"Consumer discomfort" is the source of innovation

A product that sells well in the market may not necessarily come from the so-called functional requirements, but from the problem of solving consumer problems, such as getting rid of the damned keyboard and customizing your own shoes.

And at the new iphone launch, jobs, dressed in tight jeans, pointed to his narrow trouser pocket and said, "If we want to cram a product into our trouser pocket, what is it?" Then jobs took out the iphone: "Yes, it should be!" This is the typical jobs style of questioning, that is: stand in the consumer's perspective, and then ask an intriguing question.

Though, it may just be that Steve Jobs casually asks himself, but in fact, it does not hinder his inspiration and inducement to the consumer: first, the iphone exquisite small non-family, suitable to fit into the narrow trouser pocket, second, the appearance of fashion plus the perfect experience, enough to make us sight; The iphone is a personal PDA that can be moved in the Internet era, not just in the traditional sense of the phone.

In fact, just as Steve Jobs defined the iphone from a consumer perspective, embedding products in a consumer lifestyle is the best way to win a best-selling product!

Consumer problems and the creation of nothing

Motorola launched the Iridium program in 1998: A constellation of 77 near-earth satellites, allowing users to call anywhere in the world. It mistakenly believes that this technology is bound to be favored by consumers, but consumers are not buying it, and ultimately this complex technology innovation system, built across countries, organizations, technologies and multiple management levels, fails.

We have been ignoring a hidden truth: The goal is only a hypothesis within the organization, instead, consumer demand always manifests itself as a problem rather than a goal! Organizational goals only have a binding effect on internal employees, but not for external consumers! In general, the more dissatisfied or complaining consumers are, the more they need to innovate, instead, Consumers have been very satisfied, innovation is the same as the superfluous! This coincides with what we have previously served as classic "goal management": satisfaction or satisfaction is the result of goal pursuit, dissatisfaction and even complaining is the beginning of innovation!

Problem management itself is divided into two kinds, one from the consumer dissatisfaction or complaints, we resolve the various dissatisfaction is equivalent to the industrial era of meeting demand; Another kind of demand is not related to satisfying demand, it comes from a way of life that consumers expect.

In general, consumers often express their expectation of a lifestyle in this way: "If the product ... It's not like that ... ", we turn it into the language of internal managers, it becomes the" consumer's trouser pocket, should be loaded into what kind of products, this is the real meaning of creating demand! First, satisfying demand is only limited to the improvement of the original product or continuous improvement, and the creation of demand is "nothing", Create new demand through new products; second, meeting demand usually occurs in industrial quality and service satisfaction, and creating demand is a way of life from consumer expectations. In fact, Nokia's products up to more than 1000 models, from the point of view of meeting customer demand, Nokia is enough to sweep all types of consumers, but it also led to Nokia back to the old industrial production of the old road, production and no longer create. In fact, when the mobile internet era comes, customers are not designed for improved design, but for revolutionary innovation. Obviously, according to the traditional product design method, can not create the customer "overjoyed" product.

Therefore, the true meaning of the creation of demand, must be "out of nothing."

Of course, there are two kinds of "nothing": one is the system is not mature, like Edison invented the system, the other is the system has matured, like jobs, the product embedded in the mature business system. The latter is the norm for creating demand relative to small and medium-sized enterprises, which lack technology (especially the lack of core technology).

A micro-angle observation of facial features or siblings

In the real market, the precise definition of a product function or market value is determined by the corresponding consumer part of the product, not the product quality or function.

For example, what is a car? From the point of view of the travel (that is, foot), the car is of course the cheaper the better, if the car price is expensive to most people can not buy, the function of car transport can not be achieved; but if we look at the consumer's eyes, The car becomes synonymous with shape or color: the more the shape fits the present, the more the car sells; the more fashionable the color, the more popular the car is.

For example, what is catering? Many restaurant bosses will often introduce new dishes as a catering business innovation, but, there is a Chinese catering enterprises, but in the absence of new dishes launched the situation, business suddenly become prosperous lively! Its approach is also simple: the kitchen that is not visible to the diners that were originally closed, Loaded on a transparent large glass, diners as long as one into the door, immediately by the fire of stir-fried scenes infected! This is the power of the "eye" micro-angle!

Therefore, from the consumer's facial features or the micro-sibling perspective of the problem-including the eyes (color), ears (voice), mouth (taste) or siblings, we will know which products are redundant, which is the key factor of consumer demand.

