Utilizing and Fostering Experimentation in Organizations

Abstract

This study was conducted for dentsu Finland, a global marketing company operating in 143 markets. The study aimed to identify essential challenges in experimentation and investigates innovation, strategic agility, organizational culture, and prerequisites for experimentation. The purpose was to define experimentation as an approach, to identify key factors that impact implementation of experimentation, and t acknowledge how to foster a culture of experimentation in organizations.

Based on the findings of the study, two concrete frameworks were proposed as solutions for mapping, fostering, and developing an experimentation culture. These frameworks can beutilized to overcome organizational challenges, to improve strategic agility in various functions of a company and to improve how sustainable customer value is created.

Companies in the marketing industry are facing challenges due to an everchanging customer demand and behavior. In this landscape, customers are expecting frictionless experiences, especially online, which forces firms to develop their competences in technology and data. Furthermore, organizations must redesign their value chains and experiment with new business logics, to survive in this competitive landscape and to create customer value.

This research was based on a literature review and semi-structured theme interviews with ten leaders of dentsu Finland, conducted online during 2020–2021. To collect a suitable sample of interviewees (n=10), a purposive sampling method was used to identify interviewees with certain characteristics and backgrounds. Furthermore, a convenience sampling method was utilized to access participants easily and quickly from a larger set of employees at dentsu Finland. Participants were recruited based on data saturation, where data was collected until no new themes added insight to previous findings. All semi-structured theme interviews were synthetized into common themes through an open coding method, in order to have better control over insight, to find directions, and to saturate concepts based on their properties.

This study confirms that firms must develop processes and tools for innovation to validate concepts with customers quickly, efficiently and at low cost. Through experimentation, an iterative, incremental approach for innovation, companies can conduct simultaneous tests to investigate causal relations in results. To successfully conduct experiments, it is vital that firms accept failing, consolidate adequate resources, and measure results in alignment with their strategy as a part of core operations of an organization.

Interviewed practitioners verified that firms must identify new ways to collaborate and use experimentation to improve efficiency of operations. Additionally, psychological safety, analytical thinking, leadership, and employee empowerment should be prioritized.

Experimentation may be complex to grasp but can be successfully used in any business through a strategic approach and adequate organizational structures. To innovate, it is thus crucial that firms actively promote and have courage to experiment. By establishing proper managerial and organizational structures, it is possible to develop a culture of experimentation to drive sustainable business growth.