Data are important. And, data are increasingly used to help us in all areas of society. However, there is an underlying issue, the role of data and research is to inform, not to decide.
All over the world, people go about their days getting things done. Much of what they do is aimed at satisfying a collection of short and long-term objectives that they see as being related to their well-being. The many decisions that they make throughout the day—which toothpaste to use, whether to drink coffee or tea, what product to buy for their company—are all part of satisfying these objectives, as each person defines them.
The segmentation graveyard teems with sorry creatures. Most large organizations – and many small ones – have such a graveyard buried within past market research and strategic plans. Among its disused inhabitants are schemes that: Lack explanatory power for observed behaviors Are incomprehensible due to the dozen-plus variables used to define them Incorporate large “unexplained” buckets for groups that fall outside statistically-derived clusters Have substantial overlap among segments
Jobs to be Done is a hot concept. Companies as wide ranging as twitter, Nestlé, Clorox, and Cisco have been using the theory to double down on customer-centricity. Given that I co-authored one of leading books on the topic, this development is good news. However, I’m dismayed to see how people struggle with using the framework for market segmentation. They tend to over-simplistically bifurcate markets, define segments around jobs that are actually universally important, or...
In an interview with Sir Jonathan Ive, Apple’s former Chief Design Officer, he mentioned that Apple didn’t do consumer focus groups, market research, etc, explaining that Apple knew the future possibilities better than their consumers. This led me on to think about the famous quote from Henry Ford, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
