Prospering by Telling Customers to Not Purchase Your Product - The Diigo Meta page

• 03 Mar 09
  

  Christoph Schmaltz

  # Start with a deep understanding of how the customer frames the problems they are facing. It's easy for companies to fall into the trap of thinking that customers care primarily about the products they purchase. Often they don't. Those products are means to an end. In Xerox's case, it doesn't sell copiers. It sells workplace productivity. Understanding how the customer frames the problem helps to highlight different ways to address that problem.
  
  # Build a solution that solves the customer's -- not your company's -- problem. Xerox could easily have designed a service offering that really was a veiled way for it to sell and support Xerox equipment. But that's not what the customer wants. More than half of the 1.5 million devices under Xerox management are made by other companies. Ask how a startup company with no base business to defend would approach the challenge.
  
  # Give the new business ample freedom. Corporate antibodies can often squash new offerings that look like competitive threats. Sufficient organizational autonomy can be critical for long-term success.

  xerox product service reinventation harvard hbs

• 25 Feb 09
  

  Andy Brudtkuhl

  Here's a seemingly career-killing sales tactic: tell your customers they waste a lot of money on the product that forms the core of your company's business. Good way to land on the next cost-cutting list? For Xerox, this approach has actually created a powerful growth strategy.

  business getanewbrowser

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