Do you want benefits with that?

In a previous post “Benefits … who needs them?” I described a recent experience with a potential client who was considering a significant expenditure on a new IT system, but weren’t clear about the benefits they wanted to achieve. That’s business benefits, but what about the broader picture of product or service benefits from an end customer perspective?

Most product marketing focuses on features …

Recently, I’ve been working with several start-up companies developing hardware products. Their products are aimed at competitive, but relatively niche, markets. They have product brochures that detail all the specifications and features of their products, and claim they are ‘best in class’ or offer some advantage over the competition.

Benefits … who needs them?

Benefits frequently get overlooked when implementing business changes. The need for change gets driven by reorganisation, acquisitions, ageing IT systems or for other internal reasons and it is easy for companies to jump to a solution without considering the wider business context. Recently I had an experience that highlighted for me how essential it is to focus on benefits – not technology, products or features – when considering any business change.

We know we need to make a change …