Leaders at consumer-facing companies spend tens of millions of dollars every year on customer insights (CI) and commercial analytics (CA), and for good reason. Consumer companies are under relentless pressure to deliver topline growth, and CI and CA are critical weapons in that effort. (See “The Introverted Corporation,” BCG article, April 2016.) The reason: those functions shed light on everything from the health of the brand to the factors that drive consumer purchase decisions.

But senior executives, and ultimately company shareholders, are often unclear on what concrete benefits are being derived from CI and CA. That’s because more than half of companies within industries such as consumer services, consumer packaged goods, and health and wellness do not regularly measure the return on investment from their CI and CA efforts.