I've been at Nielsen for almost 8 years, and it was a really special place for a long time. I used to heartily recommend Nielsen to others and was proud to work there, but we've fumbled and I don't think there's a way back.
The first problem is that Nielsen is a monopoly, and, with the exception of a few handful of companies like Microsoft, monopolistic companies eventually fall victim to their own success by way of short-sighted hubris. Breaking this down:
1. We failed to predict and react to streaming. While it was obvious to outsiders that streaming was going to overtake linear television, our TV clients actively indulged in a fantasy that streaming wasn't anything to worry about ... and instead of predicting industry trends like the "independent market leader" we claim to be, we drank the Kool-Aid with them and did nothing to develop technology to track streaming. Then streaming exploded and we had no ability to track streaming at all. We are trying to catch up, but it is too little, too late.
2. The quality of our products isn't great. Our products are a UI/UX nightmare, and require extensive training to use... not because our data is inherently complex, but because we design obfuscated systems. If you pull TV ratings from three products for the same program, it's likely they won't even match. We got trashed in the press for our data quality issues during the pandemic... clients were mad, and they had every right to be.
3. We've made a lot of improvements in our tech, but it's still lacking. Nielsen is built on tribal knowledge; learning the (very complex) calculation for a TV rating is hard, isn't documented anywhere, and every team has their own way of calculating it that doesn't match what you get from our client-facing product NPOWER. Prior to David Kenny coming in, we underinvested in tech and offshored the development of core products. While this has gotten better, the tech debt is enormous and hinders us from moving fast.
4. Our product org is underwhelming. We completely missed the mark on reacting to the rise of Netflix. Big miss. Additionally, we have many product managers on highly technical products who just simply don't get technology or data. You don't need to code to be a product manager, but you DO need to understand tech--e.g., what does it mean to have truly Big Data and how do you design a product that scales? Very few of our big tech products seem to have technical product managers. Google has technical product managers for a reason--for some reason, we don't.
Culturally:
1. While not all of Nielsen is like this, there are many departments that are stuck in their ways and resistant to doing things better or more efficiently. Nielsen doesn't exactly have an eye for process improvement. "We've always done it this way" is a common refrain.
2. Nielsen went all-in on remote work once the pandemic hit. While they've reopened their offices, there has been minimal effort to cultivate a welcoming in-office experience. Being open to remote work and creating a welcoming office experience aren't mutually exclusive, but Nielsen treats it that way.
