At part of our Underground series of executive roundtables, InnoLead and PA Consulting Group brought together more than a dozen corporate executives in New York City to discuss innovation strategy and the customer-led revolution. During the roundtable, participants explored what PA calls “Customer 4.0,” and held brainstorming break-outs related the biggest challenges to becoming more customer-centric…as well potential solutions.
The biggest challenges included:
- “Arrogant complacency,” or believing you already understand your customer
- Politics
- Regulation
- Culture
- Speed to market
- Compliance
- “Customer Tribalism” (perception of inherent rivalry, honesty, etc.)
- The existing business model
Solutions to these challenges included:
- A focus on customers’ desired outcomes, not the process
- Positioning your company into their universe, not the reverse
- Looking not at what customers are buying, but why they’re buying
- Understanding which parties — both formal and informal — are informing, advising, and advocating for your customers (i.e., bloggers, aggregators, celebrities, services, etc.)
- Future World: Picturing what the future could look like.
- Build partnerships to spur innovative thought in the C-Suite.
- Creative self-destruction
- Hot-housing projects separately
- Looking beyond your industry
- Building a “universe map”: Where does the company actually touch the customer need?
- Paying influencers to give honest opinions on the product.
Interested in joining us for a future roundtable? Check our events calendar.
