1. Segment Your Markets

Good segmentation helps you focus resources on markets that are winnable and worth winning. At AIM Workshops (136KB PDF), teams learn advanced internet research skills, how to engage retired industry experts, etc. Using Excel^®-based Blueprinter^® Software (468KB PDF), each team screens market segments and selects their first opportunity to work on during and after the workshop.

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2. Interview Your Customers

To truly hear the "voice of the customer" (VOC) a team conducts customer tours and Discovery Interviews, generating scores of potential needs to pursue. A laptop, projector and Blueprinter software are used with powerful listening and probing skills. Later, the team conducts Preference Interviews to gather hard data about customer needs. See 10 Differences from Traditional VOC (147KB PDF).

3. Benchmark Your Competitors

In this phase, side-by-side testing is done to gauge competitive offerings. Unlike typical benchmarking, this is driven by interview data... using customers' preferred test procedures, product attributes and acceptability criteria. This engages customers in the design process, builds their confidence in your results, and gives you pricing insight so you don't leave money on the table.

4. Plan New Products

The team now has a wealth of customer and competitive data visually displayed in Blueprinter. The Market Satisfaction Gap indicates customer eagerness for each unmet need. The team predicts market response to "what-if" product designs, and uses Blueprinter to create a compelling Business Case… before proceeding into the costly product development stage.