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Answers to a Top Innovation Problem Revealed in Sloan Management Review

A new article by innovation thought leader Tony Ulwick presents a groundbreaking discovery in the field of product and service innovation that renders traditional voice-of-the-customer research obsolete and dramatically advances the innovation process.

(Aspen, CO) April 10, 2008 – Strategyn announces the publication of “Giving Customers a Fair Hearing,” written by Strategyn founder Anthony Ulwick and senior consultant Dr. Lance Bettencourt, in the spring issue of the Sloan Management Review. The article introduces a set of timeless standards that define the purpose, structure, content, and format of a customer need statement, thereby transforming the art of requirements gathering – and ultimately innovation – into what the authors describe as a “a lean, linear, and predictable discipline.

In the course of their research, Ulwick and Bettencourt discovered that almost no companies are able to agree on what a customer need is. “This is disturbing,” says Ulwick, “since company growth is dependent on satisfying customer needs.” Ulwick and Bettencourt’s findings are based on analysis of more than 10,000 customer need statements collected for products and services in dozens of industries. “We discovered that by focusing on the job the customer is trying to get done, we could overcome the challenges associated with traditional voice-of-the-customer research,” says Bettencourt. “Companies need to know how customers measure value before they can create it – and we have cracked the code.”

“In years of studying the innovation process, I have found that companies make the mistake of thinking that customers do not know, or cannot effectively articulate, their actual needs and requirements. This is just not true – they can,” says Ulwick. “The problem is that until now, companies have not known how to define ‘need’ or how to listen to customers.”

“Giving Customers a Fair Hearing” is available for purchase at www.strategyn.com/publications/articles.asp and at Sloan Management Review.

About Strategyn, Inc.
Strategyn is a pioneer and leader in Outcome-Driven Innovation® and offers turnkey innovation management programs to companies throughout the world. The programs include education, tools, mentoring, and support – everything a company needs to build competency in innovation.

Strategyn’s thinking has been adopted by premier organizations such as Microsoft, was voted one of the best business ideas by Harvard Business Review, and is cited by thought leader and Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen in his book The Innovator’s Solution. In addition, it has supplanted QFD, VOC, and other programs in many firms as a best practice and new standard for innovation. For more information, read What Customers Want by Anthony Ulwick, visit www.strategyn.com, or call 866-729-8400.

About Anthony Ulwick
Anthony Ulwick, author of the best-selling book What Customers Want, has published dozens of articles on innovation management and market research, including the landmark Harvard Business Review article “Turn Customer Input into Innovation.” *†Ulwick is the founder and CEO of Strategyn, a pioneer of the outcome-driven movement, and one of the leading authorities in the field of innovation, market research, and marketing strategy. Ulwick’s methods have been adopted by many companies, including Microsoft, AIG, Robert Bosch Tool Corporation, Johnson & Johnson, Kimberly-Clark, HP, Motorola, Syngenta, Chiquita, and others. He holds several patents for his unique approach to innovation and strategy formulation. He can be reached at press@strategyn.com.

About Lance Bettencourt
Lance Bettencourt, who earned a doctorate in marketing from Arizona State University, is an expert in marketing strategy, research design and analysis, and service quality improvement. Dr. Bettencourt has helped companies such as Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard Development Company, State Farm Group, Kimberly-Clark Health Care, Advanced Medical Optics (AMO), and Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon Endo-Surgery division apply Strategyn’s outcome-driven innovation principles to the development of market, product, service, and positioning strategies. Prior to joining Strategyn, Dr. Bettencourt was a professor of marketing at Indiana University and Arizona State University. He can be reached at press@strategyn.com.

Anthony Ulwick explains customer metrics in the article “Turn Customer Input into Innovation,” published in the January 2002 issue of the Harvard Business Review.

Anthony Ulwick and Dr. Lance Bettencourt detail the customer job mapping process in the article “The Customer-Centered Innovation Map” published in the spring, 2008 issue of the Harvard Business Review.

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