Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Tim Clark on February 3, 2009 at 9:10pm

One quick suggestion, Alex: increase the font size. When printed, the text is very tiny, and the Post-it notes in the graphic, for example on page 6, are almost impossible to read at this size.

Looking forward to reading it over in detail!

Tim

Permalink Reply by Alex Osterwalder on February 3, 2009 at 9:17pm

yes, I know, I know - however, I want people to experience the double-pages (rather than just page by page)... that's why I put two pages on one. The result are, unfortunately, small fonts. Some Hubbers might be able to print on A3...

Permalink Reply by Ray Lai on February 4, 2009 at 12:04am

Alex,

I like the approach, structure and contents. It is always effective for learning and application with examples. I must say it is quite illustrative for better understanding of the concept and tool involved. You have achieved the visualization required.

Yes, it is important to pay attention to what the customer thinks and says as it is normally an reflection of what he/she sees, hears and feels (experiences). Nevertheless, I feel that there is no need to draw a clear line between what he/she thinks and says, although the quardrants may remain as they are.

Perhaps, a brief description on "Shifting Your Perspectives" will help.

Permalink Reply by Daniel Egger on February 5, 2009 at 7:42pm

Ray, Alex:

I join the discussion on experiences. My experiences in creating co-creation and experience environment show that to go from customer questioning to customer surprising. Customers often only refer to current known and internal staff on what they think customer expect, both without interacting sufficient with each other. Further, so often the 'emotional' part is forgotten. Surely, each experience has an emotional as also a rational part; however, in my opinion to turn an experience (Erlebnis) the 'meaningful experience' (Erfahrung) emotional aspects are interesting to be considered.

In generally I would be interesting to consider integrating not only the blue ocean but further the CO-Creation methodology (also when simplified) into the business model. This goes further beyond the focus on customers, but also co-creating with the partners and stakeholders. I would love to see this approach, the actively integration and creation of transparency, dialogue, in the business model approach.

Daniel

Permalink Reply by Alex Osterwalder on February 8, 2009 at 10:29am

Ray, thank you for the feedback.

I believe the need to distinguish between what a customer "says" and what he/she "thinks" is a very important one. Understanding this distinction will help a company design a better value proposition and customer interactions. Traditional market surveys rely heavily on what customers or focus groups say... this hides a number of problems:

* a customer will not always say what he really thinks for various reasons
* the real problems to solve or "pain points" are often not among the things said

example: A Chief Information Officer will usually say he is more or less in control of his company's IT - even if that is not really the case. Also, he will probably not admit that he is not up-to-date with the latest technological changes... A great business model will take all this into account and offer solutions, while respecting the reasons why a CIO might not want to admit these things publicly...

Permalink Reply by Caspar van Rijnbach on February 8, 2009 at 3:52pm

Hi Ray and Alex,

Besides what the customer says or thinks, there is the: how the customer acts.. And sometimes without knowing why. That's hy there are so many experience laboratories nowadays to test (e.g. Philips)..

Many times it is more seeing the customer behave then listening to him or her (see the Ideo approach)..

You probably have thought about all of this...

Permalink Reply by Daniel Egger on February 8, 2009 at 11:57pm

Caspar,

As mentioned above I can not agree more. Experiences still is seen as to abstract and often the change in the mental model takes some while is seen as too time intensive. Alternative ideation processes based finding and identifying experience spaces and bringing it into real live is key, but confront with hierarchical structures, as managers too often are too far from the "points of sales" structure. The same importance is not only focusing on the customer but going a step deeper like the family of the customer or the friends of the customer and how the companies interaction point generate value for the further social ribbles.

Daniel

Permalink Reply by Craig Sadler on February 4, 2009 at 12:51am

Alex basic outline looks really good. I like the sequencing of the information. Examples are clear and understandable. I did notice that on the page titled "Really Simple Client Profiler" there is an inconsistent use of the words 'client ' & 'customer'. I think it would read better if the word client was simply replaced with the word customer or it was a combination word client/customer. This point in discussion actually relates to the business model for the book in terms of the customer segments. Some of the readers will relate to client and others customer depending on their industry sector. If you had to choose one then my vote would be for "Customer".

Permalink Reply by Alex Osterwalder on February 8, 2009 at 10:30am

Absolutely! Good point Craig.

The term client sneaked into my slides and work when I was doing a lot of work with private banks... The term customer is indeed more generic!

Permalink Reply by Daniel Pandza on February 4, 2009 at 1:59am

You have really identified one of the key issues and provided a structured and creative approach towards develop an emphatic understanding of the target customer segment.

As the enclosed pictures demonstrate, I have applied similar techniques in a brainstorming session with my students the other day (we are currently working on a project for a multinational consumer good company). The objective of the discussion was also to get an understanding of what the target customer segment has on it´s mind. As you can see in the graph we were not quite as thorough as your recommendation.

But I think that we have also identified a complementary question: "What keeps this customer segment busy" or "What is he/she doing". This approach was quite useful for detecting bottle necks that the consumer faces when wanting to "get the job done". Having identified this barrier has opened our corporate client´s focus from product solutions to business model solutions.

I hope this additional question can complement your work or be used at a later stage of the project.

Permalink Reply by Alex Osterwalder on February 8, 2009 at 10:31am

Thanks for adding this, Daniel! Good points!

Permalink Reply by Valentin Crettaz on February 4, 2009 at 5:34am

Great job. I especially like it when you show how one shall "shift his perspectives". It gives the impression that the company should actually "respect" its customers... and I think this is one of the most fundamental concepts when building business models. However, this is exactly the one word I did not find in the chapter: "respect".

When customers feel like they are being harassed by some company, they feel bad and usually don't buy from them. However, when you as a company respect your customers, keep them happy and provide them with products/services that makes their life easier, they shell out their money with a big smile on their face and come back.

Keeping the customers happy necessarly means "understanding" them, and also "interacting" with them. One way to achieve the former can be done using the RSCP you show on page 5. However, it is not clear from the text alone how you manage to fill in the post-its. You mention that not every company can afford anthropologists, sociologists, social scientists, and what not. Not that I don't value these professions, but my take on this is that there are no better human beings to help you fill this profiler than the customers themselves.

My market segment is the web. I'm a web entrepreneur and I create applications and web platforms for my customers. There is no way I could achieve what I have to do if I didn't have my end-users sitting on my laps. That would be the "interacting with them" part. Of course, this can be difficult as contrary to popular beliefs "Users Don't Know What They Want!". The difficult part (and I like how this is reflected in your RSCP) is that the users will always tell something slightly (the amplitude of "slightly" differs from person to person) different than what they really think. There are whole books and social theories on why human beings behave that way.

Despite this, in order to value their customers, it is really important that a company actually gets to know them in person and not only through anthropologist and sociologist proxies. Of course, on big markets scattered through several geopolitical areas, it might be difficult to get a representative chunk of the customers. Nevertheless, I think it is critical that a company create some kind of bond with their customers. You mention the Apple iPod example, and I think it is a great illustration of how such a bond looks like.

My 2 cents

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