Author of The Gauntlet
If your business is customer-centric, then you appreciate that your growth is linked to how well and consistently your products, services and people create strategic value for your customers – generating quantifiable benefits, strengthening their competitive advantage and accelerating their progress.
Creating that value transcends the fulfillment of an immediate customer need, to ensuring that your solution also contributes to their future, to the achievement of their goals. This is only possible if you’ve discovered what your customer values and how that insight contributes to the realization of their strategies and aspirations. But this knowledge is dynamic, ever evolving to meet the shifting challenges and needs of their markets and customers.
Maintaining your awareness about how and why these evolutions may be altering what a customer values, and responding with urgency and agility to propose new value-generating offeringss, reflects a culture that values innovation.
Few businesses can justify the investment in a research competency, but by leveraging the strategic insights learned from your key customers, you can create new, premium offerings that customers are eager to buy because they resolve challenges and simultaneously fulfill strategic aspirations. This innovation strategy accelerates time to market and reduces risk, while building enduring relationships that will sustain your business.
How does your business sustain its awareness of your customers’ challenges and aspirations?
How is innovation valued in your business?
