In love with your products more than your customers?

Only the customer can determine value. Your product or service has zero value in it. You cannot build value or even create it through clever marketing. Value is only created when a customer puts it into use. This is Service Dominant Logic Thinking (Vargo and Lusch (2006).

If you take this they approach and view your product or service as enabler of customer value a different world opens up for you. Companies like John Deer, P & G, Crayola and Mar’s M & M’s have re-invented themselves by understanding value in use. Each of these companies has taken it a step further and included their customers in the co-creation of products.

When we think about co-creation, we have a tendency to think only in the terms of innovation. Most of us are not ready for that step. In fact, it is a rather large one. However, Janet R. McColl-Kennedy Professor of Marketing UQ Business School, University of Queensland, Australia recently published a paper where she discussed the 7Cs of Co-Creation:

1. Co-operate (compliance)
2. Collate (sorting, assorting, synthesizing)
3. Combine complementary skills, knowledge, expertise
4. Connect eg with family, friends, service providers, support groups
5. Co-learning
6. Co-produce (self-service, co-design, new service development)
7. Cerebral activities (eg positive thinking, reframing, emotional regulation)

These as not earth shattering revelations but better yet they allow you to start working with customers in the co-creation space. Something as simple as a checklist designed around these 7 Cs could enable you to review sales and marketing material or presentations. If you start asking questions like:

• Does this comply 100% with what the customer requested?
• Can we sort our information to make it more meaningful?
• Can we group our material differently for the different customer departments?
• What complementary skill does the customer have that will facilitate the problem solving?
• Who do we need to connect with internally or externally (downstream or upstream)?
• What can we learn together that will assist to move forward?
• What changes may be required to our product/service that provides better use?
• Is the customer using our product/service differently than intended?
• Does the customer modify our product/service?
• How could we reframe our proposal/offer to allow our customer to change it?

Changing our mental model and making that great leap to co-creation is mind boggling for most. Starting simply by starting to ask the right questions around are existing procedures and content, the perspective begins to change. It’s a lot like dating. Start slow; ask the right questions, listen and the next thing you know, you just might be walking down the aisle.

Related Information:
The Service-dominant Logic of Marketing: Dialog, Debate, And Directions
If all of us need to be marketers, what’s the framework?
7 Principles of Universal Design & Beyond
The Common Thread of Design Thinking, Service Design and Lean Marketing
Janet R. McColl-Kennedy: Co-creation of Value and S-D logic

Will we handle privacy and recycling?

Following publication of his book "Shaping Things (Mediaworks Pamphlets) ", American Science Fiction author Bruce Sterling share his views and visions at LIFT France 09 about the future of Design, the broad concept of an "Internet of Things", and reflects on two important issues: Privacy and Recycling. Bruce has been a regular speaker at LIFT events.

 

Interesting concepts and Bruce shows a real passion for his subject. His book was written six years ago and it is amazing how many of the ideas are still prevalent today.

Related Information:
Design Thinker exposed as Left Brain Dominant
Will Product Managers embrace Open Innovation?
Accomplished Innovator creates an Open Innovation Incubator

Lean Marketing Board Game Introduction

Following The Lean Startup Principles of Build, Measure, Learn, I am introducing a MVP version of the Lean Marketing Board Game which surprisingly is not based on the Lean Startup but instead my book the Lean Marketing House.  I really don’t teach Build, Measure, Lean and the Pivot, I just stick to the old PDCA cycle. Now granted my Plan–Do-Check–Act (Adapt maybe) do resemble the Build, Measure, Learn – Validate theories of Eric Ries but even though we beat to same drum, we go about it slightly different.

The main difference being is my adaption of viewing Lean as a knowledge building platform and using Service Design or Design Thinking Principles that put the customer at the forefront versus the product or service. My thinking is also firmly rooted in the Service Dominant Logic theories that your product/service has little or no value without the customer. The value comes in the use of your product/service by the customer. Your marketing should be centered on that side of the fence versus internally.

I have put a presentation of the initial steps of the Lean Marketing Board Game in place. My Minimum Viable product, I hope you enjoy.

Lean Marketing Game

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The game will be included in my upcoming Lean Marketing House 28-day Program.

