What Customers Want : Using Outcome-Driven Innovation to Create Breakthrough Products and Services
What Customers Want : Using Outcome-Driven Innovation to Create Breakthrough Products and Services
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Product Description
A world-renowned innovation guru explains practices that result in breakthrough innovations
"Ulwick's outcome-driven programs bring discipline and predictability to the often random process of innovation." -Clayton Christensen
For years, companies have accepted the underlying principles that define the customer-driven paradigm--that is, using customer "requirements" to guide growth and innovation. But twenty years into this movement, breakthrough innovations are still rare, and most companies find that 50 to 90 percent of their innovation initiatives flop. The cost of these failures to U.S. companies alone is estimated to be well over $100 billion annually.
In a book that challenges everything you have learned about being customer driven, internationally acclaimed innovation leader Anthony Ulwick reveals the secret weapon behind some of the most successful companies of recent years. Known as "outcome-driven" innovation, this revolutionary approach to new product and service creation transforms innovation from a nebulous art into a rigorous science from which randomness and uncertainty are eliminated.
Based on more than 200 studies spanning more than seventy companies and twenty-five industries, Ulwick contends that, when it comes to innovation, the traditional methods companies use to communicate with customers are the root cause of chronic waste and missed opportunity. In What Customers Want, Ulwick demonstrates that all popular qualitative research methods yield well-intentioned but unfitting and dreadfully misleading information that serves to derail the innovation process. Rather than accepting customer inputs such as "needs," "benefits," "specifications," and "solutions," Ulwick argues that researchers should silence the literal "voice of the customer" and focus on the "metrics that customers use to measure success when executing the jobs, tasks or activities they are trying to get done." Using these customer desired outcomes as inputs into the innovation process eliminates much of the chaos and variability that typically derails innovation initiatives.
With the same profound insight, simplicity, and uncommon sense that propelled The Innovator's Solution to worldwide acclaim, this paradigm-changing book details an eight-step approach that uses outcome-driven thinking to dramatically improve every aspect of the innovation process--from segmenting markets and identifying opportunities to creating, evaluating, and positioning breakthrough concepts. Using case studies from Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, AIG, Pfizer, and other leading companies, What Customers Want shows companies how to:
Obtain unique customer inputs that make predictable innovation possible
Recognize opportunities for disruption, new market creation, and core market growth--well before competitors do
Identify which ideas, technologies, and acquisitions have the greatest potential for creating customer value
Systematically define breakthrough products and services concepts
Innovation is fundamental to success and business growth. Offering a proven alternative to failed customer-driven thinking, this landmark book arms you with the tools to unleash innovation, lower costs, and reduce failure rates--and create the products and services customers really want.
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Whether you are in product development or a CEO, if you are looking to grow your company this book is a must read. The book is easy to read and Tony describes the process step by step. The methodology helped me reduce the variability in my product development process and create a breakthrough product. It took the ambiguity out of the fuzzy front end and gave me the data to make a difference. In addition, the process helped me prioritize my existing product pipeline and drive effective marketing. The process works and it made a difference for me and my team.
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As a venture capitalist, I get to see a lot of businesses. The most common problem I see from these businesses is that they have a weak understanding of what customers really want – they have a novel concept (we can do this…), but don’t know if they are solving a current and pressing problem that customers know they have!
Ulwick has developed an approach that solves this problem, and allows people to truely find out what customers want (and want now). Over the years I’ve read many books on business, and this is one of the best. If you’re looking to develop a new product or new business, have a read of this and not only improve the likelihood of success, but save yourself some pain!
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This book provides a great framework for improving the likelihood of successful development inititiatives. The case studies included effectively move the reader from the theoretical to the practical. So many innovation cultures promote brainstorming to pursue hundreds of end points rather than fostering processes to provide precision, focus, and predictability. Although the former can be initially fun and invigorating, the latter is sustaining and profitable– that is always more fun!
