102. Customers Think In Trade-Offs: A Conversation with Pontus Siren and Shahriar Parvarandeh

The Disruptive Voice

In an earlier episode of The Disruptive Voice, Pontus Sirén discussed the Jobs methodology and how it relates to customer centricity. Companies exist to address customer problems, i.e. their Jobs To Be Done – and the first critical step for any innovator is to identify a good problem to solve. In this episode, Pontus’ Innosight colleague, Shari Parvarandeh, joins him to not only delve deeper into the importance of having a customer-centric approach but also to highlight that as Jobs arise in the lives of customers, they are compelled to make trade-off decisions. While the Jobs methodology enables companies to more deeply understand the progress that customers are trying to make, trade-off analysis enables them to systematically develop customer Jobs-centric solutions. Of further note is that, for companies, trade-offs are the linchpin of strategy, and they must constantly innovate to develop new and distinctive trade-off equations. Mastering this discipline is indispensable because, in the long run, companies succeed by continuously developing differentiated solutions with compelling trade-offs. Drawing on a number of real world examples to bring these ideas to life, this conversation sheds new light on how, through changing from a mindset of customer centricity to one of customers’ Jobs centricity, companies can innovate in more predictable and systematic ways.