Accept Software Resource Library

Wonder Why Most Products Fail to Meet Customer Needs?

Being responsible for Accept's Product Marketing function, I am continually trying to understand what product executives and brand owners are doing to bring those profitable products to market and what's keeping them up at night. A few weeks ago we kicked off a series of online polls to understand these priorities and challenges that product executives face. Since its mid-term political season and I'm currently obsessed with polling data, I wanted to share the results from the first poll - which are very insightful. It's worth noting that the poll had over 200 responses and represented a pretty solid cross-section of product management, marketing and development roles across all types of industries and geographies.

Here is the first poll question and the results:

A whopping 83% of the respondents said that less than 25% of their existing ideas get translated into products. I have to ask- HOW DO THEY DECIDE WHAT PRODUCTS OR FEATURES TO BUILD? Someone's favorite features, political arm-wrestling, or the classic HIPPO (Highest Paid Person's Opinion)?

If you think about it, these results shouldn't surprise us. Most companies today lack a consistent way to capture, share and prioritize strategically important ideas that can be translated into requirements and profitable products. What is interesting is that there is no shortage of conversations and ideas about products in the web 2.0 world that we live in today. It is getting those ideas translated into specific product requirements that align with company and product strategy where the whole process breaks down. The solution we believe is to have an end-end idea lifecycle management capability that not only streamlines idea-to-product workflow and automates communication between internal (product management, development, etc) and external stakeholders (customers, partners, suppliers) throughout the innovation lifecycle- but also enables continuous updates and fosters collaboration between idea contributors at every step. That is the recipe to ensure your products and features are firmly based on the Voice of the Customer.

Any thoughts, comments on our interpretation of the results - are you seeing a different perspective? I'm looking forward to sharing more insights as our poll series continues.