Resisting the Steve Jobs “Innovation Temptation”: Eight REALISTIC Steps to Creating Great New B2B Products Your Customers Will Love Sure, Steve Jobs has created products we all love. But his method of creating products without his customers’ input won’t work for most businesses, especially B2B suppliers. Dan Adams offers his advice on how you can ... Read More
For artillery, archery or cancer treatment, you 1) scan the terrain, 2) detect the high-value targets, and 3) then commence firing. If you have weak reconnaissance, faulty satellite imagery or a blindfolded archer, it doesn’t matter how good your payload is: You won’t be successful. In NPD, this means 1) diverge to all possible customer outcomes, 2) find which are important and unsatisfied, and 3) develop your solution. Most B2B companies need to improve #1 and #2. A lot.
More in video, New Product Blueprinting—the Future of B2B Innovation
Our research into the views of B2B professionals regarding organic growth revealed: The #1 driver of profitable, sustainable growth is strong value propositions. The #1 differentiator between strong and weak value providers is front-end work. The #1 most desired area to improve is market insight. See a pattern? Today’s key to growth isn’t an improved stage-and-gate process or hiring more R&D staff. It’s understanding customer needs better than competitors.
More in article, Market Satisfaction Gaps… your key to B2B organic growth
Tipping the first domino is a first-order action, the second tipped domino is the second-order effect, and so on. Strangely, if the first order action feels satisfying all by itself, you’re probably headed for trouble with subsequent effects. So it might feel good to slash spending to hit this quarter’s numbers… but your future growth will be stymied. In fact, your slow growth today is probably the culmination of many first-order actions you’ve long since forgotten.
More in article, Stop Stifling B2B Organic Growth with 2nd Order Effects
Dan Adams has the honor to present at PDMA Webcast on July 16, 2020. Dan will be presenting on Virtual VOC: How to understand B2B customer needs… without the plane ride. Learn the 10 advantages of virtual VOC and get 8 tips to do great virtual VOC. About PDMA The Product Development and Management Association ... Read More
Dan Adams will be presenting two webinars on innovative business practices in Summer 2020 for AATCC. Drive organic growth… with B2B-optimized customer interviews – June 29, 11:00 AM (EDT) How to reduce risk in major R&D projects… with confidence – July 23, 11:00 AM (EDT) Learn more or register for either of these events at ... Read More
Who do you admire as a great business leader? Steve Jobs? Henry Ford? Jeff Bezos? And why? Because they were good at financial reviews and quarterly investor calls? Of course not. They impressed you because they marched to a different beat and transformed their companies… and even whole industries. So let’s spend less time pleasing Wall Street analysts and behave like the great business leaders we admire… and could ourselves become.
More in video, Leader’s Guide to B2B Organic Growth series, Video Lesson #30
This is also known as “attrition warfare,” and is characterized by competitors applying the same tactics. It’s also characterized by everyone losing, even the winners. Keep your productivity and quality initiatives… but understand that by themselves, these initiatives put you in a race to the bottom. Better to focus on what your competitors are not doing well. For B2B companies today, this is understanding customer needs before developing new products for them.
More in white paper, Guessing at Customer Needs
Back to the future! Let’s revisit this interview with Dan Adams from 2010. It appears that we still have major opportunities to improve B2B innovation! Contact us here and let us know what changes that you’ve seen! *Interview with Dan Adams; from May, 2010 Interviewer: How do you assess how well a B2B firm’s ability ... Read More
This is what Astro Teller—the head of Google X—used to cheer with his teams. He went on to explain, “We spend most of our time trying to prove we’re wrong.” Is that how your company looks at big, transformational projects? Or do you associate a killed project with personal failure? Much better to lay out all the assumptions of “what must be true” for your project to succeed. Then go on a team “hunt” to find any that are not true. Find one? Celebrate and move on to the next project!
More in video at Project De-risking with Minesweeper
We recently compiled a dozen short case stories of B2B clients doing impressive front-end work. (See www.aimcasestories.com.) What surprised us was how different each case was. The NPD project teams all used their quantitative Preference interviews to construct Market Satisfaction Gap profiles… and we were struck with how unique market segments can be. Truly, each one tells a story: Until you do quantitative interviews, though, that story goes untold.
More in article, Market Satisfaction Gaps… your key to B2B organic growth
Over the years, we’ve seen business leaders question the employee time and airfare bills needed to interview customers in the front-end of innovation. But how much R&D and marketing was squandered developing a product that made customers yawn? That’s a question that should probably be asked more often.
More in white paper, Guessing at Customer Needs
The landmark book, The Three Rules, shows exceptional companies focus on a) creating higher-value products, not cheaper ones, and b) revenue growth, not cost-cutting. What initiatives are you focused on? Quality, productivity, global expansion, and acquisitions can be useful, but none will propel you toward growth that is rapid, profitable, and sustainable. Don’t let these side shows distract you from the main show… understanding and meeting customer needs better than others. As Peter Drucker said, “the purpose of business is to create and keep customers.”
More in video, Leader’s Guide to B2B Organic Growth series, Video Lesson #6
Does this seem like terrible advice? Especially in our age of hyper-attention to quarterly results? But if you focus too much on business results, you’ll degrade them over time. Why? You must also focus on capabilities. Steven Covey cautioned us to balance P (production or “results”) with PC (productive capability). Sadly, many business leaders forget the “capabilities” part. One capability is understanding the needs of your customers… so you can develop better products… for better business results.
See The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Steven Covey