Related Information:
Scaling the Customer Decision Making Process
Gaming can make a better world
Can the customer be front stage in your organization?
Scaling the Customer Decision Making Process

Answers to Sustainability

I was participating in a discussion on LinkedIn and came across an article, How to Sustain Front Line Process Improvement Activities from the Harvard Business Review and like most of us, if it says sustainability we take a look. It has to be the most difficult part of any continuous improvement process.

I found the author of the article, Brad Power handling the comments masterfully and engaging in a great dialogue with the commenters. He is actually researching sustaining attention to process management and is currently conducting research with the Lean Enterprise Institute.

Our podcast centered on Brad’s research of sustainability and his findings so far may not be unique but the structure he puts to his information is.  Also, I think you will find out as much about researching and the questions you ask as you will sustainability. At times I wondered who was being interviewed.

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Brad Power is a consultant and researcher in process innovation. In his latest consulting engagement, for over a year he's been helping a healthcare insurance company reengineer its interactions with providers and members to reduce cycle times. And for the last three years he's been researching why few companies sustain their attention to process management — how they can make improvement and adaptation a habit (even fun?). He's been collaborating with the Lean Enterprise Institute on his research. You can see some of his research insights in his blog posts at The Harvard Business Review at bradfordpower.tumblr.com. He's interested in hearing stories of companies which embarked on a process improvement program and either kept going, or didn't, and why.

Related Information:
Learn more about the Xerox Design for Lean Six Sigma
Design for Lean Six Sigma, The Xerox Way
Sustaining Lean in Manufacturing
Does Lean Marketing deliver what the customer wants?

Profiling the customer by knowledge gaps

This is part of my blog series on using the principles of Demand Drive MRP and its five primary components. This particular blog focuses around Buffer Profiles and Level Determination or in the marketing sense, profiling the customer by your knowledge gaps.

Once the strategically replenished positions are determined, the target levels of those
buffers have to be set initially based on several factors. Different materials and parts
behave differently but many also behave nearly the same. Demand-driven MRP groups
parts and materials chosen for strategic replenishment and that behave similarly into
buffer profiles. Buffer profiles take into account important factors, including lead time
(relative to the environment), variability (demand or supply), whether the part is made
or bought or distributed, and whether significant order multiples are involved. These
buffer profiles are made up of zones that produce a unique buffer picture for each part as
their respective individual part traits are applied to the group traits.

The above is from the Orlicky’s Material Requirements Planning 3/E. written by my recent podcast (Is Orlicky’s MRP relevant today? Think DDMRP) guests Carol Ptak and Chad Smith of the Demand Driven Institute.

I think it may be interesting to group customers not by traditional segments but by the level of knowledge that we have of each other (customer and supplier). If we were to view the stages such as described in the blog post, The 7 step Lean Process of Marketing to Toyota we would see a natural progression through the stages of the supplier – customer engagement. This serves as a good outline for the knowledge that we gain in participation with our customer.

I believe that this type of segmentation leads to better results than a traditional buying cycle. It may seem that many of us are already doing this. If your product groups are actually defined by customer markets and your customer defined by the knowledge gap as distinguished by a method such as the Toyota supplier relationship hierarchy you are halfway there. The first question after that, you must ask yourself when looking at the levels within those cycles is the amount of people or organizations that your company can maintained in that particular cycle. At what amount does it become it an asset or a liability? It is very similar to carry the right inventory. Too little and you miss orders and too much you have resources tied up. Your buffer zone or Work in process(WIP) between these two points is an asset.

Sounds somewhat nonsensical, but this is where we can take many of the Lean Marketing principles and scale them to a larger organization. We are not going to be able to take each individual customer and mirror their decision making paths, it would simply be overwhelming. Instead, we must review the first step in our Demand Driven Marketing Resource Plan, Strategic Position: Positioning your organization to learn from your customers and determine where we have the most customer knowledge or as I like to term it where we have the ability to play in our customers’ playground. Defining this market area allows us to market much more effectively and systematically.

There are four factors that are considered in traditional DDMRP:

1. Item Type
2. Variability
3. Lead Time
4. Significant Minimum Order Quantity

They are worth mentioning here as they correspond very closely to a DDMRP marketing system. In DDMRP the item types are designated by purchased, manufactured or distributed. Variability is designated by supply or demand component with further classification of high, medium and low. In the marketing sense we typically group customers similar through the buying channels, but why? What about grouping them through the knowledge hierarchy? Further defining them in the individual cycles that make up the knowledge hierarchy? The reasons are:

1. The level of support is readily defined within these cycles.
2. Variability is definable by rate of touch points. 
3. Lead Time is a function of their decision making process..
4. Minimum order quantities would relate to size of company.

