You’ll gain $4000 in net present value for every day you launch a typical B2B product earlier. Consider 3 ways to speed innovation: 1. Strengthen front-end work to end hesitation, second-guessing, and dead-end detours. 2. Concentrate resources on fewer projects. 3. Reduce “organizational friction.”

More in article, How Leaders Can Accelerate New-Product Innovation

Be very nervous about “confirmation bias.” Most B2B companies have NPD processes designed to let this bias run rampant. See The AIM Institute’s research on how quantitative interviews and Market Satisfaction Gaps remove this bias… and help you reduce commercial risk in the front-end of innovation.

More in research report, Preference Interview Research Report

Is your pricing supplier-focused, competitor-focused, or customer-focused? If you don’t want to leave money on the table with your new innovation, it must be customer-focused. Unless you regularly employ value calculators for this today, you can be sure your prices are not being optimized.

More in article, Getting Top Price for Your New Product

B2C suppliers use customer interviews to gain insight. B2B suppliers should do this AND to build B2B customer engagement. If your B2B market has a handful of large buyers, use your interviews to impress them as the supplier they should do business with. Three practical ways to do this are explored here.

More in ebook, Reinventing VOC for B2B

Successful new product development is all about avoiding errors of omission and commission. The first error is failing to uncover unarticulated customer needs, and the second is pursuing the wrong needs. To win, use divergent and convergent customer interviews… and rely on your Market Satisfaction Gaps.

More in research report, Preference Interview Research Report

You don’t want to be surprised in most of business… overseeing production, traveling for business, building a facility. The one exception? You do want to be surprised when innovating. This is true in the lab, but also during customer interviews. See a totally different VOC method that boosts surprises.

More in research report, Discovery Interview Research Report

Consider 3 phases of product development: front-end, development, and launch. You resolve technical risk in the development stage. Most companies resolve commercial risk during the launch stage. Big mistake. Nearly everything needed to resolve commercial B2B risk is knowable in the front-end.

More in white paper, Timing is Everything: Exposing Deep Flaws in B2B Innovation Today

The key to successful B2B innovation and organic growth is understanding customer needs—their desired end results—better than competitors. There’s a science to this, with nine steps. It’s like turning up the magnification of your microscope on outcomes at ever-increasing levels. You should try it.

More in white paper, Timing is Everything: Exposing Deep Flaws in B2B Innovation Today

Most B2B companies don’t test market needs until they launch their products… to see if anyone buys them. Imagine using a medieval catapult aimed at customers: “You’ll love this next one.” Future companies will laugh at how we failed to understand B2B customer needs in the front end of innovation.

More in article, Why will future companies laugh at us?

A market segment is a “cluster of customers with similar needs.” Most B2B companies fail to focus their resources on those segments that are winnable and worth winning. They don’t follow the #1 lesson of war: “concentration of force against weakness.” Instead, they spread their forces too timidly and evenly.

More in article, How’s Your Market Segmentation?