FROM EXPERIENCE The Customer's Eye View of Innovation
本文强调新产品开发应聚焦于降低客户成本，并基于对500多家企业战略的研究，提出通过深入理解客户在产品全生命周期中的经济性来替代传统的市场调研方法。
Currently, “working close to the market” is in vogue. Yet often we ignore the single most important premise of this basic operating philosophy. Donald Potter reminds us that it is essential that our new product development efforts key on the basic principle of lowering our customers' costs. He describes one way to achieve this objective while referencing his study of over 500 corporate strategies. Too often, marketing research investigates customers' reactions to existing products, not future needs. A better approach is to develop a deep understanding of the customers' economics of using a product over its entire lifetime.