How to Define a Whole Product
By Arnold Alderman
We decided to implement a structured dialog method of customer research, rather than use either a rigid questionnaire, or rely on apocryphal stories about customer needs. We felt this voice of the customer approach could open the door to exploring customer requirements at every point of a delivered hardware device, from product concept to end of life; from product introduction to servicing at 15 years of field operation.
Strategy
A cross-functional team project was created to identify market needs via issues, trends and initiatives conveyed by leading customers in the selected market: Telecom and Datacom power supplies. The interview sampling matrix included various telecom and datacom applications, the four major world regions, the sourcing types (captive, merchant, OEM) and power supply end users. Company management participated in many of the customer interviews. This participation allowed management to hear first hand what customer’s valued so that they could make significant investment tradeoffs based on this research effort.
Tactics
Cross-functional team participants were trained in the dialog interviewing process.
The approach taken was to
1) Identify the target market(s)
2) Identify the major market participants
3) Secure the appropriate meetings and agendas (customers,
world regions, and customer management positions)
4) Develop the discussion guide for effective interviews
5) Correlate the data and draw initial conclusions
6) Validate those conclusions with further customer discussions
7) Develop plans to provide product and services as required
8) Evaluate competitive advantage and customer return on our plans
9) Execute as appropriate and track
