going to call Company A or Company B unless that is specifically what I need.” (19:00)
• “I've never had that disillusion to believe that I'm that popular. I said I'm just a bag of money. They think I have a bag of money and I'm walking through the exhibit area with it. And that idea that I'm a “Buyer” and they're a “Seller” is why a lot of client-side individuals are afraid to even enter an exhibit area because they feel like they're in shark-infested waters and they've got a cut and they're bleeding because folks are after them. “ (23:57)
• “Because you really need to understand what people are doing and then ask the questions on the primary side around “why?”. And I think if we keep these two things isolated and in conflict with each other, then we miss a real opportunity as an industry to be able to describe both what's happening in the world and why it's happening.”(29:39)
• “Being comfortable enough to know where there might be a gap. I think it's really easy to go do a couple of interviews with experts and say “wow, the market's really shaping up” and everybody's really super excited about this and it's going to keep growing. And you look at the data and say “hmm, the data's not showing that, so why are we hearing something different than we're seeing, and what does that tell us and what do we need to know?” So you don't necessarily have to be 100% well-versed and comfortable in being able to write your own code and analyse it, but I think you have to be data savvy enough to know where the gaps are and what you need to be asking.” (32:46)

Key Topics:

• Lisa describes how she came to be in Research and Insight (2:14)
• The impact of pharmaceutical research (04:17)
• Inspiring more young people to join pharma research (05:09)
• Lisa’s advice to young women coming into the sector (08:56)
• Lisa reveals her first nomination for Room 101 (11:20)
• Challenging limited mindset in Agencies and Clients (13:00)
• The second topic for Room 101 is shared (21:47)
• Industry perceptions of client-supplier dynamics (23:13)
• What language should we be using for client and agency staff? (26:08)
• Lisa gives us her third pick for Room 101 (27:39)
• Why primary and secondary research needs to work together (29:31)
• Lisa, Hannah and Abigail decide what to banish to Room 101 forever (34:10)

About – Lisa Courtade:

Lisa Courtade is currently Executive Director of Commercial Insights and Analytics at Organon. Lisajoined Organon for the opportunity to build a new team with the power to leverage the full suite of insight capabilities to understand and deliver on unmet needs in women's health. Lisa has been called an innovative disruptor and a change agent for challenging the status quo and harnessing emerging technologies and data. Along with the behavioural sciences, Lisa has a lifelong passion for improving the lives of patients, leading teams for Merck, Sanofi-Aventis and Pharmacia/Pfizer. Lisa is Ex-Officio Director and Past Chairof the Insights Association and serves on the Marketing Research Institute International and University of Georgia's Masters in Marketing Research and a long-time member of the Healthcare Business Woman's Association, having served many years as a National Board Director, lead for career development and as the first global research director.

Relevant Links:

• Lisa Courtade – LinkedIn
• Organon - https://www.organon.com/
• Day One - https://www.dayonestrategy.com/
• Hannah Mann - LinkedIn
• Abigail Stuart – LinkedIn

The Day One podcast is published by the Day One Strategy and produced by Zorbiant.

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