Topic: Marketing Technology and Innovation

Order Description
Class Discussion for Week 3 re Rob, James, and Sophie’s Marketing Scenario
Rob, James, and Sophie are reviewing the notes they took at the Customer Discovery Interview they did as a result of acting on your advice to their mentor.

In summary, the advice given was get the team ‘out of the building’, and to listen carefully to their target customer’s responses to a set of question they should devise to test their assumptions about their target market.

However they had been somewhat surprised that the Interview did not exactly follow their planned line of questioning they had so carefully put together, and that was focused on verifying their current assumptions.

Instead, the customer’s CEO talked quite freely, and to their thinking kind of ‘off the subject’ in response to their questions. It became clear he was not particularly well versed or interested in the detailed technology aspects, other than what the technology could do for his business. Their line of questioning was not working well but he seemed interested in their concept, and they just took copious notes on what became more of a discussion than an interview.

Once he had clarified some ideas on possible applications of the technology concept with the team, he talked quite a bit about how using the technology as they had just outlined to him may give his business a competitive edge in his industry.

Now sitting around the table in their usual coffee place, they were trying to understand the implications of what the customer’s CEO had said. He had readily agreed to talk to them again, once they had reviewed the notes of their meeting, and developed their thoughts on the application the CEO had mentioned to them.

James felt the Customer Discovery interview had given them a whole new angle on the potential for their technology. He thought it could mean that they offered more business value to the customer than what they first thought about their technology. He recapped that in their assumptions they had focused on bringing their product to market at a price lower than others that they had regarded as their competitors. Now, he thought, if they understood right, the picture about price issues and who their actual competitors were may have changed for the better.

Sophie thought they may have discovered a potential customer segment that would be easier to convince to buy, once they more clearly understood the customer need and the value it could bring.

Rob is now unsure about the prototype requirement. This was the first time he has ever sat in on a meeting with a CEO, and it surprised him how little the features of the technology had been of interest to the businessman. He wondered if they were all going to be like that.

They had been taken aback by the course of the interview as, for example, the issue of price, which was one aspect of their planned line of questioning, did not seem to rate with the CEO.

Later, when they met with their mentor he smiled and said it was the best meeting they could have hoped for. In his view it had shed a whole new light on their technology potential. He suggests they talk to you again, and ask your opinion about the best way to prepare for the next interview with the CEO.