Anthony W. Ulwick

How would you describe your experience working with Strategyn?

It was terrific. I believe the agriculture nutrition industry was a little bit outside of where Strategyn normally works. All the same, you guys are great, professional, intelligent, right on time. Great communications—it was definitely really enjoyable to work with the group. And I speak for my whole team.

That is always good to hear. Thank you. And just as a final question, is there anything else you would like us to share with the readers of this case study?

That no one else in agriculture should try this! But more seriously, the thing that I would share is, once you get involved and you start to think about a market through this lens, the notion of defining your customer as a job executor, and then asking customers what job they are trying to get done instead of asking them what solutions they want is such a basic, simple, and obvious way to approach product development. It’s remarkable that companies just don’t do it more often. But I do understand why. It’s not trivial to do.

I’ve come to appreciate that it’s not an easy exercise, but once you have gone through it, it’s so obvious – and powerful. It is obviously the right way to approach marketing and innovation.

BOSCH

Discovering hidden growth opportunities
When the Robert Bosch Tool Company decided to enter the North American professional circular saw market, many challenges stood in the way of their success. Randall Coe, director of product development, noted that management had four key objectives in mind: “We wanted to (1) enter the market with a saw that reflected the high-quality image carried by the Bosch name, (2) compete effectively and outperform the products produced by DeWalt and other competitors in the U.S. market, (3) ensure our product would be carried by the big-box retailers, e.g., Home Depot and Lowe’s, and (4) price the resulting product at a competitive industry price point while yielding the desired profit margin.”

There had not been much innovation in the circular saw market for many years, and it was perceived as both mature and commodity-like, so Bosch knew that success would depend on the company’s ability to uncover and inexpensively address market opportunities that others had missed.

To identify opportunities for product innovation, the Bosch team targeted professional tradesmen (the job executors) who were responsible for cutting wood in a straight line (the Job- to-be-Done). They targeted roofers, framers, contractors, finish carpenters, plumbers and electricians.

Through interviews with the professional tradesmen, the ODI practitioner dissected the Job-to-be-Done into its component parts through the use of a job map and worked to capture a complete set of approximately 85 desired outcome statements.

Next, ODI-based quantitative research methods were employed. Through a controlled online survey, approximately 270 professional tradesmen rated each desired outcome statement for (i) its level of importance, and

(ii) the degree to which it was satisfied, given the circular saws they were currently using. This data was used to run a variety of data analyses (Outcome-Based Segmentation, competitive analysis, etc.).

Not surprisingly, the results showed that in the market on average (when looking at all 270 responses combined), there were no unmet needs. This meant that to discover unmet needs, Outcome-Based Segmentation practices were required. Strategyn’s Outcome-Based Segmentation methods revealed four segments of opportunity, one of which made a perfect target for Bosch. This hidden segment of opportunity, which was comprised of primarily finish and advanced carpenters, represented over 30 percent of all users. They were underserved because they made more finish and angle cuts and had to make frequent blade angle and blade height adjustments. The segmentation analysis and opportunity landscape for this segment clearly revealed

that 14 of the customer’s approximately 85 desired outcomes were unmet with this segment of users.

Knowing where to focus its efforts was the key to Bosch’s success, as it dramatically simplified idea generation.