Planning season brings a flurry of activity across business units – and with it, a sharp increase in demand for consumer insights. Leaders are making big decisions, setting annual targets, and choosing where to focus investment in the coming year. To do this successfully, they rely heavily on data-backed insights to shape brand strategies, innovation pipelines, and marketing plans. For Consumer Insights teams, this surge often leads to resource strain, tight timelines, and competing priorities.

Why the workload peaks during this time

Annual planning amplifies the need for multiple projects – sometimes all at once. Brand teams may request consumer segmentation research, innovation teams need rapid testing of new ideas, and marketing may require performance analyses from prior campaigns. At the same time, teams must synthesize findings and present clear recommendations to executives. This concentrated demand can push even well-staffed teams to their limits.

Add to that the need for faster insights delivery. Many planning meetings are scheduled months in advance, but decisions within them often evolve quickly. The ability to respond in real time – or close to it – becomes a true differentiator. For insights professionals juggling overlapping requests, project delays or bandwidth challenges can create bottlenecks for the larger business.

Common signs your team might be stretched too thin

• Project backlogs or missed internal deadlines
• Team members pulled in too many directions
• Limited time for strategic thinking or high-impact storytelling
• Delays in surfacing insights to leadership teams
• Over-reliance on a small group of insights professionals

Without a flexible support model in place, traditional hiring rarely solves the problem fast enough. Recruiting full-time talent can take 8–12 weeks (or longer), and internal transfers aren't always an option during high-season workloads. As planning season gets busier, organizations often seek ways to expand their insights team structure more nimbly – without long term commitments or overburdened FTEs.

That’s where agile staffing makes a big difference. It allows companies to temporarily scale their research teams with On Demand Talent – experienced professionals who can step in quickly, handle complex projects, and add immediate value without ramp-up time. Next, we’ll explore the key benefits of this flexible approach for insights leaders preparing for annual planning.

Agile staffing is more than just a buzzword – it’s a powerful, practical approach to building a high-performing, flexible research team ahead of planning season. As research and strategy needs evolve quickly, so should your ability to respond. Whether it's expanding your research capacity, covering for leaves-of-absence, or adding niche expertise for strategic projects, agile insights staffing allows you to adapt without compromise.

Faster access to insights professionals, ready to go

One of the most immediate benefits of this approach is speed. Hiring full-time consumer insights talent often involves lengthy job posting, interviews, approvals, and onboarding. By contrast, leveraging On Demand Talent gives you access to vetted, experienced insights professionals who can start in days or weeks – not months.

For example, say your brand team needs a quick-turn qual research study to test early concept ideas before sharing with leadership next quarter. Instead of postponing the work due to bandwidth issues, a flexible research team model allows you to plug in the right resource at the right time – keeping your innovation cycle moving without delays.

Flexible support that scales with your needs

Planning season can bring unexpected demands. Agile staffing provides the capacity to flex up or down depending on your priorities. From part-time fractional insights talent to full-time temporary support, you can tailor your structure based solely on the projects and cycles ahead.

This kind of solution also provides:

• Specialized expertise exactly when you need it – such as shopper insights, brand tracking, segmentation, or growth strategy
• Bandwidth relief for your core Insights team, allowing them to focus on top priorities without burnout
• Built-in flexibility without long-term commitments or headcount additions

Better collaboration across internal and external resources

Unlike freelance platforms or basic contractor roles, SIVO’s On Demand Talent are highly experienced professionals with years of in-house or agency background. They integrate easily with your team, understand the nuances of different stakeholder dynamics, and can hit the ground running. This leads to smoother workflows, fewer onboarding delays, and stronger contributions to ongoing research and strategic efforts.

In a fictional case: A mid-sized CPG company preparing for planning season needed to analyze retail channel preferences across multiple customer segments. Their internal team had already scoped the project, but lacked the manpower to execute it in parallel with other year-end initiatives. By bringing in an On Demand insights expert with experience in syndicated data and segmentation, they were able to complete analysis and storytelling on time – without sacrificing quality or overloading internal staff.

Agile staffing solutions for planning and research help teams remain proactive, responsive, and ready to lead the conversation. As we continue, we'll look at how to design the right mix of internal and fractional talent to build a resilient, agile insights team structure ahead of your most strategic planning moments.

When organizations look to scale their consumer insights teams quickly, they often consider freelance platforms or traditional research agencies. While these options can offer short-term relief, they aren't always the most efficient or agile solution—especially during high-pressure planning periods. Understanding the difference between these options and On Demand Talent can help you make more strategic staffing decisions.

