About 100 books on innovation are now written weekly… and 100 times as many articles on innovation are now published as in the 1970’s. So if you haven’t noticed, you might not be paying close attention. You know… like General Motors and Chrysler weren’t paying attention to Toyota and the Quality Wave in the 1970’s.
The good news is that your competitors may still be focused on initiatives other than whole-hearted, market-facing innovation. Like Toyota in the Quality Wave, you create a competitive advantage by moving faster and harder on this. More in 2-minute video, Catch the innovation wave.
More in white paper, Catch the Innovation Wave
While VOC is extremely important, the most overlooked practice in B2B product development today is competitive benchmarking. This should be done in the front-end of innovation using 4 steps: 1) Identify outcomes to benchmark, 2) Identify customers’ alternatives, 3) Identify test methods, and 4) Identify benchmark levels (how good is good enough?) ... Read More
Think you can validate your new product concept with customers and avoid confirmation bias? Good luck with that. In your last performance review, did you agree with your boss’s praise more than his criticism? If so, you may not have overcome confirmation bias quite yet.
So if you want to avoid innovation malpractice, you need to stop leading the witness in interviews. Let them lead you to what really matters to them. My suggestion: Focus your customer interview on their desired outcomes. Then just check afterwards to see if their outcomes are a good match for your intended solution.
More in 2-minute video, Give your hypothesis the silent treatment
What’s the definition of “ideation?” The meaning of “ideation?” As Voltaire reminded us, “If you want to converse with me, define your terms.” So, what is “ideation”? Ideation Definition According to Merriam-Webster, it’s “the act of forming or entertaining ideas.” However, as a definition within the larger new product development process, that’s not overly helpful. ... Read More
For over 30 years, companies have used the Vitality Index. But this metric has shortcomings addressed by two new metrics from The AIM Institute: 1) The Growth Driver Index (GDI) measures how you are building your growth capabilities. 2) The Commercial Confidence Index (CCI) assesses your commercial risk on new product development. ... Read More
When you can count on profitable, sustainable organic growth, everything gets better. Employees have stable, rewarding careers. Industry-watchers admire your company. Customers want to work with you. Activist investors bother someone else. And it irritates competitors. What’s not to love?
But you have only one path to this type of growth. You must understand and meet customer needs better than others. How intense is your focus here? Is it greater than that of your competitors’? Or is your business distracted by other initiatives that can never deliver rapid, profitable, sustainable growth?
More in 2-minute video, Rethink your major initiatives
It may be OK for consumer goods producers to guess their customers’ needs. After all, their product developers are end-consumers themselves. So if you’re an Apple engineer, you already know what consumers like you want in a mobile phone.
But your B2B customers know much more than you about their needs. If you make pigment, your customers know a lot more than you about the paper production it’s used in. Isn’t it silly to guess their needs when they’d love to tell you… if you asked the right way? That’s why you need to let the customer lead the interview, not you. Yep, you can put your questionnaire or interview guide away now.
More in e-book, Reinventing VOC for B2B
Voice of the Customer projects often stumble right out of the gate. Why is this? More often than not, projects begin with optimism and energy. But all too often, somewhere in the middle, they tend to lose momentum altogether. And once the enthusiasm begins to fade, it’s challenging to recapture the magic. But why does ... Read More
With apologies to Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina… all great voice-of-customer (VOC) interviews are alike in the same way: The customer is talking during most of the interview. And they are talking about those outcomes (desired end results) they want to talk about. Anything else is clutter, much of which leads to unhappiness.
For B2B voice-of-customer interviews, plan on two rounds of interview… first qualitative interviews (called Discovery), followed by quantitative interviews (called Preference). In both cases, the customers will be doing most of the talking… and about matters that interest them. They’ll be happy. You’ll be happy.
More in video, Reinventing VOC for B2B
B2B innovation leadership is more than stoplight charts and cost-cutting. To make a real difference a B2b leader will usher in a new era of customer-driven growth. It takes patience, courage, and a commitment to finding the best people and processes. Follow these 10 best practices to lead innovation and change for B2B organic growth. ... Read More