The example for this reasoning can be found again in the 7 Step Toyota Suppler model. The 3^rd level, Control systems in the hierarchy can be used as an example. Striving to improve the measurement systems, feedback, target pricing areas and cost management structure between vendor and customer are very tangible and smart goals with defined outcomes. It is not a task that is easy but it is readily definable and as a result a method that continuous improvement can be applied.

The questions really is can a customer profile be readily applied that is not so general in nature that everyone fit sit or so singular in nature that each company has a separate profile. If we view just that cycle we can identify the support required, the customer decision process for each task and the size of the company we are working with.

What may be needed is to define the variability of these individual companies? Profiling them based on variability or high, medium and low touch companies creates an opportunity to judge the level of support and frequency required. Your higher touch companies will more than likely have a shorter sales cycle. This may be accomplished by condensing the decision making process or eliminating several steps. Going back to the Toyota example, a high touch company may disregard vendor measurement systems and require little feedback. They may be only interesting in target pricing. If you claim that a customer wants to be high touch but have the entire spectrum of services, you will probably find out that may not be a customer you would want anyway.

It is somewhat beyond this blog post to demonstrate calculating the buffer levels but sizing of the buffer levels for each individual component and cycle is possible. The advantage in doing this is that you start managing sales and marketing by demand. You “sense and adapt” to market changes and penetration levels. It is a continuous deployment of a SWOT analysis on a micro and macro level.

Profiling customers based on these four components would allow for a support structure to be developed and ultimately buffer levels developed. If a buffer level is developed, you start managing resources and adjusting capacity much earlier in the sales and marketing cycle. This will result in better use of capital, people and a saving in time for your customers where it is needed most.

Related Information:
The Supplier Partnering Hierarchy of Toyota is from the The Toyota Way Fieldbook
Positioning your organization to learn from your customers
What Sales and Marketing can learn from Demand Driven Manufacturing
Is Orlicky’s MRP relevant today? Think DDMRP
Marketing with PDCA Book Overview

Using Design Thinking for Growth

Using Design Thinking for Growth is a transcription of a the Business901 podcast, Design Thinker exposed as Left Brain Dominant. I am not sure if it was the title or the timing of the podcast (it was released around the 4th of July) but this podcast did not reach the listenership that I had thought it would.

Great thoughts on how Design Thinking may be to Business Growth the way Lean and Six Sigma has been to quality.

Using Design Thinking for Growth

In a recent blog post, It’s not your Grandmother’s Lean anymore! I introduced a few thoughts from Tim Ogilvie, CEO of innovation strategy consultancy Peer Insight new book Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers. I would encourage you to visit that post before reading the transcription or listening to the podcast and leave the diagram up or print it out as the discussion takes place.

Recent Posts:
Podcast: Design Thinker exposed as Left Brain Dominant
How new is Service Dominant Logic and does it apply now?
Asking the right questions about Lean?
Service Design Thinking

When Lean Thinking is not enough!

When are Lean Thinking, A3 Problem Solving, PDCA, Kaizen and Continuous Improvement not enough? There is actually a time when considering small incremental improvements are the wrong thing to do.

When you are dealing with a high degree of uncertainty, there still needs to be a process in place. If not, you may end up fighting the process versus working on the problem. I am not sure where I heard this but it is worth repeating here: “How many good ideas have you lost because of a poor plan?”

Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) tries to solve some of these problems but it is a fairly laborious process for the most of us. I came across a book by Tim Hurson recently, Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking that I thought was well written and the examples in it make implementing the process described quite simple.

I created a quick PowerPoint to walk someone through the process.

When Lean Thinking is Not Enough!

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An excerpt from an Amazon review:

I'll admit to being a bit jaded, and the first few sections of the book offer more of a history lesson about innovation and innovative thinking than I felt necessary, but for those approaching the topic for the first time, the concepts of the monkey mind and gator brain are compelling, since they demonstrate that our current methods of thinking avoid risk and most often simply react to threats or patterns. The book starts to get really interesting in the fourth chapter, which deals with resisting the urge to quickly arrive at an answer. Instead, the book encourages us to "Stay with the Question". In his approach, Hurson sucks us in, peeling the onion a little at a time and getting agreement, till we are in violent agreement that we must change drastically. Then he rolls out section three of his book, which outlines a process for creative and innovative thinking, supported by a number of simple but powerful tools.

