The best decisions are based not only on intuition, but on knowledge, understanding and insight.  The best way to get knowledge, understanding and insight is to keep an eye on your marketplace, conduct research, monitor intelligence sources, and of course, engage with key stakeholders.  By doing your research and engaging with the people who matter to your project (your customers, employees, constituents, community), you are on the way to co-designing your strategy; on your way to better decisions.  

So what is co-design in the world of stakeholder engagement; and why is it part of an article on market research? 

Co-design starts with people.  It is the process of working collaboratively with people to design strategies, policies, programs or solutions that work for them.  To do this, a range of insights are gathered to understand peoples’ wants, needs, barriers and the drivers for change.  These insights are collected through research and engagement: surveys, interviews, workshops or other chosen methods of community consultation; good insights are grounded in research from within the local context and beyond.  

Bringing your stakeholders’ voices into the decision-making room. 

All these engagement and research efforts then mean that you can take the ‘voices’ of the stakeholders into the room with key decision makers to assist with co-designing a strategy or an outcome.  This collaborative approach to developing a strategy, grounded in real experiences, brings an unparalleled level of inclusion and stakeholder empowerment that the simple “buy in” consultation approach cannot match.  

By co-designing through research and engagement you get real insights. You get the real information to challenge assumptions and to prepare measured, realistic and reliable solutions.  

Integral's research, engagement and strategy experts can help you design the best method to gather the insights you need for better decision making.