Across Europe, tech firms are accelerating ahead, powered by real-time data, agile planning cycles, and automated decision-making. In contrast, many FMCG companies remain stuck in outdated operational rhythms. They rely on quarterly reports, fragmented market insights, and siloed departments, leaving them slow to respond to rapidly shifting consumer demands.
Why insight strategy is the missing piece
This lag isn’t just operational; it’s strategic. As Europe’s tech growth continues to redefine industry standards, the gap between digital-first companies and traditional FMCG players widens. Without the ability to act swiftly and accurately, FMCG brands risk eroding market share, profitability, and long-term relevance.
While many FMCG leaders have invested heavily in digital tools, technology alone hasn’t been the differentiator. What truly separates industry leaders is how decisions are made. Tech firms thrive because their strategies are rooted in insights pulling from real-time signals, cross-functional data, and predictive analytics.
For FMCG, the opportunity lies not in collecting more data, but in transforming it into unified, actionable intelligence. Moving from gut-feel decisions or static dashboards to data-driven strategy requires a shift in mindset, process, and collaboration. When insights guide planning, pricing, innovation, and execution, FMCG brands can navigate uncertainty with confidence and precision.
The following steps outline how to embed insight-led strategy into everyday decision-making, turning complexity into clarity and enabling faster, smarter, and more profitable outcomes at scale.
Step 1: Acknowledge the Lag in Decision-Making
According to a McKinsey study, nearly 70% of consumer goods executives admit they lack the analytical capabilities required to make timely, evidence-based decisions across pricing, promotion, and product assortment. While digital tools exist, the ability to turn raw data into commercial agility remains limited. Too often, decisions are made in hindsight, reacting to missed opportunities or lagging indicators rather than through foresight.
At the same time, Europe’s tech growth is being fueled by companies that operate in predictive, data-rich environments. These firms run constant simulations, adjust strategies in real time, and operate in short planning cycles. Tech firms use data to predict and shape future outcomes, while FMCG companies often look backward, relying on static dashboards and periodic reports that only show what has already happened.
Recognizing the Gap Is the First Competitive Move
Before FMCG companies can close the gap, they must first acknowledge it. The gap is not just technical; it’s cultural and structural. Recognizing the limitations of traditional planning cycles and reactive reporting is a strategic advantage. This self-awareness becomes the foundation for transformation. Once leaders recognize that their decision-making pace and precision lag the new industry standard, they can begin replacing instinct and fragmentation with insight-led, collaborative strategies designed for today’s complexity.
Step 2: Evolve from Dashboards to Integrated Insight Engines
In a fragmented organization, dashboards serve as isolated snapshots. According to Deloitte, only 24% of consumer companies say they have a unified view of their customer across systems. This lack of integration results in siloed decision-making, where marketing, sales, finance, and supply chain each act on different interpretations of data. The result is not just inefficiency; it’s strategic misalignment. FMCG leaders must transition from passive reporting practices to decision-making systems that actively convert data into commercial outcomes.
Insight-led organizations don’t just measure performance; they interpret it in context. By combining consumer signals, market trends, and financial drivers into a unified insight engine, companies can anticipate shifts and respond accordingly. This integration lays the groundwork for smarter planning, faster pivots, and ultimately, greater profitability.
Real-Time Diagnostics Drive Better Agility
Tech firms are setting the pace because they’ve embedded diagnostics into the way they operate. They don’t wait for monthly performance reviews to detect issues; they surface them instantly and respond within days. FMCG companies must adopt the same level of operational responsiveness. Moving from lagging KPIs to actionable insights allows decision-makers to diagnose challenges as they emerge, not after the fact. This agility can dramatically increase the effectiveness of promotions, pricing adjustments, and product strategies.
Step 3: Make Simulation a Core Capability
Test Before You execute.
Traditional planning methods often rely on static assumptions, historical data, and long lead times. In today’s volatile environment, these models are no longer sufficient. Simulation offers a smarter path forward by allowing companies to test pricing strategies, promotional plans, and assortment changes before deploying them in the market. By creating digital test beds for commercial decisions, FMCG leaders can identify risks, reduce uncertainty, and improve ROI without slowing down execution.
