The Customer Connection: The Global Innovation 1000
Booz Allen Hamilton’s annual study of the world’s largest corporate R&D spenders finds two primary success factors: aligning the innovation model to corporate strategy and listening to customers every
Strategy & Business, December 10, 2007 — How do companies innovate successfully? They can spend the most money, hire the best engineers, develop the best technology, and conduct the best market research. But unless their research and development efforts are driven by a thorough understanding of what their customers want, their performance may well fall short — at least compared to that of their more customer-driven competitors. John Schiech, president of the DeWalt division of Black & Decker (the division that makes power tools used by professional contractors), put it simply. When asked what made his company so successful, he responded, “It’s engineers and marketing product managers spending hours and hours on job sites talking to the guys who are trying to make their living with these tools.”
