In most businesses, owing to their organizational structure if nothing else, there is a power struggle between the developers of technologies and the marketing group to see which group is going to lead and which group is going to follow in product development. This issue is often determined by the legacy of what brought the company into existence initially (the founder was a marketer or was an inventor – and that legacy often seems to be perpetuated from reorganization to reorganization).
It’s often not difficult to identify which perspective dominates a company’s product development activities (technological innovation or customer benefits) – in many cases you can look at the messaging, the sales literature and the website and you can get an idea of whether their perspective is demonstrating the importance of their technologies, or if their intention is to explain the customer benefits of their product’s features, and mentioning the technology when it’s necessary to make a believable or understandable point.
The reality is that it truly requires both sides of the organization to deliver high quality products to customers, that meet, and possibly even exceed their expectations. In most cases there are technical innovations that produce an opportunity to improve the way things are currently done, however it also takes the understanding of customer’s needs and preferences that marketing, and often market research brings to make the product attractive enough to purchase.
How is the balance in your company?
