Meeting Customer Needs November 6 - 7, 2008 Hosted by Illinois Tool Works (ITW) Glenview, IL (Limited to 20 participants and only 1 participant allowed per company) Register Online Make a Hotel Reservation

Are you successfully meeting your customer needs? Do you know what your customers really want?

Success or failure when introducing a new product or service is dependent on one thing: Does this offering meet the needs (expressed or otherwise) of my customers? The graveyard of new product introductions is filled with the tombs of products or services that a company thought met the needs of its customers, but, fell well short of the mark. Identifying and addressing the real needs of your customers is not difficult if you use proven tools and techniques to “peel back the onion” and identify the core basis driving your customer's requirements.

This workshop will explore specific issues in meeting customer needs that participants are facing, followed by a deep dive into the techniques and business processes found to be most successful. Finally, we will explore how these techniques can be successfully applied to particular situations.

Who Should Attend

R&D and Marketing executives and individual contributors responsible for new product and service development, business development, market and commercial development and innovation. Course is limited to 20 participants, with only one (1) per company admitted, to allow for an enhanced networking and workshop experience.

Why Attend

An organization that fails to innovate and introduce new products and services that meet customer needs will not survive in today's rapidly evolving global economy. This workshop will result in your thinking differently about customer needs, how best to address them and how to turn those needs into the products and services that your customers will truly value.

You Will Leave With These Key Benefits:

1. How to identify the Most Important Customer in Your Value Chain
2. Contextual Assessment techniques to help you “walk in the shoes of your customers” to finally understand your customer's expressed and latent needs.
3. Rank order those needs and identify which ones to apply resources to resolve, and which to ignore
4. Understanding why keeping your customer in your new product develop process is critical to success
5. Identifying the elements of your new product and service offerings
6. Defining which elements to eliminate, raise, reduce or create to address customer needs
7. Creating a Strategy Canvas to provide a visual picture to guide product and service development that meets customer needs.

5 Key Deliverables

Attendees take home:

1. Hands-on guidance and advice, including recommendations for your unique challenges and opportunities
2. Proven business methods to successfully develop new products and services that meet your customer's expressed and latent needs.
3. Slalom® software that allows you to quickly rank order customer needs and create Value Curves and Strategy Canvas to guide your new product efforts that focus on true customer needs.
4. Full set of reference materials which you may share with others in your firm, including notes from the meeting generated by a meeting facilitator
5. New network of peers and colleagues to exchange ideas now and after the session ends

Led by:

Dr. Harold (Pent) Penton
IRI Emeritus & President, Innovation Insights

Co-Facilitator:

Dr. Susan Gaud
IRI Emeritus

Preliminary Agenda

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