I recommend this book to those companies seeking an improvement in outcomes associated with their development initiatives. Great for marketers, business and product developers, as well as the C-suite folks. This read provided me with a great deal to work with and work on in the future.
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This book takes a high risk art and turns it into a “sure bet” science. I found the process described in this book to be easy to follow and makes so much sense that I will never think about new product innovation in the same way.
The author has a created a process that generates product concepts and segmentation that will truly disrupt the marketplace everytime. By focusing in on the outcomes consumers expect and measuring the performance of the current market offerings, gaps in the marketplace become obvious. And by evaluating not only underserved consumers but also overserved markets, the process uncovers low cost, low end disruptive concepts that would never be seen in traditional innovation excercises.
A must read book for anyone involved in product development.
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I have seen Ulwick’s principles put to the test at my company, and the quality of insights they generate is head-and-shoulders above most other methods of research that tries to represent the voice of the customer. For years I’ve seen engineers dismiss market research as “not actionable”; not so with these Outcome-driven methods. The book is an easy read, and a great roadmap for companies that want to raise the level of influence that the customer POV has in the new product development decision-making process.
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Question: What do people want?
Answer: To get their job done? (Whatever the job may be, such as to regain energy in their bodies, or to be entertained).
In his series on innovation, Clayton Christensen touches upon the Jobs-to-be-done theory. Ulwick dives into it by showing us that what customers really want is desired outcomes.
Customers are strange creatures. On one hand they openly say what they want and then turn around and do exactly the opposite. The reasons for this is that customers often are not able to articulate what they want – except in the form of desired outcomes.
Stop spinning your wheels. If you’re serious about creating something new and innovative, then you need to study this book to learn how to find out what customers really want.
Venture Capitalists, Angels, and almost every serious investor in the world wants to see two things in every venture: 1) Customers who love the product because it satisfies a burning need, and 2) Business Models that capture a significant amount of value created.
Customers are by far the most important aspect of any successful venture, yet time and time again attention is not paid to proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that a given product gives customers what they want.
Ulwick says that “… most companies come up with ideas and solutions and then test them with customers to see if they will buy – without ever knowing how customers measure value.” From my personal experience I know that Ulwick is dead on. Most entrepreneurs and business professionals understand very little about what customers truly consider value. Instead they heap on the features – hoping to shotgun their way to hitting that one aspect customers want.
If you’re serious about creating a successful enterprise, then you need to read this book. And, if you are just too hard pressed for time, at least read his article in Strategy & Innovation titled “Do You Really Know What Your Customers Are Trying to Get Done?” (Harvard Business Online).
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Michael Davis, Editor – Byvation
“Business Success through Innovation”
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Like most businesspeople, you don’t need more tricks to put in your bag. You don’t have time to read vague expositions on a fad. You want to know how to serve people better through better products and services.
In ‘What Customers Want,’ Anthony Ulwick offers a rigorous, comprehensive methodology for doing just that. The underlying principles in the book, which were introduced by Ulwick in the Harvard Business Review, each receive thorough treatment. In clear language, Ulwick explains the big picture behind his outcome-driven method. He capably explains in minute detail how to put the method to work.
As the title suggests, Ulwick’s outcome-driven method is as much about marketing as it is about innovation proper. Yes, it is about research and development, but it is also about branding. It may just be that the ultimate brand message follows a simple pattern: “We offer you exactly what you want–in fact what you can’t do without–with no superfluous bells and whistles, for a very reasonable price.” This book shows you how to arrive at a point where you and your company can confidently make such a statement.
The outcome-driven approach to innovation rests on common-sense tenets that have been supported by fairly rigorous research. These principles include:
-Customers have a hard time articulating what it is they want. With skilled guidance, however, they are very good articulating what they want to get done.
-As humans, we can’t help but measure how successfully we were able to complete a task, even mundane ones like shaving or cutting a board. We unconsciously do this measuring using between 50 and 150 different criteria. These criteria are the “outcomes” we want to result from the task. It is possible for skilled interviewers to help customers articulate these outcomes.
