Ram Narayanan SastryProduct Analyst| Toshiba Medical Systems CorporationNasushiobara-Shi, Tochigi-Ken, Japan
One of the greatest minds of this era, Steve Jobs, always thought that the customer does not really know what is needed? Visionary companies need to show the customer the product before they can realize it.
Mudassar KhanProgram (Project )Manager| Woodward Canada IncPeterborough, ON, Canada
I would like to add my 2 cents to the discussion
The fact of the matter is One Hundred Percent of Customers are People; and One Hundred Percent of Clients are People; and One Hundred Percent of Employees are People; So I don't care How Good Your Product is, How Good Your Marketing Team Is, How Good Your Business Is and How Good Your Design is ; If you Don't Understand People, You Don't Understand BUSINESS,.
Learn to listen to your customers & provide them with consistent value without expecting anything in return.
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1 reply by Ram Narayanan Sastry
Feb 03, 2017 6:40 PM
Ram Narayanan Sastry
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The gist of the article is not about not listening to the customer, but about what exactly to listen from a customer. There is a nuanced view of how to tackle customer feedback. For e.g. when Apple came with a iPod, there was a distinct need for the people to move on from walkmans and portable CD players. Everyone had opinions on how these can be made better in terms of quality, but there was hardly any discussions on how can it fit in with the tasks people would like to perform while listening to music. For e.g. while jogging. The walkmans and portable CDs were not very comfortable. Of course, so the customer gave the feedback that he would like to listen to music while jogging. What the customer did not give feedback about is what feature can be added to a walkman or CD player to make it comfortable to use while jogging? Apple had to the homework and the concept work on their own before presenting it to the customers. Of course, post the concept work, they did to field studies and customer workgroups to make incremental changes to it.
Apple Lisa
NeXT
Apple III
Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh
ROKR
Power Mac G4 Cube
MobileMe
How visionary? :)
Another classic example - 'Google Glass'
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2 replies by Ram Narayanan Sastry and Vincent Guerard
Feb 02, 2017 10:35 PM
Vincent Guerard
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You are right we remember Steve Jobs for is successful product, there was a lot os failure in between. The key is to learn from each of those failure and make a better product next.
The Lisa was a great product by itself with many problem limited by technology and cost, then they did the Macintosh far less powerful but affordable.
IBM made many attempts before the IBM pc that became the standard !
Feb 03, 2017 6:47 PM
Ram Narayanan Sastry
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Does every painting a good painter make succeed? Does every song a good singer sings become a hit? I think failures are part and parcel of every individual. What matters is of course what we do with those failures.Lisa and NeXT were definitely stepping stones for Jobs, though the others weren't so much. Thomas Alva Edison failed 1000 times before he could come up with a light bulb which just changed all our lives!!
But, we are deviating from our main question here... How would customer feedback helped with Apple Lisa or NeXT which were both examining concepts such as Artificial Intelligence etc. about which know how was restricted to research labs or a select few world wide.
So I think the question of success or failure is a slightly different one from the topic being discussed here.
Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
When you work inside proactve organizations one thing you live is that failures are,welcome because those orgnizations understand that is part of th game. Some of them like 3M convert the failure into success (post it is an example). But always is prt of the strategy.
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1 reply by Ram Narayanan Sastry
Feb 03, 2017 6:49 PM
Ram Narayanan Sastry
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Agreed wholeheartedly. Success and Failures are part of the package. What is more important is how do we respond to both the failures as well success. Not getting too bogged down by a failure and not getting too gung-ho about a success is the key to sustained success.
Apple Lisa
NeXT
Apple III
Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh
ROKR
Power Mac G4 Cube
MobileMe
How visionary? :)
Another classic example - 'Google Glass'
You are right we remember Steve Jobs for is successful product, there was a lot os failure in between. The key is to learn from each of those failure and make a better product next.
The Lisa was a great product by itself with many problem limited by technology and cost, then they did the Macintosh far less powerful but affordable.
IBM made many attempts before the IBM pc that became the standard !
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1 reply by Ram Narayanan Sastry
Feb 03, 2017 6:50 PM
Ram Narayanan Sastry
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Completely agree with your view. Thomas Alva Edison failed 1000 times before coming up with the right combination for the light bulb!!
Saving Changes...
Kenneth MyersPresident| Blue Falcon CobraOakton, Va, United States
This is an interesting question and one I've struggled to understand on some projects. WHO IS THE CUSTOMER?!? I've always stuck to the one who pays for the product. Some may say it is the one who receives the ultimate benefit, but if no one pays for it, how will others receive the benefit?
I agree with everyone. A customer may not know exactly what they want but they have requirements. They can say "i want it to do this" or " I don't want it to do that". It is true that someone is never happy and many did not like the first iPhone, but it had other qualities. A visionary company will listen to gaps in the market and then design products to fit that gap.
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1 reply by Ram Narayanan Sastry
Feb 03, 2017 6:55 PM
Ram Narayanan Sastry
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Great points, Kenneth. And great question, Who is the customer? The question gets much murkier for service providers such as software services company as their "customer" is often the company that actually sells the product to the end-customer.
Personally, I have tend to look at the person who is farthest down the line who makes the final payment as the "Customer". I usually advise all the services company to consider the company for which they provide services as partners instead of customers. Though it might seem trivial to look at them as partners, mentally that changes a lot as partners are more interested in looking at the end solutions rather than just doing what they are requested to do.