The phases describe a method to generate better ideas, use some divergent then convergent thinking to stretch them, then move on to evaluate and determine which ideas should be considered for evaluation. What I also like is that he adds a step for deciding actions and assigning resources. Too often we get excited about selecting ideas for further investigation without determining and identifying the resources and plans necessary for the critical next steps. Along this process he introduces a number of tools: the I-cube or the C-5 or the DRIVE model, all of which are relatively easy to use and bring shape and focus around thinking and decision making that traditionally has been very subjective.

Related Information:
In love with your products more than your customers?
Using the wrong set of 5 whys in problem solving
SALES PDCA Framework for Lean Sales and Marketing
If all of us need to be marketers, what’s the framework?

7 Principles of Universal Design & Beyond

The 7 Principles of Universal Design were developed in 1997 by a working group of architects, product designers, engineers and environmental design researchers, led by the late Ronald Mace in the North Carolina State University. An excellent poster is available, The Principles of Universal Design. These principles are even applicable to many marketing activities from content creation thru website design.

1. Equitable Use: Useful, appealing and marketable to all people including  diverse abilities.
2. Flexibility in Use: Accommodates a wide range of individual preferences and abilities. It provides choice in methods of use and provide adaptability to the user's pace.
3. Simple and Intuitive: Makes it easy to understand, regardless of the user's experience, knowledge, language skills, or current concentration level.
4. Perceptible Information: Communicates necessary information effectively to the user, regardless of conditions or the user's sensory abilities.
5. Tolerance for Error:  Minimizes hazards and the adverse consequences of accidental or unintended actions.
6. Low Physical Effort: Use is efficient and comfortably and with a minimum of fatigue.
7. Size and Space for Approach and Use: Reach, manipulation, and use regardless of user's body size, posture, or mobility. Provide a clear line of sight to important elements for any seated or standing user.

I enjoy reviewing  “basic principles” such as Dr. Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge, the basis for application of Deming's famous 14 Points for Management. Principles ground me in my thoughts and provide a structure for me to develop new ideas. They serve as my starting point and assist me in becoming more creative, not less.

Dr. Weinschenk shares seven principles beyond usability to make your website more engaging - principles of persuasion, emotion, and trust.. You can download the poster of the video at http://www.humanfactors.com/PETposter.asp

 

Dr. Susan Weinschenk is the author of 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People (Voices That Matter) and Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click? .

P.S. In a grander sense and a little off subject but this could serve as a reminder that organizations need to have their “basic principles” well defined. Recently all the talk has been about change, constant innovation, pivoting and iteration. I think employees and customers want to know what an organization stands for. Principles give us refugee in an uncertain world.  

Related Information:
Profound knowledge for Lean Marketing
If all of us need to be marketers, what’s the framework?
Using the wrong set of 5 whys in problem solving
SALES PDCA Framework for Lean Sales and Marketing

The Lean Agile Train Software Transcription

Dean Leffingwell author of Agile Software Requirements: Lean Requirements Practices for Teams, Programs, and the Enterprise (Agile Software Development Series) was the guest on the Business901 podcast. I talked to Dean so long that I divided the podcast into two parts, Lean Agile Software Train, part 1 and Lean Agile Software Train, Part 2. This is a transcription of both podcasts.

Lean Agile Software Train

About: Dean Leffingwell is a consultant, entrepreneur, software executive and technical author who provides product strategy, business advisory services and enterprise-level agility coaching to large software enterprises. Dean was founder and CEO of consumer marketing identity company ProQuo, Inc. Dean has also served as chief methodologist to Rally Software and as business consultant to Ping Identity Corporation and Roving Planet, Inc.

Info on Dean:
Dean’s Website
Dean’s Blog
Dean’s other Book(Amazon): Scaling Software Agility: Best Practices for Large Enterprises

Related Information:
Understand Scrum, Understand Implementing PDCA
Lean Architecture: for Agile Software Development
The differences in Lean and Agile

Mind map on Crucial Conversations

This is one of my all time favorite mind maps and I really do use it many times before having a conversation on the phone just to remind me of a few key points. I actually have found myself reviewing while talking on the telephone. The book, Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Second Edition is literally the definitive guide on the subject.

