Our research asked B2B professionals what drives profitable, sustainable organic growth. The #1 answer was delivering strong, differentiated value propositions. And the #1 differentiator between the best and worst value-creating companies was superior front end of innovation work (www.whatdrivesb2borganicgrowth.com). The Front End of Innovation – Key Steps There are important front-end steps top-performing companies take to strengthen their value ... Read More
Has your business correctly answered 4 questions? 1) Would better customer insight improve our innovation success? 2) Should we take a DIY approach to customer insight (vs. using “hired guns”)? 3) Should we learn improved customer insight from external trainers (vs. training ourselves)? 4) Should gaining this customer insight capability be a top priority (vs. other priorities)? ... Read More
Use these 5 tactics to improve your solution brainstorming: 1) Begin with a problem to be solved. 2) Embrace two distinct phases of divergence and convergence. 3) Schedule for adequate time. 4) Choose a diverse team. 5) Conduct pre-session training. Then move on to 5 “advanced” tactics. ... Read More
New Product Success is a metric for current projects. Learning Success—which measures skill-building progress—is a metric for future projects. Most companies just consider New Product Success. Worse, they only look at ultimate metrics, e.g., sales. If they also used intermediate metrics, they’d have enough time to apply what they learned from these metrics.
More in white paper, www.newinnovationmetrics.com
Analysis looks for what has been done wrong; discovery for what could be done right. Failing to discover opportunities is a costly error. Paradoxically, it is most often forgiven. In fact, if your team fails to develop a blockbuster because it missed a critical customer need, no one will even notice. At least not until a competitor does a better job. This is called an error of omission and it’s a serious problem for many B2B companies.
More in 2-minute video at 25. Let your customers surprise you
Modern “Jobs-to-be-Done” (JTBD) thinking began with the most popular HBR article ever written: Ted Levitt’s “Marketing Myopia.” It begins this way: “Every major industry was once a growth industry. But some that are not riding a wave of growth enthusiasm are very much in the shadow of decline. Others, which are thought of as seasoned ... Read More
Unlike innovation, quality and productivity apply to current operations and yield diminishing returns. What do you do after you reach zero defects… or your factory is being run by the proverbial “man and a dog”? (The man feeds the dog; the dog bites the man if he touches the controls.) Customer-facing innovation is different. There is no limit. Just look at Apple Computer.
More in white paper, www.catchtheinnovationwave.com (page 2)
What if you could turn B2B product development into a science? What if you searched for the causes of new product failures as you would for problems in chemical reactions or manufacturing steps? Now you can. We’ll use our “triple diamond” of NPD to examine all 6 steps you must do well to ensure success. ... Read More
What is Blue Ocean Strategy? Blue Ocean Strategy is the process of targeting a combination of unmet customer needs for innovation that are currently underserved by traditional competitors. It’s one of those ideas that sounds obvious after someone explains it to you. But that is just the beginning… How should we think about Blue Ocean ... Read More
It was designed to manage the interface between project teams and your company… for portfolio analysis, resource planning, risk reduction, tracking, etc. Fine, but you also need to improve the interface between teams and customers. Competitive advantage in customer-facing innovation requires skills and tools your competitors lack.
More in e-book, www.SuperchargeStageGate.com
Many companies struggle trying to enter new markets or introduce new technology. You can apply a new “de-risking” methodology to identify those "landmines” that could blow up your project. This approach not only gives teams a detailed roadmap to follow… it allows them to clearly communicate risk to management. ... Read More
If you want a blockbuster new product, you need to meet all 6—not just 4 or 5—of these conditions: 1) A need exists. 2) The need is uncovered. 3) A solution is developed. 4) The solution is delivered. 5) Value is captured (via pricing). 6) Value is protected (via patents or trade secret). ... Read More
Pursue unfamiliar B2B markets with confidence… by combining New Product Blueprinting and Discovery-Driven Planning. You can use the FAQS map to move from uncertainty to certainty: F for Facts, A for Assumptions, Q for Questions, and S for surprises. ... Read More
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
