Developing B2B customer insight skills for this growth requires a commitment your competitors may be unwilling to make. Good. You need them to remain shortsighted. As you gain insights, you may enjoy a bonus: Customers are impressed with suppliers that listen to them… and often offer near-term adjacent opportunities.
More in white paper, Catch the Innovation Wave (page 15).
Keep your process… but don’t expect a neat, linear progression for all projects. Product development is like preparing a fine meal: There’s a messy kitchen somewhere. Look at the unpredictable, messy paths of your own company’s earlier blockbuster products. You need nimble, open-minded teams to complete such journeys quickly.
More in e-book, Reinventing VOC for B2B
Should your employees learn customer insight skills from an external firm… or should you develop home-grown training? If the external firm has worked with many companies across many global industries, it will probably advance these methods faster and further than you can. Think of them as the golf club maker. The glory belongs to the golf pro… so focus on your practice time, coaching and desire as the pro… not in making clubs.
More in article, B2B Leadership: Time for Greatness
“Market Growth” is the tide that lifts all boats… your reward for being just average. “Inherited Growth” comes from great products developed long ago. These are the gifts that keep giving… until they don’t (when you’ve been commoditized). The only one you control is “Earned Growth,” when you understand and meet customer needs better than anyone else.
More in article, The Inputs to Innovation for B2B
I’ve come to believe two principles: A) The only way to create customer value is by improving their important, unmet outcomes. B) A supplier’s only path to profitable, sustainable organic growth is in creating customer value. Do you agree? If so, you might want to place a very high priority on understanding which customer outcomes these are.
More in article, The Inputs to Innovation for B2B
In every other business area—e.g. production or accounting—surprises are unwelcome. But when you are surprised by customer needs that competitors have missed, you have an edge. Seek these out in free-thinking, customer-led interviews, maintain a probing curiosity, and avoid rigid schedules that discourage flexibility. Be surprised. And be happy about it.
More in white paper, Catch the Innovation Wave (page 10).
Decades ago, Stephen Covey explained we need to balance “P” (production) against “PC” (production capability). Today many companies just focus on this year’s results (P), without building the capabilities needed for future growth (PC).
There is a natural law of harvesting: sowing and reaping. And the sowing must come before the reaping. When we don’t understand this, the “P PC Balance” will make that profitable future difficult to achieve. Jeff Bezos has taught that this year’s profits have to do with the work done years ago. Further, we know that we need our PC to contain the core components of tools, processes, and people.
“P PC balance” must consider the tools required. Tools increase efficiencies. They reduce errors. The modern B2B firm must understand how to leverage tools to its advantage. From voice of the customer software to web conference services, this is not a place to pinch pennies. Let’s also get more sophisticated about the language of finance, which is how success is measured.
“P PC balance” must consider the processes. For example, we must know how to allocate resources. That is, we must optimize the risk between risk and reward with our portfolio management system. We need our stage-and-gate system to keep development marching along. And we need processes for pursuing riskier investments, or, we’ll look at our new initiatives – and find that they are all incremental in nature.
And last, but certainly not least, “P PC balance” must consider people. They are the most important assets a firm has. And yet, how often, during tough times, do we see massive layoffs? How often to we watch knowledge and experience literally walk out the door. Fail to maintain the talent level and bigger failures are sure to follow. And don’t just keep them, but invest in their learning and careers. There should be a high degree of alignment.
There is no doubt that there’s tremendous pressure on executives to perform. But don’t just hit the reset button and start over again every year. Sell the vision, sell the process! Build the future that you (and your firm’s investors) want.
More in article, B2B Leadership: Time for Greatness
Many B2B producers are stuck at the 2nd of the 4 innovation maturity levels: Solution Validation. When they ask customers to validate their cool new idea, they think they are understanding market needs. They are not. They are simply understanding market reaction… to one idea… their idea. You’ll get far better results by reaching the 3rd maturity level: Market Insight.
More in white paper, Guessing at Customer Needs (page 7).
No team wants to waste time on a loser: Life is too short. So if management has to stop a project, the team was inexperienced, communicated poorly, or had different expectations than management. All these ailments are addressed by requiring every team to use a common business case template, not their own, start-from-scratch PowerPoint® presentations.
More in article, How Leaders Can Accelerate New-Product Development
We now chuckle at how sales people used to rely on ABC (Always Be Closing) and manufacturers relied on end-of-line inspectors (vs. statistical quality control). But those will pale compared to the way today’s B2B companies test markets: by launching fully-developed products at their customers. When they could have learned customer needs first with some simple interviews. Funny stuff.
More in article, The Inputs to Innovation for B2B
On average, you and your competitors will grow at the same rate as the markets you serve. Don’t feel entitled to this. If a competitor develops a blockbuster, you’ll be happy to minimize your sales decline. Thinking otherwise is like 1970’s Detroit auto-makers assuming Japanese competitors would keep producing junk.
More in white paper, Catch the Innovation Wave (page 15).
The human brain likes to diverge first (look at all these deserts), and then converge (the chocolate lava cake, please). We shortcut this highly-effective approach when we begin by asking customers if they like our idea, hypothesis, or prototype. First, diverge with an open-minded exploration of all customer needs in B2B-optimized, voice-of-customer interviews. When you converge in a later round of interviews, do so quantitatively, so your confirmation bias doesn’t kick in.
More in e-book, Leader’s Guide to B2B Organic Growth (Lesson 16).
Increasing shareholder value is simply the result… the “effect.” What’s the “cause”? It’s profitable, sustainable, organic growth. Demonstrate this and stock prices will follow like goslings after their mother. Quit performing for Wall Street analysts, who have never created real value and couldn’t do so if their bonuses depended on it. Instead, work for customers who will appreciate and reward the value you create for them.
More in article, B2B Leadership: Time for Greatness
In Asia, for instance, people are especially mindful of the feelings of peers and bosses. And if customers are accustomed to a trading culture—not “consultative selling”—they’ll expect visiting suppliers to “sell us something.” Patience is needed, but thankfully the desire to be understood is universal.
More in e-book, Reinventing VOC for B2B (page 27).