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Scaling Excellence: Go Slow to Go Fast

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In their recent book called “Scaling Up Excellence” Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao share a key insight that companies should embrace as they build excellence into their organization: at times, it makes sense to go slow so that in the future a company can go fast. You are probably familiar with this concept from the world of carpentry where the mantra is to “measure twice and cut once”. But in today’s fast-paced world, slowing down seems to be at odds with success. … Read on

Product Managers Are Obsolete; Focus on the Job-to-be-Done

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Product Managers are essential to a company’s success. In fact, a recent McKinsey article referred to them as “mini-CEOs” since they are responsible for what is arguably the biggest contributor to a company’s success and growth–its products. While the role of the product manager is critical, we feel that the title “product manager” is a legacy of outdated business thinking. We therefore advocate doing away with the traditional product manager and propose a new title and responsibility. What’s wrong with product managers? The … Read on

Your Market is Bigger Than You Think

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  Companies often define the markets they serve around the technology in their product offerings or the products themselves. This is a convenient way to simplify communication to outsiders. It is easy to explain, for example, that your company is in the drivetrain market, or the lithium ion battery market. However for purposes of long-term growth and innovation, this can be a tragic mistake. That’s because technologies come and go and all solutions will one day become obsolete. What will become of … Read on

Jobs-to-be-Done and the Internet of Things

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The Internet of Things, according to Wikipedia, allows objects to be sensed and/or controlled remotely across existing network infrastructure, creating opportunities for more direct integration of the physical world into computer-based systems, and resulting in improved efficiency, accuracy and economic benefit.  The vision of the Internet of Things has evolved due to a convergence of multiple technologies, including ubiquitous wireless communication, real-time analytics, machine learning, commodity sensors, and embedded systems. By 2020, there will be 50 billion devices connected to the Internet. How will you and your organization capitalize on this opportunity?… Read on

What Hidden Segments Exist In Your Market?

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Market segmentation is a method that companies use to target unique offerings to groups of customers that will value them. Over the years, many methods of market segmentation have been developed and implemented. Qualitative methods, such segmentation based on personas, segment the market using demographic, psychographic, or behavioral categories or stereotypes. Quantitative methods, such as conjoint analysis, aim for greater precision through the use of numerical values and calculations. Unfortunately, nearly all segmentation methods, whether qualitative or quantitative, fail to distinguish between customers with different unmet needs, … Read on

How Should Customer “Needs” Be Defined?

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Companies receive thousands of inputs from their customers every single day. They come from dozens of sources, including social media, the service desk, the sales team, customer advisory boards, and formal qualitative and quantitative research. Companies are not lacking customer insights. If anything, they are overwhelmed with data. Despite these efforts, most companies do not fully understand their customers’ needs. Why does it matter? Take a look at the organization. The marketing team needs to know the customer’s needs in order to … Read on

Bring Markets Into Perfect Focus by Defining Them Around the Customer’s Job-To-Be-Done

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Companies often define the markets they serve around the technology in their product offerings… a technology that one day will become obsolete. Clearly, this is a mistake, but it’s one that has been repeated by hundreds of companies over the decades. Where are the companies that defined themselves around CDs? They spiraled to their death when MP3 technology came along. Many companies today find themselves in this same situation.  

ulwick2Image Source: Strategyn

Define your markets around the customer’s job-to-be-done A … Read on

Who is Your Customer?

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Before a company can become customer-centric, company managers must agree on exactly who the customer is. Gaining such agreement is not easy. When we ask company managers who their customer is, we typically hear, “We have many customers.” Often they add that customers include both “internal stakeholders and external customers.” To further complicate matters, external customers are typically said to include influencers, decision makers, buying groups, end users, operators, installers, and others. In a medical device company, for example, external customers include the surgeon, patient, insurer, nurse, operating-room manager, and hospital … Read on

The Collaborative Economy and ODI

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Call it the sharing economy or the collaborative economy — we are consuming differently now than we ever have. One of the fastest-growing economic models proves that many people increasingly prefer access over ownership — just look at the success of Airbnb and Uber. These rising stars notwithstanding, the collaborative economy is still in its infancy and untapped opportunities abound for insightful entrepreneurs. We have only begun to see the first fruits of the collaborative-economy harvest. But how can we distinguish the ideas that will become the next blockbuster, collaborative-economy … Read on

Blue Apron Gets the Job Done Right

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Entering a new market is daunting. It’s not often that a first-generation product can get the entire “job” done–that’s a lot to tackle. But in narrowing the focus, what portion of the job should a company target? The answer lies in the job map. By mapping the job-to-be-done, you discover where customers struggle most and where your company can make the greatest impact. Blue Apron is a start-up that has had success entering a new market. It addresses the job of “cooking a meal.” Its service chooses meals for its customers, … Read on

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