2008 GivingCustomersaFairHearing

• (Ulwick & Bettencourt, 2008) ⇒ Anthony W. Ulwick, and Lance A. Bettencourt. (2008). “Giving Customers a Fair Hearing.” In: MIT Sloan Management Review, 49(3).

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• Customer Product Value

Abstract

With a clear definition of what a customer need is, companies are able to get the inputs that are required to succeed at innovation.

Is there agreement in your company that innovation is the key to growth? Is there agreement that understanding customer needs is the key to success in innovation? Is there agreement on what a customer need is? We have asked this series of questions to people in hundreds of companies, and in doing so have made a surprising discovery. Even though there is broad agreement that innovation is the key to growth and that understanding customer needs is the key to innovation, not even 5% of the companies said there was agreement within their company as to what a customer need is. This suggests a very disconcerting question: How can a company confidently uncover customer needs, determine which are unmet and systematically create products that address them if it cannot agree on what a customer need is to begin with? The answer is it can't — and this is a root cause of failure in the innovation process.

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References

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	Author	volume	Date Value	title	type	journal	titleUrl	doi	note	year
2008 GivingCustomersaFairHearing	Anthony W. Ulwick Lance A. Bettencourt			Giving Customers a Fair Hearing						2008