Page 93 - Grow from Within Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation

80 grow from within

erately or by accident. Start by developing a solid hypothesis
to identify your target customers. What is the relevant prob-
lem that is being solved? What pain is being alleviated? Place
the emphasis on hypothesis, as all you really know in the early
stages of a truly innovative project is that you don’t really
know for sure, but you must start somewhere.
So, select and define the customer segment or segments that
you believe will become your target(s). Then define the under-
lying value propositions as best you can from the customers’
perspectives. There are many frameworks and experts available
to help you discover and define value propositions. We won’t
describe them all here; however, we will share a simple, pow-
erful framework developed by our colleague at Kellogg,
Mohanbir Sawhney. The Sawhney framework, shown in Figure
2-3, illustrates that customer value propositions include both
benefits and costs. Most companies focus on the benefits and
perhaps the financial costs to customers of acquiring and using
a new offering. Unfortunately, adopting a new technology, ser -
vice, process, or something else introduces costs to the cus-
tomer. Some of these costs can be negligible, such as
substituting one similar product for another. Others can be quite
costly from a financial and organizational perspective, such as
installing a new suite of enterprisewide software. Such an intro-
duction requires people to change their behavior and work pat-
terns, an often challenging and sometimes wrenching process.
After you have defined the target customer or customers,
ask yourself the following questions from your customer’s
perspective.

Benefits

What’s in It for Me? What is your offering’s promise to the
customer? Articulating this notion up front will help you think