Are You Spending Resources Innovating Against Customer Needs that are Already Well Satisfied, this seems like an absurd statement! How can any company do this? You don't start a venture spending your resources to innovate against already satisfied customer needs.
That's what we also thought
Through continuous interaction with many Small and Medium Enterprises, IndiaMART Knowledge Services' team has gained key insights. This has helped us to arive at the core issue of innovation, which is very crucial for SME growth and needs to be addressed.
Innovation: we all define it differently
Many emerging enterprises we interviewed defined the word innovation in their own unique ways. Some even played it down as just another word, thinking, 'at the end its pure business what matters.'
The business environment is evolving at a rapid pace setting new rules of the game. One of them is constantly evolving with the changing ecosystem. Many of us consider innovation as quick adaption to the needs of changing environment, quick turnaround of the business/ scaling up. To ensure the adaption with incoming changes, many enterprises deploy focussed groups/teams within the organisation.
But what's with innovating against already satisfied customer needs?
"We are good at improving the service in this way, so let's do more of it."
"Our competitors are trying to improve the service in this way, so let's beat them at it."
"We know from the past that customers wanted improvements in the service in this way, so let's continue to do it."
That's what we also thought
Through continuous interaction with many Small and Medium Enterprises, IndiaMART Knowledge Services' team has gained key insights. This has helped us to arive at the core issue of innovation, which is very crucial for SME growth and needs to be addressed.
Innovation: we all define it differently
Many emerging enterprises we interviewed defined the word innovation in their own unique ways. Some even played it down as just another word, thinking, 'at the end its pure business what matters.'
The business environment is evolving at a rapid pace setting new rules of the game. One of them is constantly evolving with the changing ecosystem. Many of us consider innovation as quick adaption to the needs of changing environment, quick turnaround of the business/ scaling up. To ensure the adaption with incoming changes, many enterprises deploy focussed groups/teams within the organisation.
But what's with innovating against already satisfied customer needs?
"We are good at improving the service in this way, so let's do more of it."
"Our competitors are trying to improve the service in this way, so let's beat them at it."
"We know from the past that customers wanted improvements in the service in this way, so let's continue to do it."
How many of us while working have thought of the same lines before? Many!
Focus on this question and ask yourself: do all these statements not show the lack of customer understanding?
There are a few structured ways of gathering key data inputs to understand your customers and markets. Especially in the case of SMES, its a whole new experience of setting up strong processes to capture key customer insights.
If this is so, how can a company lead to structured approaches to understand their customers?
The first things you must do is keep the focus on the 'Job' which is done in the company while you are looking at innovating the set of core services. Job which actually satisfies the customer's needs. This methodology will help you identify and establish key distinguishing factors resulting in the real distinction between what your company offers today and what it will offer in future.
The goal here is to arrive at a structured approach of getting key customer insights and hence innovate in our businesse's service offerings.
While focusing on the job, you can also discover new dimensions of arriving at results which the customers essentially are looking at achieving. This will help you understand the real needs of the customers and hence tune your services accordingly.
What companies do?
Companies generally keep focusing on the customers needs but they fail to keep a strong focus on the Job that actually needs to be done.
Establishing a thought process focussed around the job and aligned with the customer needs is the key driver of real innovation in emerging companies. This will help them to deliver real value to the customers and evolve according to the market expectations.
IndiaMART Knowledge Services is committed to deliver the best knowledge resources to Small and Medium Enterprises. To know more, drop in a comment to this post and our experts will get back to you!
Source: http://startupramp.typepad.com/marketissimo/images/2008/02/20/customer_need_2.jpg
Focus on this question and ask yourself: do all these statements not show the lack of customer understanding?
There are a few structured ways of gathering key data inputs to understand your customers and markets. Especially in the case of SMES, its a whole new experience of setting up strong processes to capture key customer insights.
If this is so, how can a company lead to structured approaches to understand their customers?
The first things you must do is keep the focus on the 'Job' which is done in the company while you are looking at innovating the set of core services. Job which actually satisfies the customer's needs. This methodology will help you identify and establish key distinguishing factors resulting in the real distinction between what your company offers today and what it will offer in future.
The goal here is to arrive at a structured approach of getting key customer insights and hence innovate in our businesse's service offerings.
While focusing on the job, you can also discover new dimensions of arriving at results which the customers essentially are looking at achieving. This will help you understand the real needs of the customers and hence tune your services accordingly.
What companies do?
Companies generally keep focusing on the customers needs but they fail to keep a strong focus on the Job that actually needs to be done.
Establishing a thought process focussed around the job and aligned with the customer needs is the key driver of real innovation in emerging companies. This will help them to deliver real value to the customers and evolve according to the market expectations.
IndiaMART Knowledge Services is committed to deliver the best knowledge resources to Small and Medium Enterprises. To know more, drop in a comment to this post and our experts will get back to you!
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