"including the customer C in the mix and basing prices on value"

“the questions that are central to your business and for wich you need shared answers: Who are and aren’t our customers? Why are we diferente? How do we add value? [Moi ici: Questões quase tão velhas como este blogue]
...
There has to be a match between the value you create and communicate and your ability to extract value. Customers must demonstrate some willingness-to-pay. The higher this is, and the more differentiated your value proposition is, the greater your pricing power. Companies stray from this path in the R&D processes when they focus primarily or exclusively on just two Cs—cost and competition—instead of including the customer C in the mix and basing prices on value.
...
In essence, we need a shift in how R&D projects hit the market. Instead of pricing developed mostly on costs, you should have innovation projects that are based on willingness to pay. [Moi ici: Interessante como é a mesma abordagem the “Monetizing Innovation] The sooner you begin this switch in innovation focus, the easier the back end of the value approach gets.”

Trechos retirados de Stephan M. Liozu em "Dollarizing Differentiation Value: A Practical Guide for the Quantification and the Capture of Customer Value"

As doenças da inovação (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II e parte III.

As inovações zombie:

"Undead. This category of product should never be released, because it comes back to haunt you, like a ghost or zombie. “They come in two varieties: Either they're the wrong answer to the right question; or an answer to a question no one cares about. Either way, you should never have developed these products. Undead failures teach us that some well-intentioned, marvelously engineered new products should never be brought to life,”
...
How to avoid the undead: Undead products happen when proponents wildly overstate customer appeal and don’t segment the customer base effectively. “Had these firms asked customers whether and what they’d be willing to pay for their inventions before drafting the engineering plans, and had they identified the market size by segment and who would be willing to pay the most and the least for it, they would have reformulated their products to meet an acceptable price. Or, finding there is no acceptable price, or that the market size is too small, they would have scrapped the product altogether before they incurred too much financial damage,”"

As doenças da inovação (parte II)

Parte I.

Outra doença da inovação tem uma prima que anda muito em voga em Portugal na economia:

"Minivations. Sometimes, companies will create the right product for the right market. The only catch: The company or entrepreneur didn’t have the courage to charge the right price, and as a result, the product is under-monetized. If you evaluate the product’s sales versus its potential, and it gets a C+, that’s a minivation.
“Everyone knows that they could have done better, but they just claim it as a success because it still worked.
...
How to catch minivations: Look for minivations early. It’s key to watch your team’s attitude before and after the product launches. “Some early warning signs may be that your team seems comfortable checking the box and lowballing on targets.
...
If the majority of deals are going through the pipeline without any pushback on price, you may have underpriced it. Track the number of price escalations, as well as the length of the sales cycle against historical norms. It will give you more hard evidence that something new is occurring, which you can then address.”"

Quando um produto se vende muito bem, com pouco esforço, é porque muito dinheiro ficou em cima da mesa. Os clientes reconhecem o valor e reconhecem a pechincha.

O valor líquido capturado pelo fornecedor é muito menor do que o que seria possível.

Configurar como deve ser

Continuando a leitura de "Monetizing Innovation" de Ramanujam e Tacke, depois de "Segmentar como deve ser", os autores propõem: configurar como deve ser:

"But first, a clarification: Our definition of product configuration refers to the decision of which features and functionalities will be included in a product. In some industries, like software and tech, product configuration is also referred to by the term packaging. By bundling, we mean combining a product or service with other products and services.
…
Product Configuration Done Right.
Doing product configuration right means you design a product with the right features for a segment—that is, just the features customers are willing to pay for. This is a core tenet of designing new products that will succeed in the marketplace. Too many features lead to feature shock products, especially if your customers are not wild about those features. If they are wild about them and you didn't realize it, you design a minivation. Products with features that customers won't pay for wind up undead.
…
By having their feature sets tailored to each segment's needs, value, and WTP, each offering finally had a distinct value proposition. The design of these products also minimized the chances they would cannibalize one another, since customers clearly saw what they gave up at the lower price points. [Moi ici: Como não recordar a beleza da solução Dow vs Xiameter] The way we like to put it is that the company established clear "fences" between its products. Customers only get a low price if they go without extra product or logistics services; the company can offer a low price on this product because value and costs are lower."

E na sua empresa... que configuração faz?

As falhas da inovação

"Succeeding at product innovation is difficult, and it always has been. Every other year, Simon-Kucher & Partners conducts the world's largest survey on the state of pricing. Our 2014 report polled executives in 1,615 companies across the United States, Japan, Germany, and 37 other countries. The primary focus of the survey was to measure how well companies were monetizing their innovations across industries and geographies. The disappointing findings were reported in Harvard Business Review: 72 percent of new products introduced over the last five years failed—either to meet their revenue and profit goals, or failed entirely. These figures applied equally to startups and large businesses in every industry surveyed.
...
These numbers show something is very wrong with the way companies bring new concepts to market. No one is immune. As painful as it is to consider, the odds are stacked against all of us.
.
Yet succeeding at innovating has never been more important than it is now. In the 2014 Simon-Kucher & Partners study, 83 percent of companies reported facing increasing downward pricing pressures."

Estes trechos foram retirados de "Monetizing Innovation". Depois, os autores identificam 4 causas principais na base deste desempenho medíocre:

• Choque de atributos. Amontoar demasiados atributos num produto - muitos não desejados. Cria um produto demasiado caro e que não atrai os clientes. Esta imagem ilustra bem a situação:

• Minivation. Uma inovação que apesar de ser o produto certo para o mercado certo é vendida a um preço demasiado baixo para recompensar o investimento feito no desenvolvimento.
• Gemas escondidas. Um potencial campeão de vendas que nunca terá sucesso porque não foi correctamente comercializado. Por exemplo, o seu mercado-alvo, os clientes-alvo e/ou prateleiras (canais) não correspondem ao core business actual. Recordar "Um conselho, um desafio"
• Zombies. Uma inovação que os clientes não querem e que no entanto foi em frente, quer porque se trata da resposta errada à pergunta certa, ou da resposta a uma pergunta que ninguém fez.