Blog Category: Product Development

AIM research based on 10,000+ years of experience shows B2B professionals are especially eager to improve their business capabilities to understand customer needs (vs. meet them).
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First-order actions like spending freezes and travel bans lead to second-order growth declines. Your leadership team needs to be wary of “first-domino fixation” and “first-domino amnesia.”
b2bgrowth.video/11 Video length [1:55]

When you stop innovating for customers, your path is marked by lower pricing, lower profits, budget pressures, cost reductions, reduced innovation capability, and then death or “life support.”
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The best research says we’ve struggled for about five decades now. In 1971, the leading cause of new-product failure was “inadequate market analysis” (45%, with the next cause at 29%). In 2019, the leading cause was “No market need” (42%, with the next cause at 29%). After five decades, maybe it’s time to get serious about understanding customer needs before developing new products? Not that we need to rush into this, of course.

More in article, Target Customer Needs and Win

You know you’ve got a top-notch team exploring that unfamiliar market or technology when you see them… 1) identify all project assumptions at the onset, 2) detect and defuse unforeseen “landmines” (project killers) as early as possible, 3) advance the project rapidly without detours and distractions (or kill the project swiftly), and 4) spend funds investigating and pursuing only that which truly matters. The methodology for doing this is described in the short video at www.deriskprojects.com.

More in article, How to de-risk projects and overcome management doubt

Would you want a bigger payload or a better targeting system for missiles, cancer treatment or gold mining? A bigger payload would be a larger warhead, radiation dosage, or backhoe shovel. Better targeting would be more precise hits on enemy positions, cancer tumors, or ore deposits. Better targeting reduces waste and collateral damage. Same for your R&D: Precisely target customer needs before stepping into the lab. This avoids waste (squandered R&D) and collateral damage (discouragement and slow growth).

More in article, Target Customer Needs and Win

Imagine two new-product project teams have gate reviews on the same day, and both projects are stopped. The first is stopped for the right reasons, e.g. smaller-than-expected market size or low customer interest… as evidenced by tiny Market Satisfaction Gaps. This is low Opportunity Quality. The second team is stopped due to sloppy work: skimpy customer interviews and much confirmation bias. This is low Execution Quality. Celebrate the first team. Train the second. For every project, make sure you know which is which.

More in article, 3 Problems with Innovation Metrics

Why use quantitative questions for interviews, not just qualitative? Two reasons. First, qualitative interviews give you reams of customer quotes with no good way to prioritize customer needs. Sure, you could count the number of times customers cite a certain need, but frequency of remarks is a poor substitute for customer eagerness to improve. More ... Read More

1. The “Why” problem: Today’s most popular metric, the Vitality Index (% of sales from new products) doesn’t tell you why your % is going up or down. 2. The “When” problem: The lag time in your feedback loop is too long: Changes you make in the front-end-of-innovation will take years to generate significant revenue. 3. The “What” problem: The Vitality index focuses on your results. You need metrics that focus on your capabilities. Only by building these can you have confidence that you’ll improve your innovation results.

More in article, 3 Problems with Innovation Metrics

Huh? Well, it’s fine to think about your new product, but do so after you first understand your customers’ job-to-be-done. Only after you identify this JTBD can you properly 1) scope your project, 2) identify the right customer interviewees, 3) frame the best outcome statements for quantitative interviews, 4) optimize design & pricing, and 5) promote your product effectively. Bonus: You’ll have a longer time horizon when you focus on the JTBD instead of your new product.

More in article, Jobs-to-Be-Done and New Product Blueprinting

You conduct front-end-of-innovation customer interviews so you can design a great new product, right? Well yes, but… if you do these well, you’re doing more. You’re also 1) learning the unknown unknowns, 2) unlearning the things you do know that simply aren’t true, 3) aligning your development team for action, 4) making better decisions through improved market intuition, and 5) building stronger relationships for near-term sales opportunities.

For more download e-book, Reinventing VOC for B2B

New product innovation is a tough business. You don’t get to decide what customers want, or how fast your market grows, or if the laws of science permit a breakthrough product. But you can decide how much commercial risk you’d like to absorb… if you are a B2B supplier. This isn’t as true for B2C. ... Read More

How valuable are B2B customer tours? In the early 1980s, Eugene Goodson led Johnson Controls’ automotive seating group, when a Japanese competitor requested a plant tour. The Japanese team toured for less than an hour and took no notes. Harmless, right? Years later Goodson was able to read the tour report and was shocked at what the Japanese team had uncovered, including a detailed technology description and a highly accurate cost-of-sales estimate.

More in article, A primary VOC tactic: B2B customer tours

Move your organization up through these levels: 1) Conference-roomers: We meet with ourselves to decide what customers want. 2) Expert-askers: We poll our own sales and tech support personnel. 3) Customer-surveyors: We get customer answers… but only to our questions. 4) Qualitative VOC-ers: Our interviews move us from voice-of-ourselves to voice-of-customer. 5) Quantitative VOC-ers: We get unbiased, unfiltered insights. 6) B2B VOC-ers: Our probing takes advantage of powerful B2B advantages.

More in article, The six levels of B2B customer engagement