I find few people invest the time it takes to improve on creating effective dialogues. We will send people to learn many techniques but when is the last time you took a class on “How to have a Conversation”. The book starts out with a self-assessment of yourself. In an engaging manner, this was an audio book for me, the authors use examples and exercises to learn the techniques described. How many of us know the magic of making it safe for others to express their true feelings and desires?

P.S. This is an excellent book for any facilitator.

Other books:
Crucial Confrontations: Tools for Resolving broken promises, violated expectations, and bad behavior
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable (J-B Lencioni Series)

Related Information:
PDCA from the Outside-in
Teamwork and Collaboration thru the eyes of Cisco
Allowing Individual Kaizen is Essentially Respect for People.
Using the wrong set of 5 whys in problem solving

Mind Map on Getting Naked

This is a five part afternoon series depicting the mind maps that I have created on the books of Patrick Lencioni. His website and company, The Table Group offers additional information on these subjects. This Mind map was constructed during the listening of the book, Getting Naked: A Business Fable About Shedding The Three Fears That Sabotage Client Loyalty (J-B Lencioni Series) . Patrick Lencioni says about he book:

Consulting or service firms that practice the naked approach will find it easier to retain clients through greater trust and loyalty. That is the first and most obvious benefit. But they’ll also be able to attract clients better because naked service begins before a client actually becomes a client. It allows firms to be more open, more generous and less desperate in the sales process, and creates great differentiation from more traditional sales approaches. Finally, firms that practice the naked approach will attract and retain the right kind of consultants and professionals who yearn for an honest, natural way of working, both with clients and with one another.

Related Information:
SALES PDCA Framework for Lean Sales and Marketing
The 7 step Lean Process of Marketing to Toyota
The New Names of Marketing are still PDCA
Will Product Managers embrace Open Innovation?
Putting Customer Value in the Product Lifecycle

How the Toyota Production System defines the Challenge

The Friday Video Series continues with Dr. Michael Balle, the Gemba Coach at the Lean Enterprise Institute. This series of videos continues with a central theme of Kaizen.

Dr. Balle is a multiple Shingo Prize winner as an author of the The Gold Mine and The Lean Manager. His newest Shingo Prize was on the adaption of The Gold Mine: A Novel of Lean Turnaround to an audiobook that features performances by multiple readers who bring its realistic business story and characters to life.

Dr. Michael Balle is the Gemba Coach at the Lean Enterprise Institute

Past Videos with Dr. Balle on the Biz901 You Tube Channel

Related Information:
Is your marketing concentrated in area that makes a difference?
Can Voice of Customer deliver?
Unclear Customer Value leads to Failure
Business Processes as Value Networks

Is Orlicky’s MRP relevant today? Think DDMRP

Is Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning the blueprint for the future and revitalization of formal planning in the 21st Century? Some people think so as Carol Ptak and Chad Smith were asked to co-author the new Orlicky's Material Requirements Planning 3/E. But more impressive are the full houses of practitioners that Carol and Chad are talking too. The one simple reason for that is that they understand the problem.

Carol and Chad both were on previous podcasts with me, In a Supply Chain, Where is more important than How Much! and Can MRP be a Demand – Driven Tool?. These podcasts were my most quotable ones this past year. For example Carol Ptak, said in her podcast said:

A lot of people have focused on the fact that the Economic times right now are really bad. What a lot of people are missing is the fact that the world around us has fundamentally changed.

A we see now across the world is that we have excess capacity when you add to that the Internet where we get on the Internet we expect to have an experience like Amazon, or order it is going to tell me instantly when I’m going to get it. If you don’t provide it at the price I want to pay and the time I want to pay then I can just go someplace else. Why can I do that? That’s because I have all this excess capacity out there.

So what companies are seeing today is volatility like they never had to manage before and at the same time they no longer have the reliability of understanding what the customers are going to demand and when they’re going to demand, because customers are increasingly fickle.

So what we’ve got is the perfect storm that has come together of excess capacity and incredible product variety.

The two of them did not disappoint me. These two people are have rewritten the book on MRP and if you don’t think MRP or even your Lean Supply Chain could not learn from this podcast, think again.

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Carol has written several books on MRP, ERP, Lean and Theory of Constraints.  She is the Past President of APICS International and former Vice President and global industry executive for manufacturing and distribution industries at PeopleSoft.  Chad co-founded Constraints Management Group in 1997 after working under the tutelage of Dr. Eli Goldratt for several years.  Constraints Management Group specializes in demand driven supply chain and manufacturing solutions for a variety of industries.  Clients have included Boeing, Unilever, IBM, LeTourneau Technologies and Roseburg Forest Products.

