OUTCOME-DRIVEN INNOVATION

What is Outcome-Driven Innovation?

Outcome-Driven Innovation (ODI) is an effective strategy and innovation process that significantly enhances a company's ability to develop and market successful products and services. In fact, ODI enables companies to achieve five times higher success rates compared to the industry average. This approach ensures that a company's marketing efforts are more fruitful, and its innovation initiatives are more reliable and profitable. The foundation of ODI lies in gaining a deep understanding of the customer's "job to be done." By analyzing the customer's needs through this lens, we not only redefine customers, markets, and needs, but also improve market segmentation and size determination, as well as the creation and testing of ideas.

The ODI process employs research methods that unveil hidden growth opportunities. It achieves this by linking customer-defined metrics, also known as desired outcomes, to the customer's job to be done, thereby making innovation measurable. When companies have a clear understanding of how customers assess value, they can align their sales, marketing, development, and R&D activities with these metrics. As a result, they can systematically and predictably create value for their customers.

ODI helps companies to:

Discover untapped markets that they have not explored previously.
Gain a larger market share by positioning their current offerings effectively to compete against market opportunities.
Improve sales by aligning conversations with customers' preferences.
Enhance existing offerings to better accomplish the customer's job, ultimately increasing revenue and reducing churn.
Expand their product portfolio with new offerings that address adjacent and entirely new markets.
Enhance the overall customer experience and journey.

To apply the Jobs-to-be-Done Theory, the first step is to identify the target market based on "a group of people + the job they are trying to get done." For example, parents who want to teach their children life lessons form a market, as do dental hygienists who clean patients' teeth and farmers who grow crops.

Benefits of outcome-driven innovation:

Defining a market around the job-to-be-done brings various benefits:

It transforms innovation from an art to a science. By understanding the job-to-be-done as a process, statistical process control principles can be applied to identify factors that hinder customers from completing their jobs. This leads to the utilization of proven qualitative and quantitative market research techniques to uncover unmet customer needs and assess customer segments' satisfaction levels. Moreover, this market definition allows for the measurement of progress towards goals and success. When the job-to-be-done is understood, hypotheses can be formulated on how a product or service can assist customers in overcoming specific challenges they encounter while trying to complete their jobs. These hypotheses can then be tested through regular market research methods like surveys, interviews, or focus groups.

The ODI framework offers numerous benefits, some of which include:

• Establishing a common language to define, capture, and communicate customer needs, thus fostering a culture of innovation.
  
• Reducing the risk of failure by precisely defining target opportunities.
  
• Streamlining time to market, eliminating the need for rapid iterations and pivots.
  
• Enabling conceptualization and prediction of winning ideas and products in the marketplace.