Freelancers: Fast but Risky

Freelancers are readily available and offer flexibility. However, finding the right skill fit often requires time-consuming vetting, and freelancers may lack the business context or experience to execute complex market research support effectively within a short timeframe. Since freelancers typically work independently, integration with internal teams or managing multiple workstreams can be challenging.

Agencies: Full-Service but Less Flexible

Agencies bring scale and expertise, but they often come with higher costs and slower onboarding processes. Their standard processes may not align with the speed and flexibility needed during pre-planning staffing. Additionally, agencies can be resource-heavy and less accommodating for smaller or ad-hoc research needs.

On Demand Talent: A Smarter Middle Ground

On Demand Talent offers a best-of-both-worlds solution. These professionals are seasoned insights experts with the ability to slot into projects quickly and effectively. Because they are vetted for specific skills and industry knowledge, there's minimal ramp-up needed. They collaborate directly with your internal team and can flexibly support everything from strategic planning and survey development to segmentation studies and storytelling analysis.

• Faster onboarding: Talent can be matched and operational in days or weeks – ideal for planning season timelines.
• Fractional access: Get exactly the expertise you need, without long-term costs or commitments.
• Seamless integration: On Demand Talent operates like an extension of your existing insights team.

If you're seeking an agile solution that gives you market research support without sacrificing speed or quality, On Demand Talent is often the more strategic choice over freelancers or traditional agencies.

Building a flexible research team doesn’t mean replacing your in-house talent. It means enhancing their impact by giving them access to specialized support when it’s needed most. Knowing how to strike the right balance between internal insights professionals and external experts is key to creating an agile insights team, especially as planning season approaches.

Start with Core Strengths

Internal consumer insights teams bring invaluable institutional knowledge, brand familiarity, and stakeholder relationships. These strengths are crucial when shaping research goals and aligning insights with business strategy. Before seeking external support, clarify what your internal team can handle versus which tasks are stretching capacity or falling outside of their expertise.

Then Identify Your Gaps

Are you lacking quantitative research design skills? Need support synthesizing qualitative findings quickly? These are the moments when external experts can step in to relieve bandwidth pressure. On Demand Talent can be especially effective here. Whether it’s filling a temporary insights role or tackling a complex initiative like innovation pipeline testing, they offer targeted support without long onboarding or permanent hiring.

Streamline Collaboration

Agile insights team structures rely on seamless collaboration between internal and external contributors. Consider assigning an internal lead to coordinate timelines and goals, while external professionals execute on specialized tasks. Because On Demand Talent is experienced in integrating with existing teams, they can deliver work independently while aligning with your strategic direction.

Benefits of a Balanced Approach

When internal teams and external experts work synergistically, you can:

• Increase research output without overwhelming your internal staff
• Speed up turnaround times for insights needed in planning meetings
• Bring in fresh perspectives to challenge assumptions or validate ideas
• Maintain team morale by spreading workload during peak season

The goal isn’t to outsource everything – it’s to create a flexible staffing model that evolves with demand. With this approach, your insights team remains strategic, supported, and ready to lead better business decisions—all year long.

Time is of the essence during planning season. Whether you’re executing last-minute studies, analyzing past-year performance, or preparing presentations for leadership, your consumer insights team must be equipped to do more in less time. Here’s how to scale your team quickly and thoughtfully—without the delays of full-time hiring or agency onboarding.

1. Evaluate Your Bandwidth

Start by listing your internal team’s current responsibilities vs. what’s required for pre-planning support. Identify urgent projects that could benefit from temporary market research talent or extra strategic insight. This quick gap analysis will inform your next steps.

2. Define the Expertise You Need

Do you need someone experienced in segmentation? Customer journey mapping? Brand health tracking? Understanding these needs helps you match with the right On Demand Talent who can jump in and deliver results immediately with minimal ramp-up.

3. Tap Into Flexible Solutions

Rather than adding stress to internal teams or waiting out lengthy hiring cycles, consider agile staffing solutions such as fractional insights talent. On Demand Talent professionals are not just quick to onboard—they’re seasoned experts who know how to execute with clarity and speed. This makes them ideal for planning season’s fast-moving environment.

4. Prioritize and Delegate

Once your On Demand experts are in place, identify which tasks can be handed off—such as moderating focus groups, survey design, or synthesizing existing data. Freeing up your core team allows them to focus on critical planning support and high-stakes business decisions.

5. Stay Flexible as Needs Evolve

The beauty of a flexible research team is adjustability. As priorities shift or unexpected projects emerge, you can scale talent up or down to match. On Demand Talent offers the ability to course correct midstream, without costly delays or resource bottlenecks.

By following these steps, you can increase your team’s capacity and agility to meet tight timelines, contribute meaningful insights, and remain trusted advisors throughout planning season.