What is Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning (DDMRP)?
Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning is an innovative multi-echelon pull methodology to plan inventories and materials. It enables a company to build more closely to actual market requirements and promotes better and quicker decisions and actions at the planning and execution level.

Related Information:
The Perfect Storm has come together of Excess Capacity and Product Variety
Will Product Managers embrace Open Innovation?
Implementing the TOC Supply Chain Solution
Transforming your Supply Chain to a Lean Fulfillment Stream eBook
Lean Six Sigma applied to Supply Chain
Application of Lean Six Sigma to the Supply Chain

Are Kaizen Events against the principles of Kaizen?

Part of the Business901 video Series with Dr. Michael Balle, the Gemba Coach at the Lean Enterprise Institute. This series of videos continues with a central theme of Kaizen. This particular video centers on why would you use Kaizen Events. Is that against the principles of Kaizen?

Dr. Balle is a multiple Shingo Prize winner as an author of the The Gold Mine and The Lean Manager. His newest Shingo Prize was on the adaption of The Gold Mine: A Novel of Lean Turnaround to an audiobook that features performances by multiple readers who bring its realistic business story and characters to life.

Dr. Michael Balle is the Gemba Coach at the Lean Enterprise Institute

Past Videos with Dr. Balle on the Biz901 You Tube Channel

Related Information:
Sustaining your Kaizen Event Ebook
Holding Successful Kaizen Events Part 3 0f 3
Agile Marketing – Maybe?
Start your Marketing with a User Story
A Hidden Asset of a Kaizen Event

Prototype your Value Proposition

If you read this blog, you know that I am a big advocate of the Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers (Wiley Desktop Editions). I have bought this book at least four times since I ended up giving it away. Though I have blogged about it and listen to Steve Blank discuss it, Steve Blank on the Lean Startup at Ann Arbor I have ever watched Alex Osterwalder present the approach.

Alex Osterwalder is the best-selling author of Business Model Generation. He tells us how organizations start approaching the challenge of designing business models in a radically new way. Companies learn how to test their business models upfront, iterating on the feedback received from their clients, thereby reducing the risk of failure.

Related Information
The 7 step Lean Process of Marketing to Toyota
The New Names of Marketing are still PDCA
Dealing with uncertainty in the Lean Startup
Lean Thinking: Prototype early and often

Simplifying Lean and Six Sigma eBook

In a recent Business901 Podcast, Simplifying Lean and Six Sigma for Government and Healthcare, Jay Arthur author of many books on Lean And Six Sigma and most recently , Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals: Simple Steps to Fast, Affordable, and Flawless Healthcare discussed making these methodologies available to the masses.

Jay has always been a master at simplifying these process and reducing the cost of entry into a methodology. His belief is that you can go a long way (5 sigma) by just doing it and utilizing only a few basic tools that he discusses in his money-belt videos.

This is a transcription of the podcast.

Simplifying Lean and Six Sigma for Government and Healthcare

Jay started many years ago simplifying the Lean Six Sigma process through his early books, Lean Simplified and Six Sigma Simplified which eventually led to Lean Six Sigma Demystified: A Self-Teaching Guide.

Related Information:
Lean Six Sigma for Government
Operational Excellence in Government, is it Possible?
Putting Customer Value in the Product Lifecycle
DMAIC, DMADV, Lean, Six Sigma for Government?

Are you having this conversation with marketing?

Essential concept in the new way of thinking about Marketing the SD Logic, is that customers are always co-creators of value... It's the way that the customer sees value, whether it's in the physical good, or if it's in a service or a combination of both of those and if they don't see benefit to them they're not going to engage with you.

So, is your marketing firm having this conversation with you? If words like SD-Logic, Service Dominant, Co-Creation, Value in Use, Customer Decision Making Process, Experience Economy, etc. are not just part of your normal marketing conversation, you may need to re-consider your marketing communication efforts. 

Related Information:
5 Cs of Driving Market Share
How new is Service Dominant Logic and does it apply now?
Will Product Managers embrace Open Innovation?
Putting Customer Value in the Product Lifecycle
Lean Sales and Marketing Cycles are Knowledge Building Tactics