Let’s remember that innovation,
at its simplest level, is a two-step process in which companies
must first identify opportunities in a market, and then devise
solutions that address them. In the outcome-driven paradigm, an
opportunity is defined as a desired outcome or a job that is
underserved – in other words, an outcome or job that is
important, but not well satisfied given the products and
services that are currently available.
There are three reasons why traditional market research methods
make it near impossible to surface these unmet needs. First,
companies typically obtain the wrong customer inputs, an
incomplete set of inputs or a mix of inputs because they are
unaware of what a good input is to begin with. These inputs
typically include a mix of solutions, specifications, high level
need statements, benefits statements, must have, exciters,
latent needs and so on.
Second, because of the way questionnaires are typically
structured and administered, companies often limit the number of
attributes they test in a survey to about 30 when 50 to 150
statements often need to be evaluated. This means that up to 80
percent of the attributes are cut out of the survey prematurely,
some of them undoubtedly important. And who is to say what gets
cut out and why?
And third, companies often use scaling methods such as paired
comparison and forced choice to get customers to make trade-offs
between attributes – a practice that is totally inappropriate
when asking customers to prioritize true customer “needs”.
Making tradeoffs at this stage of the process is premature and
indicates that companies are unknowingly including solutions
along with need statements to evaluate in the survey.
Strategyn’s approach is unique. Our research methods ensure the
right inputs are used to begin with, enable the prioritization
of up to 250 customer inputs, employ the use of the optimal
scaling methods and use the opportunity algorithm to determine
where the greatest opportunities for value creation exist. It is
methods like this that are needed to uncover hidden market
opportunities.
