Good discovery produces better opportunities. The ability to define the root cause is an art that is not widely taught or even promoted.
When we have a
precisely defined problem, solving it is
easy. When the problem is more complex we frequently only tackle the
symptoms and not the root cause.
Sales performance at
one of our clients was stable but not growing. Their solution to stimulate increased sales was an elaborate
loyalty program with a substantial rebate
attached based on volume purchases.
Volume growth occurred but was relatively small. A negative consequence was the rebate system
created significant margin destruction.
They had worked on
the wrong problem or symptom of a more
deeply hidden issue. This business has a deep product range and most of
their customers buy a portfolio of these
products. The real problem was they were missing the opportunity to
cross sell- their performance was
anemic- only 10% of the top customer
base bought more than 5 different
products.
Now how easy is this
to solve. Once this was understood the
sales teams promoted more of their range
and increased revenues without destructive rebates.
Our research
shows less than 10% of medium sized
business (between $10m and $500M) have
some form of discovery culture in place, such as a six sigma problem solving methodology.
The interesting fact is that they mainly focus on problems. We only found
1 instance where discovery was focused both on problems and successes.
Why do we not
consider success to be a focal part of our discovery process? I was
participating in a "lost contract review meeting" that
analyzed in depth the reasons for the
loss. After the meeting I asked if I could participate in the "win
contract review meeting" . I will
leave the answer to your imagination.
Mostly we have a
belief system that successes will continue on their own and we default to solving problems (or more commonly their
symptoms).
Consider the discovery culture in your organization.
- How is discovery encouraged
- Do you have effective discovery tools in place
- Are your teams working on root causes or are they addressing symptoms
- Do you try and learn from and propagate your successes
- Do the same problems recur (a sign you are working on symptoms)
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