Cheers!
Ram
Saving Changes...
Ram Narayanan SastryProduct Analyst| Toshiba Medical Systems CorporationNasushiobara-Shi, Tochigi-Ken, Japan
Feb 02, 2017 6:55 AM
Replying to Sergio Luis Conte
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Sorry but now we are "mixing" things in my understanding. The first thing to do is to work on "the problem". The problem will trigger the need. But here is the first key: problem is defined as the gap between the perceived reality and the desire reality. So, we need (the business analyst) must work on the perception or on the desire or on the gap. Most of the time, there is no problem to solve (when you work on the perception). In the case of Apple, 3M, Toyota (where I was the pleasure to work) they go further: they do not have client or customer to work with. That is because Job usually said: clients do not know what they want until you show it to them. I mean, most of the times, when the organization takes a proactive strategy, it has to take into account that there is not a stakeholder to interact with to define the product/service/result. But again, clients or customers always know what they want/desire/wishes and people who have to translate it into requirements must understand that. What you describe is explained by the Lehman Laws of change. Time ago I wrote an article that was published by the PMI. And sorry but the situation demmands a review on the process to get needs (elicitation) and manage stakeholders. We are facing this type of situations into each initiative.
Probably we are mixing things. Anyhow, I do understand and appreciate your point of view. Thanks for making the discussion interesting. Saving Changes...
Ram Narayanan SastryProduct Analyst| Toshiba Medical Systems CorporationNasushiobara-Shi, Tochigi-Ken, Japan
Feb 02, 2017 7:18 AM
Replying to Mudassar Khan
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I would like to add my 2 cents to the discussion
The fact of the matter is One Hundred Percent of Customers are People; and One Hundred Percent of Clients are People; and One Hundred Percent of Employees are People; So I don't care How Good Your Product is, How Good Your Marketing Team Is, How Good Your Business Is and How Good Your Design is ; If you Don't Understand People, You Don't Understand BUSINESS,.
Learn to listen to your customers & provide them with consistent value without expecting anything in return.
The gist of the article is not about not listening to the customer, but about what exactly to listen from a customer. There is a nuanced view of how to tackle customer feedback. For e.g. when Apple came with a iPod, there was a distinct need for the people to move on from walkmans and portable CD players. Everyone had opinions on how these can be made better in terms of quality, but there was hardly any discussions on how can it fit in with the tasks people would like to perform while listening to music. For e.g. while jogging. The walkmans and portable CDs were not very comfortable. Of course, so the customer gave the feedback that he would like to listen to music while jogging. What the customer did not give feedback about is what feature can be added to a walkman or CD player to make it comfortable to use while jogging? Apple had to the homework and the concept work on their own before presenting it to the customers. Of course, post the concept work, they did to field studies and customer workgroups to make incremental changes to it.
That was the minimal point of the article.
Cheers!
Ram Saving Changes...
Ram Narayanan SastryProduct Analyst| Toshiba Medical Systems CorporationNasushiobara-Shi, Tochigi-Ken, Japan
Feb 02, 2017 8:19 AM
Replying to Anupam
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What happened to these products?
Apple Lisa
NeXT
Apple III
Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh
ROKR
Power Mac G4 Cube
MobileMe
How visionary? :)
Another classic example - 'Google Glass'
Does every painting a good painter make succeed? Does every song a good singer sings become a hit? I think failures are part and parcel of every individual. What matters is of course what we do with those failures.Lisa and NeXT were definitely stepping stones for Jobs, though the others weren't so much. Thomas Alva Edison failed 1000 times before he could come up with a light bulb which just changed all our lives!!
But, we are deviating from our main question here... How would customer feedback helped with Apple Lisa or NeXT which were both examining concepts such as Artificial Intelligence etc. about which know how was restricted to research labs or a select few world wide.
So I think the question of success or failure is a slightly different one from the topic being discussed here.
...
1 reply by Anupam
Feb 03, 2017 10:10 PM
Anupam
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Sorry, but I don't agree with you.
Do you start a project without studying market or knowing your customers?
Saving Changes...
Ram Narayanan SastryProduct Analyst| Toshiba Medical Systems CorporationNasushiobara-Shi, Tochigi-Ken, Japan
Feb 02, 2017 10:48 AM
Replying to Sergio Luis Conte
...
When you work inside proactve organizations one thing you live is that failures are,welcome because those orgnizations understand that is part of th game. Some of them like 3M convert the failure into success (post it is an example). But always is prt of the strategy.
Agreed wholeheartedly. Success and Failures are part of the package. What is more important is how do we respond to both the failures as well success. Not getting too bogged down by a failure and not getting too gung-ho about a success is the key to sustained success. Saving Changes...
Ram Narayanan SastryProduct Analyst| Toshiba Medical Systems CorporationNasushiobara-Shi, Tochigi-Ken, Japan
Feb 02, 2017 10:35 PM
Replying to Vincent Guerard
...
You are right we remember Steve Jobs for is successful product, there was a lot os failure in between. The key is to learn from each of those failure and make a better product next.
The Lisa was a great product by itself with many problem limited by technology and cost, then they did the Macintosh far less powerful but affordable.
IBM made many attempts before the IBM pc that became the standard !
Completely agree with your view. Thomas Alva Edison failed 1000 times before coming up with the right combination for the light bulb!! Saving Changes...
