Roggespierre's Maxim #4
Courtesy of Clayton Christensen, Harvard Business School
"...the job, not the customer, is the fundamental unit of analysis for a marketer who hopes to develop products that customers will buy."
We invite IndyCar management to re-read Professor Christensen's quote, taking time to note the implicit assumption that product development is the job of marketers. This is important.
If marketers are responsible for product development, then it follows that those who work either in racing operations or for suppliers of racing teams are not. These individuals should be consulted, but they should not have final authority.
Who Cares about Torque Curves? More Cup Holders!!
Auto sales in the United States provide a good example. Engineers and designers dream-up all sorts of neat technology-based ideas for cars. They are therefore loathe to admit that one of the most important design innovations so far as U.S. auto sales are concerned is.... more cup holders! This is why engineers should not have final authority in product development.
Product development of the modern Indianapolis 500 Mile Race was more or less accidental, and yet it worked out well. Such cases are increasingly rare as marketing evolves into an analytically sophisticated, data-driven exercise.
We invite IRL Management to consider, as Professor Christensen might say, the jobs that customers are trying to get done via IndyCar racing. Do they want to witness gut-wrenching danger? Have a good time with friends? Confirm that their city of residence is somewhere important? Establish lifelong memories of experiences shared with their children? Hang out with hot babes? Get drunk and engage in debauchery? Take in colorful pageantry? Feel as if they're hip? Get away from people who are not like them?
Like any product, IndyCar Racing can't assist in each of the "jobs" above. Serving one market, as we like to say, necessarily means not serving another. But we do know that establishing a product culture of some kind will be of far more benefit to IndyCar racing than marginal aerodynamic changes, push-to-pass, or even new race cars. The latter, in fact, should be consistent with the product culture.
That way, you need not claim in successive seasons to be the "green" racing series, the "value opportunity" of the sport, and the "international" series, when in fact you are none of the three.
Roggespierre
I recall Chrstensen's book from 10 years ago. Still relevant, and should be read by any business seeking to understand the forces at work to shape their destiny.
ReplyDeleteHi Mark,
ReplyDeleteI'm a big fan of Christensen. His succinct insights are designed for action. The Innovator's Solution is my personal favorite; his discussion of the difficulties that firms must face when their technology is "good enough" is particularly relevant to IndyCar racing.
Roggespierre