In other words, questions or questions, not only subject to the organization level of the big angle, but also depends on the consumer level of micro-perspective, to some extent, the consumer level of micro-perspective than the organizational level of the larger angle, more difficult! The reason is that the organizational dimension (internal product, external demand) is almost common sense. But what exactly does a product correspond to a consumer's specific location or behavior? It is uncertain, and 100 people may have 100 different opinions. Therefore, only select the micro-perspective of the consumer level, it is possible to correctly define the internal products, so that the product mosaic in the consumer's life together to run.

The micro-angle splitting or subdivision principle once again proves the fact that the angle is not a knowledge, but a way of thinking.

A spread of the story on the Internet, the point of view is different, the conclusion is quite divergent: a person to see "people on the island are not shoes, there is no market", another person exclaimed: "God!" the people on the island do not wear shoes, the market is too big! " The only thing that changes is our view of things, that is, the angle. In fact, because of the lack of perspective, some people do not realize that the invention of technology is a typical internal category, it leads to the misconception that the new invention and the new requirements of the equal sign, and in fact, technological inventions and technology applications are two different things. Like industrial society's invention of steam technology, people who create demand and make a pot full of it are not inventors of steam engines, but railroad companies that use steam technology. In fact, when knowledge became known as common sense, the so-called innovation, more than 90% are from different ways of thinking, only less than 10% from the pure sense of technological inventions.

Extreme survival

Objective management assumes that consumer demand is the same or similar, and that the problem management is to find different points of demand. Popular point of view, if only for the quality of life improvement (such as Call function), then we will choose Nokia rather than the iphone. Although we can hardly say whether the mobile internet has made the iphone or the iphone caters to the mobile Internet, we know the truth: the iphone has really changed our way of life--without the time and place restrictions on the Internet. This is one of the differences between satisfying demand and creating demand: In the premise of discovering the need, to meet the demand is very simple, as long as the quality of good or cheap, the product will continue to sell; but, creating demand is another thing, it shows that the existing products and consumers expect a lifestyle mismatch!

Many people have never understood why abstract "values" will become products. The reason is simple: the three elements of industrial products (quality, price, function) All by the bosses, and bosses are the only way to replace the consumer is like or do not like! The current consumer slogan is no longer satisfied or dissatisfied, but likes or dislikes The former represents customer satisfaction with product quality or price, the latter represents the independent proposition of consumer lifestyle, that is, values! When consumers choose products based on personal preferences or values, that is, the world of lifestyle, two things happen: manufacturing, from mass production to mass customization; Creation, the more extreme the enterprise, the more create new demand.

For example, as a veteran shoe company, can Nike offer a unique pair of Nike shoes in the world? One customer did this: he first logged into Nike's business website and selected a series of "shoe parts"--including pink background, shock absorbers, bright yellow linings, tick marks, and more. Soon, the customer received a pair of Nike's own design, the world's unique Nike shoes! In fact, Nike is only a pair of complete shoes, split into the various parts of shoes, and allow customers through the network of free combination of technology, personalized customer needs are successfully completed. As the ancient Chinese game "puzzle", simple seven pieces of cardboard, but popular for thousands of years and prosperous, because: puzzle itself is an open system, seemingly simple seven pieces of cardboard can be spliced out infinitely many arbitrary patterns. Unlike industrial companies trying to satisfy their customers ' needs, puzzle's conclusion is that "customers satisfy themselves."

Only when the product itself becomes an open system that allows the customer to participate in the production or manufacture of products, we will call it a "live product", on the contrary, the industrial products do not allow customers to participate in the production process, we can only call it "dead products." Thus, the shift from mass production to mass customization is essentially the return of options to consumers.

For example, how did jobs invent the ipad? It comes first from jobs ' teeth of keyboards! Although everyone is used to keyboards. But Jobs had a terrible aversion to keyboards: the damn keyboard just couldn't let me put my computer in my pocket! So, is it possible to have a computer without a keyboard? So, he put a notebook computer everything for two, discarded the keyboard part, since then has the "tablet computer" this name!

For example, China's old and famous Dao Xiang Cun, Quan ju de etc, all understand a simple truth: Just do the same, never meddle in other! The so-called diversification of Chinese enterprises is actually the result of profit temptation: see the opportunity of profit, not to do is a fool. However, as time goes on, the enterprise will understand a truth: that part of the profits that should not be earned will eventually be returned to society at the cost of failure. In fact, the more extreme the individual enterprises, the more harmonious society as a whole!

Finally, whether manufacturing from large-scale production to mass customization, or in the creation of enterprises the more extreme the more likely to succeed, is essentially to respect the consumer's personality or values, from the quality of life to a lifestyle level.