Your 2027 budget: how many of its bets have customers acted on?
A self-check and a six-month plan for the decisions your 2027 budget is betting on.
In this issue
2027 budgets are being decided right now, many of them on opinion rather than on what customers actually do. Three things that help: our report The Consumer-Centricity Reset, with a self-check and a six-month plan. A 90-second video in which Liebherr's innovation lab THE LAB! shows how buyers picked one of four fridge technologies, before a single prototype existed. And what you actually get back from a test.
Daniel Putsche, Founder & CEO, Horizon
Your 2027 budget is being signed off. How many of its bets have customers acted on?
October is when new tariffs, ranges and products get their money for next year, mostly on the basis of consensus and surveys. The first real customer signal typically arrives 12 to 24 months later, after launch, when budget, IT and brand are long committed. And validation often serves a different purpose than the decision: in summer we shared that almost every insights leader we asked at IIEX sees the gap between what customers say and do. What we had not shown yet: 44% validate to build confidence with stakeholders. Only 12% validate to decide faster and with more certainty.
Our report The Consumer-Centricity Reset is built for this moment. Seven questions show where your organisation stands today, from opinion-led to behaviour-first, including how much of your budget is committed before the first customer signal. A six-month plan shows how to put the first behavioural evidence in front of a 2027 decision, and how to make it a threshold in your stage-gate process.
Source: Horizon pulse check, IIEX Europe 2025, n = 32
Four fridge technologies, one to pick. Liebherr let the basket decide
THE LAB! at Liebherr had four antibacterial functions in advance development. Instead of asking which one sounds best, Horizon measured which one people added to the basket, before a product existed. Four technologies, zero prototypes, one clear number one. The question behind it is not a fridge question: whether it is a product feature, a tariff option or an insurance add-on, which one do customers actually choose?
What you get back from a test: an answer you can take to the board
Say you need to set the monthly premium for a new dental plan and three prices are on the table. A Horizon test puts all three in front of real people searching for dental cover, for 14 days. Page 4 of the report gives you the answer in one line: $24.99 costs no demand, $29.99 halves it. Behind it: how many people chose each price, what each price means for premium volume, how certain the result is, and what to test next.
Eight sample reports across insurance, banking, energy, home appliances, consumer goods, retail and telco: see all.
Which decision would you rather settle with your customers than in a meeting?
Bring us the decision you are least sure about. We sketch how to test it, no preparation needed on your side.