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.
