Are You a Fish In The Pond Or An Ichthyologist?
Data ≠ information
Who knows more about the life in a pond – a fish that lives there or an ichthyologist who researches it?
When I work with companies working in B2B markets, I often hear from their executives that they don’t need customer research.
‘We have been working in this domain for years, so we know our customers very well,’ they say.
But one may spend their whole life working with clients but still learn little about them. A large volume of collected information doesn’t indicate high data quality.
I love a metaphor that conveys the idea very well.
So, who knows more about life in a pond – a fish or an ichthyologist?
The volume of information the fish has is large – it is inside the situation.
But I wouldn’t rely on its data when making decisions. I’d prefer the information provided by the ichthyologist because it is structured.
Many industrial experts are the ‘fish’ if they don’t use analytics, ad-hog studies, or customer research to inform their decisions.
Failed digitalisation
We’ve seen many attempts to ‘reinvent’ industries in the last 25 years – from insurance to logistics.
Few of them were successful.
As Tom Goodwin has frequently pointed out in his articles, one of the reasons was that IT people launched those projects.
They believed they could revolutionize the markets simply because they had ‘digital thinking’ – unlike the industrial dinosaurs who got stuck in the 20th century.
However, they overlooked many small but significant details critical to the functioning of the systems. So, their products looked sexy but didn’t solve customer tasks.
A team of ‘digital thinkers’ and industry experts may look like an optimal solution.
But if both the digital visionaries and the industry heavyweights in the team are еру ‘fish,’ they will create a white elephant.
We need to go to customers and learn as much about their routines as possible.