You might want to look at the point in your launch cycle in which your company actually asks customers their opinion.
For example, a few years ago, BusinessWeek cited Xerox as typically developing products fully and then asking customers what they thought. Xerox has since refocused on customers from the onset in their product development timeline.
Stephen Hoover, vice-president of Xerox’s research and development hub commented, “The team had had a certain idea of what customers wanted. Going out and actually talking to them really changed that.”
The lesson here is not that Xerox experienced a “blinding flash of the obvious”, i.e., talk to customers before building new products. No, it is instructive in that it is easy for companies of all sizes and in all industries to approach markets from an “inside-out” mindset.
While customers are actually not the only influence on a marketplace, they are certainly the “hub of the wheel”. We forget this at our own peril.
Adapted from the forthcoming eBook, “Know Thy Customer” by Jose Palomino
