Staying Ahead of the Curve by Thinking Like Our Customers

At Konica Minolta, we talk a lot about staying ahead of the curve and getting to know our customers, but I want to explain what this really means for us. Let’s look at another company that executed this strategy well:

Apple wasn’t the first company to develop a product like the iPod.  Two companies brought products to market before Apple that were both elegant and functional, but Apple hit a home run when they combined hardware with iTunes software and the service of providing content.  This unique combination responded to a customer demand that is legendary today.

Similarly, we are organizing Konica Minolta to deliver a service-driven strategy and ultimately, to bring comprehensive solutions to customers. As our business transforms, we will continue to focus on customers’ business needs first, by understanding the industry and the unique business challenges.

To do this, we put ourselves in our customers’ shoes and ask:

“If I were a printer / healthcare CIO / college dean / partner at a legal organization, what tools would I need to provide incremental value to my customers? How can I drive profitability? And, how can I differentiate my capabilities?”

Simply put, the more we know about our customers, the better we can serve them as a trusted advisor.

One of my favorite books is Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras. In the book, the authors took eighteen truly exceptional and long-lasting companies and studied them from their very beginnings to the present day. They found that visionary companies ask the right questions. They are not measuring their performance against competitors and are not content to rest on today’s results. Instead, visionary companies are always looking ahead to see how they can improve tomorrow’s performance.

Over the years, we have continuously done the same. Because we are constantly working to improve the way we do business, we have built a platform to deliver a combination of great hardware, innovative software and work-class services. Using this foundation, we seek to deliver measurable, positive solutions for our customers in 2014 and beyond.

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