Simulation not only saves time and resources but also enables teams to work cross-functionally with shared clarity. Instead of operating on isolated guesses or disconnected forecasts, stakeholders align around likely outcomes. It brings precision into decisions that were once led by gut feel or habit.
AI-Based Simulation Is Already Mainstream
Simulation has moved beyond theory and is rapidly becoming the norm in FMCG planning. A McKinsey analysis revealed that only 20% of FMCG firms have fully implemented AI-driven pricing models, yet 70% are actively piloting or exploring them. This signals a clear direction for the industry: simulation is becoming table stakes. Companies that fail to adopt it risk falling behind not just in tech but also peers within FMCG who are modernizing their approach. Building simulation into core processes is essential for navigating rising costs, promotional clutter, and growing consumer complexity.
Step 4: Empower Cross-Functional Teams with AI Planning
Break Down Silos with Unified Platforms
Insight-led strategy only works when insights are shared, and that requires breaking down silos. Many FMCG companies struggle with fragmented tools and disconnected teams. To truly move at speed, commercial, marketing, finance, and revenue teams must operate from the same data environment. This is where unified platforms like Smart Value™play a critical role. By combining pricing engines, simulation modules, diagnostics, and AI-powered planning tools, these solutions provide one version of truth that every team can use.
Rather than working in parallel but disconnected efforts, teams can collaborate in real time, scenario plan together, and jointly own commercial outcomes. This alignment transforms planning from a manual task into a dynamic process rooted in shared insight and strategic coordination.
Agile Decision-Making Becomes a Daily Habit
Equipping teams with intelligent planning tools allows them to operate with agility that rivals leading tech firms. No longer dependent on quarterly business reviews, companies can shift to weekly commercial sprints, testing hypotheses, adapting to market signals, and acting fast when things change. Just like software teams iterate constantly, FMCG can adopt this cadence to make smarter decisions more frequently. The result is not only faster responses but also better ones rooted in timely, relevant insights and executed collaboratively across functions.
Step 5: Operationalize Insight-Led Strategy Across the Business
It’s Not Just About Tech; It’s About Mindset
Adopting an insight-led strategy is more than a systems upgrade; it’s a cultural transformation. The most effective tech firms aren’t just good at collecting data; they excel at using it to make decisions. They cultivate teams who ask the right questions, iterate frequently, and are comfortable with ambiguity. For FMCG, this means creating a workplace where experimentation is rewarded, learning is constant, and decisions are data-driven, not dictated by hierarchy or habit.
Embedding insight into the daily fabric of the business means retraining teams, refining processes, and creating room for feedback loops. It’s not about replacing human judgment but enhancing it so every decision is faster, sharper, and more commercially grounded.
From Fragmented Execution to Unified Growth
When data, teams, and planning tools are unified, execution becomes consistent. Pricing aligns with promotional plans, pack strategies support portfolio goals, and customer segmentation drives channel activation. This cohesion improves both speed and strategic alignment, giving FMCG leaders the ability to protect margins, increase customer retention, and grow with confidence. In a world where consumer expectations and market conditions change rapidly, the ability to act cohesively and quickly is what separates thriving brands from those that fall behind.
Insight Is the Advantage
Europe’s tech growth offers a blueprint for FMCG’s next chapter. It isn’t just about better tools; it’s about how those tools are used to drive smarter, faster, and more aligned decisions. Tech firms operate on insight, not instinct. They test before launching, adjust in real time, and empower every team to act on the same data.
For FMCG leaders, the opportunity lies in adopting these principles, replacing fragmented reports with integrated insight engines, static plans with real-time simulation, and silos with AI-enabled collaboration. Those who embrace insight-led strategy now won’t just catch up; they’ll lead. In tomorrow’s market, insight won’t just offer a competitive edge; it will define who leads and who falls behind