Strategyn’s Latest Groundbreaking Innovation Methodology Is Published in the Harvard Business Review
2008-04-29
(Aspen, CO) – Strategyn announced today that an article on its groundbreaking job-mapping innovation methodology will be published in the May 2008 issue of the Harvard Business Review. Drawing on the principle that customers buy products and services to help get jobs done, “The Customer-Centered Innovation Map” explains how product and service developers can create value for their customers by uniquely dissecting the job the customer is trying to get done in a way that reveals hidden opportunities for innovation.
Over a 10-year period, Bettencourt and Ulwick mapped customer jobs in professional and customer services, durable and consumable goods, chemicals, software, and many other industries. “By deconstructing a job from beginning to end, a company gains a complete view of all the points at which a customer might desire more help from a product or service – namely, at each step in the job,” says Dr. Lance Bettencourt.
“Those individual steps form a job map,” says Anthony Ulwick, “and with a job map in hand, a company can analyze the biggest drawbacks of the products and services customers currently use. Job mapping also provides companies with a comprehensive framework to identify the metrics customers themselves use to measure success in executing a task.”
By mapping out every step of the job the customer is trying to get done and locating opportunities for innovative solutions, companies can discover new ways to differentiate their offerings. Learn more about Bettencourt and Ulwick’s revolutionary job-mapping method in the May issue of the Harvard Business Review. The article can also be purchased through the Strategyn website at www.strategyn.com/publications/articles.asp.
About Strategyn, Inc.
Strategyn is a pioneer and leader in Outcome-Driven Innovation®, a revolutionary approach to innovation management that enables companies to unlock hidden opportunities, reveal high-growth emerging markets, create breakthrough products and services, and streamline business processes. Strategyn offers turnkey innovation management programs to companies throughout the world. The programs include education, tools and mentoring, and support – everything a company needs to build competency in innovation.
Strategyn’s thinking has been adopted by premier organizations such as Microsoft, was voted one of the best business ideas by Harvard Business Review, and is cited by thought leader and Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen in his book The Innovator’s Solution. In addition, it has supplanted QFD, VOC, and other programs in many firms as a best practice and new standard for innovation. For more information, visit www.strategyn.com or call 866-729-8400.
About Lance Bettencourt
Lance Bettencourt2, who earned a doctorate in marketing from Arizona State University, is an expert in marketing strategy, research design and analysis, and service quality improvement. Dr. Bettencourt has helped companies such as Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard Development Company (HP), State Farm Group, Kimberly-Clark Health Care, Advanced Medical Optics (AMO), and Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon Endo-Surgery division apply Strategyn’s outcome-driven innovation principles to the development of market, product, service, and positioning strategies. Prior to joining Strategyn, Dr. Bettencourt was a professor of marketing at Indiana University and Arizona State University. †Dr. Bettencourt has published several academic and managerial articles on what it takes to be a market-oriented company.
About Anthony Ulwick
Founder and CEO of Strategyn, Anthony Ulwick is the author of the best-selling book What Customers Want and has also published dozens of articles on innovation management and market research, including the landmark Harvard Business Review article “Turn Customer Input into Innovation.” Ulwick’s1,2 methods have been adopted by many companies, including Microsoft, AIG, Robert Bosch Tool Corporation, Johnson & Johnson, Kimberly-Clark, HP, Motorola, Syngenta, Chiquita Brands, and others. He holds several patents on his unique approach to innovation and strategy formulation.
¹Anthony Ulwick details customer metrics in the article “Turn Customer Input into Innovation,” published in the January 2002 issue of the Harvard Business Review.
2Anthony Ulwick and Dr. Lance Bettencourt detail customer needs in the article “Giving Customers a Fair Hearing,” published in the Spring 2008 issue of the Sloan Management Review.
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