In digital, guessing is the standard A key success factor in digital innovation, invented by big players like Google and Facebook, is to run largescale A/B-tests all the time. In essence, such testing is the same as placing bets on all the roulette fields, in all casinos of the world, all the time and figuring out which strategy works best from there. Things go fast and rely heavily on user input. Digital companies build a minimal viable product (MVP) and improve through iter

The challenge A team of young intrapreneurs sits down around a table. Their task is to come up with new mobility services and products. They have carefully selected a densely populated region –let’s call it Betasia – that seems challenging and interesting to run a pilot. Now it is time to go out there and get a sense of what such new mobility services could look like in that region: what is it, that the people living in that area really need and how could they help them in te

Simons intriguing sentence about Value Propositions During a recent workshop and a discussion about Value Propositions a Startup founder – let’s call him Simon – said something intriguing we took for granted, while it is not. Simon said this: «Ah, so, you never actually see the Value Proposition of a company, just the Promise.» To understand the value of Simon’s realization, the story of how he initially went about writing a Value Proposition is helpful. He did what we all do

What would an ideal process of the front-end of innovation look like? Well probably something like this: As you get closer and closer to the actual launch comfort about the success of an innovation increases along the way. Ideally, before launch, there would be a lot of confidence and a shared feeling of comfort that the product or service has a good chance of being successful in the market. However, reality often looks more like this: This graph shows the comfort decreasing

Of thriving bees… Susan gets up early in the morning before her husband and teenage kids. The wheater is nice, so she does her normal jogging routine. The fact today, like almost every day, she manages to be fresh and ready when she pushes the button on the coffee machine in the kitchen precisely at 7 o’clock promises a great day ahead. She takes the coffee to the room next door, opens the windows and starts setting up her home office space. Like every day she stows away her

Quite symbolically the political authorities in Switzerland chose – of all the dates – Friday the 13th of march to proclaim that the lockdown will be put in place. A new situation for everybody. After the initial turmoil a question started popping up at Vendbridge: What can we do to help people in this crisis? Since we are experts in the application of Jobs-to-be-done we (virtually) sat down and discussed if Jobs-to-be-done could be helpful in this situation. From the discuss

Recruiting for qualitative Jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) exploration isn’t as easy as you might think. Based on the example to “find people for exploration about chocolate“ from a real case for a chocolate manufacturer we will show you how to best organize this process. Before you start Defining who to recruit for exploration can be a challenge. It is driven by your project objectives and by your stakeholders, who will work with the project results. It helps to go systematically thr

At a glance Companies struggle to understand what their customers really want. One reason is that organizations tend to distort customer input at two key moments: when they talk to customers and when the customer findings are passed on internally. In other words: They play Chinese Whispers. Jobs-to-be-done and a concept called Value Metrics help to prevent this from happening. Everyone knows the popular Chinese Whispers game we all played as kids. Someone starts to whisper a

Jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) is a great concept helping to create innovation strategies, new products and value propositions which people find meaningful and valuable. It reframes the customer problem by asking, what jobs customers are trying to get done, the perspective of developers and innovators changes towards more customer focus almost immediately. The idea behind JTBD was initiated by Ted Levitt, the originator of the quote «people don’t want a drill, but a hole in the wall»

Line managers tend to be biased by their role and function. Sales thinks in terms of price. Engineers think about technology. Marketing people think about customer segmentation and communication channels. That’s why they ask customers one-sided questions and hear what they like to hear. As a consequence, innovation is misguided, the growth strategy might be flawed. Isn’t it frustrating that this happens despite knowing the customers? Understanding is different. It is digging

Everyone can be creative! Our ideation sessions confirm what David Kelley from IDEO says in this TED talk. The Vendbridge creativity sessions include a mix of “normal” people from our clients. And all sessions generated a list of at least 10 innovative concepts – and many more good ideas! Our recipe: a) Ask a precise ideation question focusing on an unmet customer need and b) apply moderation techniques that enable people to think out of the box. Here is his TED talk: #Creati

It is so much fun to watch my kids running around in our garden trying to find their Easter nests. They try and fail, and try and fail, and… Of course, I always know if they will find something or not. Probably this is the reason why it is so much fun to watch. It is still a widespread belief that innovation only works by trial and error. In this respect, innovation is like looking for Easter eggs. If this was so, I would still believe in the Easter bunny. We say: Innovating

«Customers don’t buy a drill. They buy a quarter-inch hole», said marketing guru T. Levitt already in the 1960s. And he meant: Think differently about how to address the needs of your customers. It seems that Levitt’s thought never made it into innovation. Not more than 10% of all new products are successful, that is, still on the market after three years and fulfilling needs. Apparently, the remaining 90% don’t fulfill customer needs. We look at innovation from a different a

#Creativity #Ideas #Innovation

If yes, they recommend your products or services to friends and colleagues. If not, they just use them with the risk to switch to other products later. Think about yourself as a buyer. Which airline do you just use, and which do you recommend? Which supplier is not just a supplier, but also a pleasure to work with? Or which executive search firm would you directly call without considering competitors? It is our aspiration that our clients’ customers are committed with heart a

All companies that have been in business for some years say they know the needs of their customers. They mention needs like «quality», «flexibility» or «service» as being the key drivers for purchase and usage. There is only one little problem: Those needs don‘t resonate with customers. That‘s why most products are perceived as equal. And bought on price. Where is the issue? Executives are trained to conceptualize. They think in abstract terms in order to cope with the increa

Question 1: Do we bring our clients added value? No, is the loud answer. Neither we nor our products bring added value; it is the customers themselves that create added value. In B2B, products help to achieve more sales, to increase the price or reduce operating costs. In B2C, for example, products lead to a better appearance, a faster healing process or a comprehensive sense of security. The idea that we as a company create the value is not customer-focused. So, question 2:

In 2008, the top 1000 innovation companies spent USD 532 billion only on R&D (Booz Allen, 2009). However, success rates of new products have been dramatically low for years – less than 10% meet ROI targets (Business Week, 2005). The majority of new products withdraw from the market within a few years. Companies seem to create products that customers don’t want. Hard to accept? We thought so too. That’s why we apply a methodology with practical tools to put the customer first

From a workshop with Marco de Polo from the Roche New Concept Incubator in Silicon Valley. When it comes to innovation design, there is the wrong way, the conventional way and the new agile design way. We thought about combining the most promising elements of these approaches in order to get the best out of it: Quick, but still profound outside-in understanding of unmet consumer needs, iterated with focused ideation sessions and rapid prototyping. The wrong way of innovation

A cup of coffee costs 5 cents traditionally prepared, but many people pay 50 cents for a Nespresso. Mineral water is 500 times more expensive than tap water – at the central station even 3,500 times more. Despite the crisis, a global nuts&bolds dealer is able to increase sales in the upscale market for special bolts. Kia and Dacia sell low-cost cars but are not market leaders. One of the world’s leading producers of citric acid defies Chinese low-price products with European