Do you have a true team… or just some “emissaries visiting from foreign functional areas”? Winning teams share these traits: a) Management signals this work is a top priority, b) the team leader is enthusiastic and capable, c) team success impacts personal performance reviews, and d) the team members want to be part of this team.
More in article, What’s Restraining Your Growth? Your Time Horizon
It may be that your customers’ customers opinions matter more. Somewhere in your downstream value chain, there’s a “drive sprocket” that’s moving the rest of the value chain. Find it, uncover all their needs, quantitatively isolate the critical ones, and pursue these like there’s no tomorrow.
More in e-book, Reinventing VOC for B2B (page 26).
That’s too bad. They could follow 12 rules to dramatically improve their launches. A new approach is needed for three reasons: 1) The digital age is changing everything. 2) B2B marketers have been following the rules of consumer goods marketers too long. 3) Much more rigor is needed than most B2B companies apply today.
More in e-book, 12 New Rules of B2B Product Launch
You’re developing your customer’s new product. It’s like this: “Mr. Customer, we’ve assembled a team aimed at developing something you’ll love. As you can see, we even brought a lead R&D person with us to listen to you. So can you tell us everything you think we should know before we going into our labs? We want to get this right so the innovation makes you a hero at work.”
More in article, Reduce Bias in Voice of the Customer