Better Questions Will Improve the Information You Receive from Customers

Leaders often execute strategy and innovation in the wrong sequence. Here’s what the former CEO of P&G, A.G. Lafley, and business consultant, Ram Charan, say about this:

“All too often, managers decide on a business strategy – what markets to pursue and what products to make – then turn to innovation to support it. This is the wrong way around. Innovation needs to be put at the center of the business in order to choose the right goals and business strategy and make how-to-win choices.”

– Lafley, A.G., Charan, Ram, 2008, Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation, p. 1-2, Crown Business, NYC, NY.

Before you attempt to answer questions like, “What markets should we pursue?”, “What products and services should we make?”, and “How will we win?,” wouldn’t it be helpful to know:

• Where the biggest opportunities in your potential target markets lie? (An opportunity is an important unsatisfied need. The more important and less satisfied a need is, the greater the opportunity for innovation and growth it presents).
• Which of the top market opportunities are most attractive for you and your organization to pursue, e.g., based on your mission, relative advantage, etc.?
• What approach will best address the most attractive opportunities, e.g., new or improved offerings, mergers or acquisitions, partnering, internal operational alignment, or simply messaging and positioning?

The challenge is that most companies don’t know what type of customer inputs to obtain or how to get them. The key inputs every organization must obtain from their target customers, if you want to turn innovation and growth into a repeatable business process, are:

• The jobs your target customers are trying to accomplish (functional, emotional, and social)
• How criteria they use to measure success
• Where they currently struggle in the process of executing the core functional job(s)

Not getting this information directly from target customers often forces organizations to guess at the answers which, of course, leads to high failure rates, a lot of frustration, and wasted time and resources. It turns out customers can tell us what they want if we ask them what they want to accomplish, feel, and experience rather than asking them for product or service features. This information is readily available.

Reveal needs. Create value. Drive growth.