The Great Research Purge

Moving sucks. Let me just say that upfront.

But here's what I discovered during my recent move to Texas: nothing forces you to evaluate what's truly important quite like staring at 15 years' worth of accumulated stuff and asking, "Is this really worth packing, shipping, and unpacking 1,200 miles away?"

That ceramic vase I bought on impulse three years ago and never displayed? Gone.

The stack of magazines I swore I'd read someday? Recycling bin.

The duplicate kitchen gadgets gathering dust in drawers? Donated.

What survived the cut? Just the essentials. Things that genuinely improved my daily life.

Everything else—no matter how much I originally paid for it—was ruthlessly eliminated.

And as I sat surrounded by boxes labeled "Texas" or "Trash," it hit me: most companies treat their market research exactly like I treated that junk drawer. They accumulate endless amounts of data without ever asking the fundamental question that changed everything for me.

Does this actually help us make better decisions?

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The trillion-dollar lie we tell ourselves

Here's a staggering reality that should make every CEO wake up in a cold sweat: 68% of data available to businesses is not being used. More than two-thirds of everything you're paying to gather, store, and analyze never contributes to a single business decision.

I can say with complete confidence that the vast majority of our clients tell us they have done research on their own in the past but simply do not have the time or expertise to understand and apply it. Many of them are assuming they have asked customers the right questions to gather good data, and this is quite often not the case.

But it gets worse.

Recent studies show that 32% of cloud spend is wasted, and organizations exceed their cloud budgets by an average of 43% mainly on storage and backup.

Think about that for a moment. We're not talking about a little inefficiency here. We're talking about a business intelligence industrial complex that's fundamentally broken.

Every dollar spent on unnecessary research is a dollar not invested in the questions that could actually transform your business. Every hour your team spends analyzing irrelevant data is an hour not spent understanding what really matters to your customers.
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The Texas Test for research

During my move, I developed what I like to call the "Texas Test," a brutal but effective filter for deciding what made the journey.

Will this make my life better in Texas?

Have I actually used this in the past year?

Can I accomplish the same outcome with something I'm already keeping?

Your business research needs the same honest evaluation. Instead of asking "Does this spark joy?" (thank you Marie Kondo), you need to ask much harder questions.

Does this research answer questions that directly impact our business goals? Too often, companies conduct studies because they seem interesting or because a competitor did similar research. But interesting isn't actionable.

Will these insights change how we operate, who we target, or what we offer? If you can't draw a straight line from research findings to business decisions, you're collecting expensive trivia.

Are we asking questions our customers actually care about? Here's where Voice of Customer research becomes critical. Companies that extensively use customer analytics report 115% higher ROI and 93% higher profits—but only when they're measuring what matters to customers, not just what's easy to measure.

Most research fails this test. And that's why most companies are stuck in analysis paralysis while their competitors eat their lunch.
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What we get right about research prioritization

At Intelligentics, we operate like my Texas Test: What specific business decisions does this research need to inform, and what's the minimum viable data set to make those decisions confidently?

We excel at helping clients understand their customers' real views, needs, and wants—not just surface-level satisfaction scores. More importantly, we help companies understand how customers actually perceive their brand, which often differs dramatically from how companies think they're perceived.

This isn't easy work. Understanding consumer psychology, identifying the right research methodologies, and extracting actionable insights from complex data requires genuine expertise.

That's why working with experts matters. Just like I needed professional movers for my most valuable items, companies need experienced researchers for their most important business questions.

The compound effect of focused research

Here's what I learned from my great purge: having fewer, higher-quality possessions made my Texas life dramatically better. Every item serves a purpose. No clutter, no decision fatigue, no maintenance burden from unnecessary stuff.

The same principle applies to research. When you focus on questions that matter, you get answers that drive action. Most CEOs want their organizations to be data-driven, but that only works if the research asks the right questions in the first place.

Instead of drowning in data, you swim in insights.

Instead of analysis paralysis, you gain decision confidence.

Instead of research reports that nobody reads, you generate intelligence that shapes strategy.
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Your research moving day

So here's my challenge: conduct your own research audit. Look at every study you've commissioned in the past two years and apply the Texas Test.

Did this research directly inform a business decision?

If you can't point to specific actions taken, it was research for research's sake.

Would we conduct this same study again, knowing what we know now?

If the answer is no, you've identified a pattern worth breaking.

Just like moving forced me to confront my accumulation habits, this audit will reveal your research collection patterns.

And I guarantee you'll find your own version of that ceramic vase—expensive, seemed important at the time, but ultimately added no value.

The companies thriving in today's market aren't the ones with the most data.

They're the ones with the most relevant data, gathered strategically, analyzed expertly, and applied decisively.

Ready to discover what you don't know you need to know?

The most valuable research often reveals the questions you didn't know to ask.

At Intelligentics, we specialize in helping organizations cut through the noise to uncover the insights that actually drive growth.

We don't just collect data. We help you discover the questions that will transform your business, then design research that delivers answers you can act on immediately.

Because sometimes the most important discoveries happen when you stop asking what you think you should know, and start exploring what you actually need to understand.

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