-The responsibility and freedom to develop new features should belong to your experts, not your customers.
-Your experts deserve two vital pieces of information: (1) a list of exactly what tasks your customers are trying to get done, and (2) a list of the 50-150 outcomes customers use to measure how well a product or service helps them complete those tasks. Armed with that information, your experts can engage in focused, productive brainstorming and ultimately deliver a breakthrough product or service that is full of value.
-A product or service has maximum value when it is free of unneeded features and empowers customers to complete a task 100% successfully.
This book takes you from the beginning of an innovation initiative all the way to its measurably successful completion. Each step includes specific, actionable guidance. Attention is also devoted to segmenting markets within an “outcome-driven” paradigm.
In ‘What Customers Want,’ Ulwick does not just write about his experiential knowledge; he explains a complete method. As methods go, this is a solid one that results in greater customer satisfaction and increased return on investment.
What is more, it is an energizing read. To follow through with Ulwicks methods is embark on an adventure that is exciting yet prudent. I have seen the results in my company, and I have no qualms over speculating that the outcome-driven approach is the future of innovation.
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I have read several new books on innovation and I finally understand why Clayton Christensen referenced the work of Tony Ulwick frequently in his book the Innovator’s Solution. Although at first blush, Ulwick’s thinking could be cast aside as common sense, this book has made me realize that there is a brilliant, new way to think about innovation.
Let me try to explain how Ulwick frames his thinking. Generally speaking, innovation is the process of finding solutions that address the customer’s unmet needs. Most companies agree that they should first uncover and prioritize the customer’s unmet needs and then devise solutions that address them – but, as Ulwick explains very well, although companies think they understand this concept, they continue to get it so very wrong – to the point where their customer-driven, “voice of the customer” led efforts are causing the failures they are trying to avoid!
This book makes it clear that because companies are focused on customers and products (and not the job the customer is trying to get done), they are simply getting the wrong inputs into innovation, and incredibly, they don’t know it. In my experience, this is exactly right. Ulwick contends that to truly succeed at innovation companies must understand just what a customer “need” is. Ulwick’s notion that different innovation strategies require different customer inputs (needs) was an epiphany for me.
In his books and articles on innovation, Clayton Christensen mentions the jobs-to-be-done theory, but Ulwick turns this theory into a science by making the job the customer is trying to get done – not the customer or competition – the focal point of innovation. Ulwick provides ample evidence that the customers desired outcomes are the building blocks of innovation – the customers’ measures of value – but they are rarely the company’s focus of capture when using traditional “voice of the customer” techniques. In fact, Ulwick suggests that companies should “silence the literal voice of the customer”, an argument that I now understand and agree with. His argument that there is no such thing as a latent, unarticulated need is also quite compelling.
Rarely does a book offer such new insight and theory along with practical ideas for execution and implementation. I have since read other articles on their web site (strategyn.com) and have become a fan. This sounds like the future of innovation to me.
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I haven’t ever taken the time to write a review before. But I LOVE this book. If you have ever been disappointed with the outcome of discussions concerning how to define and position products because proposals were justified on gut instincts, group think or “I have 30 years experience”- then this book is for you.
Ulwick outlines a scientific process that takes the voodoo out of this process focussing on what customers actually want and how to separate that from what they say they want. Also included is how to position existing offerings using this scientific process.
Read this book.
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This is an excellent book that lays out a simple but disciplined approach to capturing what customers’ want. With all the sources out there communicating how to do the voice of the customer, this book starts off by challenging that approach as being ineffective and then lays out what the author proposes as a better approach through the understanding of the customers’ jobs that they are trying to perform, the outcomes (or key metrics that they use to measure how well a product or service completes a job) and the opportunities or those outcomes that are either underserved or overserved. The opportunities are the areas that a company should focus on to be successful in innovation. The author does this by sharing examples from different organizations that resulted in success. All in all a very refreshing approach to focusing on the customer and worth the read for all the innovators out there.