Measuring the impact of ESG on business equity and outcomes with Bradley Taylor, Senior Strategist at Converseon

At this year’s Observe Summit, we’ve asked some of our speakers to take part in a challenge: To use social data, to take a fresh look at cultural trends that have shaped society over the last 12 months.

And Bradley Taylor, Senior Strategist at Converseon is going to be looking at the impact of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) strategies on business equity and outcomes. We caught up with him ahead of Observe Summit to learn more.

Can you briefly describe the challenge you'll be tackling at Observe Summit this year?

We are looking at how ESG efforts, that have been noticed on social media, impact revenue, if at all. We went into the study with an open mind. Sometimes various efforts cannot be seen, maybe for years, within the data ,and sometimes efforts have the opposite effect to what is expected. This is the beauty of doing this type of work. Anything is possible and the goal is to understand the truth of what really matters. Does it matter if a company takes ESG seriously and improves year on year? Will these actions, which cost no small sum of money, impact the company's bottom line, create a more sustainable stream of revenue and ensure survival against competitors?

Why do you think this topic is so interesting to analyse?

Businesses are investing a lot into ESG. They want to be good corporate citizens and this is important. However, if the effects don’t enable or help revenues, then when the next recession, interest rate hike or slow down takes place, companies will most likely scale back on these efforts to keep budgets trim and profits stable. Now, if ESG efforts actually help revenues, and the revenue benefits outweigh the spend, then there would be no reason to stop. This becomes a win for the environment, our children and cultures of the world, and a win for the shareholders of the business.

What's the biggest benefit of using digital conversations to gain insight?

The benefit that I really love is to gain understanding into how large groups of people are thinking. So, although great qualitative insights can be gained from each individual conversation, I find it super interesting when we group many similar conversations together and understand what this larger group is thinking. It is these sorts of trends which can shift markets and buying patterns. Once we understand these large patterns of behaviour and trends around certain behaviours we can start to model them back to business outcomes and begin to understand the various relationships each trend or changing behaviour is having or will have on sales. To me, this is very exciting and we move from social media analysis being purely descriptive and informative to it being part of an engine which can help make solid, data driven decisions.

Why is it important for brands to consider using social data analysis within their growth strategies?

It is important to consider all the voices of the consumer. This includes social data. Many companies have started to take their call centers and other direct consumer touch points seriously and the benefits in customer retention are well documented. As we now look towards online sources of consumer and customer views, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors, these can reap similar benefits. The more we understand our customers, the better it is for the bottom line.

How do you see the use of internet data evolving?

Currently, many businesses are using the data to understand their consumers and competitors in a qualitative way . As we continue to make social data more quantitative, through various methods, we will see it being used for boardroom level decisions, such as where best to allocate budgets and which initiatives to support or stop. The beauty of the quantitative aspect of social data, is that if handled correctly, you can ask new questions of the data and see how the answer has changed over the last 5 or so years. Traditional methods of data collection don’t allow for this. You have to think, ask and wait. I guess the wait is over?

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