Anthony W. Ulwick

Acquire another firm to fill a gap

Arm & Hammer’s Animal Nutrition Group acquired a business, Vi-COR, that provided it with a complimentary product to use in its dairy business. The framework they used to help justify the acquisition was grounded in ODI-based research: the group was able to demonstrate that its current offering failed to get the entire job done and showed that Vi-
COR’s products were going to help address some high- priority underserved outcomes.

Vi-COR also provided a service component that helped address other top opportunities identified in dairies.

Company management determined that Vi-COR was operating in a very important niche, providing a very important solution to dairy producers. Without the ODI prioritized list of underserved outcomes, the company might have overlooked this important potential acquisition.

Devise a new feature set

Knowing what features to add to a product to help customers get more of the job done and/or get the job done better is the key to success in product innovation. Adding the right features is dependent on knowing what needs are underserved. Knowing, for example, which 15 of the customer’s 100 desired outcomes are underserved lets a company focus its efforts on those 15, thereby ending wasted effort and increasing the chances of success to a dramatic 86 percent.

Companies do not lack ideas. They often have thousands of ideas. What they need is insight into the customer’s underserved outcomes. This is what the ODI process provides. Once everybody in the organization knows precisely what the customer’s unmet outcomes are, all company resources can be aligned to address them—

resulting in the systematic and predictable creation of customer value.


Devise new subsystems and/or ancillary services Hardware and technology-based companies often stunt their growth potential because they resist adding a necessary service component. When the entire Job-to-be-Done is defined and the underserved outcomes are revealed, however, a company comes face to face with the fact that the only way to satisfy the remaining underserved outcomes is by adding an ancillary service offering. With a list of underserved outcomes in hand, a company can define exactly what value the service offering must deliver.

Advanced Medical Optics followed this approach when it added a service offering to complement its sale of lenses, insertion systems, laser vision correction systems, and other devices for cataract and refractive surgical procedures.

Offering this service had immediate positive results on its Net Promoter score, the perception of its overall business practices, and its customer loyalty index. Two years later, AMO was awarded the prestigious Omega Management NorthFace Award, which recognizes world-class customer satisfaction.