If your new product development process starts with your ideas—instead of B2B customers’ desired outcomes—your new product may be an answer to the wrong question(s). You’ll likely a) miss important customer outcomes, or b) misinterpret the importance of the customer outcomes you have identified.
More in white paper, www.guessingatcustomerneeds.com
Market segmentation is covered in every business curriculum, and for good reason. The best of the best, in every craft, maintain a focus on fundamentals. Consider that the great Tiger Woods continues to perfect his golf swing even as he approaches the end of his career. For innovation, few concepts are as fundamental as market ... Read More
Where else do you invest tens of millions of dollars in personnel, so that many can work diligently on answers to the wrong questions? If your firm is like most, one-half of your product development resources are working on projects that will be cancelled or fail to yield an adequate return. You can stop this innovation malpractice with the science of B2B customer insight. Specifically, you must stop projects from entering the development stage unless you have data-driven evidence of customer needs.
More in 2-minute video at 35. Insist on data-driven innovation
Today's innovation methods will look outdated in the future, with these 6 “awkward realities”: 1) We test market needs by launching products at customers. 2) We don’t understand what organic growth requires of us. 3) We misunderstand the proper role of stage-and-gate processes. 4) We interview customers to “validate” our hypothesis. 5) We fail to fully engage customers in our innovation. 6) We are easily distracted from customer-facing innovation. ... Read More
In concentrated B2B markets, the top ten buying accounts may represent 50-100% of the buying potential. Unlike B2C—with deep pools of potential prototype testers—B2B suppliers can wear out their welcome by lobbing sloppy “minimum viable products.” If you use Lean Startup, be sure to begin with proper B2B customer interviews.
More in white paper, www.leanstartupforb2b.com (page 7)
Tired of new product failures? Get one simple step right and your new product success rates will soar. For B2B companies, this step is prioritizing customers’ needs. Not sure about that? We’ll show you strong evidence that supports this… and show you how to turn new product failures into rare and distant memories. What’s more ... Read More
It’s natural to ruminate on the future; in particular, about technology adoption. What changes will future technology waves bring? Will we ride them to riches or drown under the weight of disruption? A Danish proverb warns that “Prediction is dangerous, especially about the future.” A cycle of bad logic Unfortunately, when we theorize, we can ... Read More
If your new product development process begins with “idea generation,” is it your idea… or your customers’? If you start with your idea, you probably won’t understand customer needs until the end… by seeing if they buy your new product. Why not flip your approach and start with customer needs? Unless you’d rather your R&D kept guessing at customer needs.
More in white paper, www.guessingatcustomerneeds.com
A persona is a hypothetical archetype used to represent customers in a given market segment. Follow 4 practices for B2B growth: 1) Design for just one person, 2) be specific, 3) remember precision is more important than accuracy, and 4) separate user personas from buyer personas. ... Read More
Are you launching one breakthrough new product after another? Or are your new products evoking yawns from customers? Research shows the most likely reason for the latter is failing to properly 1) uncover, 2) understand, and 3) prioritize market needs. Here’s how to correct this in your B2B new product development. We shouldn’t be surprised ... Read More
Problem 1—What’s the right question?—focuses on market needs. Problem 2—What’s the right answer?—is all about your solutions. Most companies put 90+% of project spending into Problem2, yet Problem 1 causes most new product failures. Hmmm… are you sensing a possible competitive advantage here? Will you explore it further? Will you seize it?
More in white paper, www.catchtheinnovationwave.com (page 4)
Donald Rumsfeld described “unknown unknowns,” but B2B innovators, marketers and new product developers should also consider the dangers of untrue beliefs. It’s quite destructive when we build business cases, draft risk assessments, and plan projects on the basis of something that simply isn’t true. ... Read More
Some would say that investments in Voice of the Customer are “too expensive and time consuming.” After all, does it really make sense for employees to spend time on VoC projects? For them to be on the road, interviewing customers? Instead, shouldn’t they be doing things that “drive sales?” Like working more shows? Assisting sales ... Read More
Your B2B customers have a long list of problems to be solved. But it’s not their job to carefully explain each one and deliver it gift-wrapped to your solution providers. It’s your job. When your sales professionals probe deeply and capture customer needs uniformly in your CRM, you’ll gain unprecedented market insight. And by probing well, your sales team will sell more. We call this Everyday VOC.
More in Everyday VOC white paper, www.EVOCpaper.com