Our whole business is focused on supplying nutritional ingredients and supplements, so that was probably the most surprising thing. We homed in on optimizing dairy herd productivity, and when we started prioritizing the outcomes through quantitative research, the most surprising thing was how many opportunities there were, and how few of those opportunities were directly related to nutritional ingredients for the dairy producer. I think we identified over 165 different desired outcomes (metrics that customers use to measure success when getting a job done). Then it was certainly eye opening to see how many desired outcomes the dairy producer is trying to satisfy in a given day, in a given month, in a given year. Next, understanding that the “job” they were trying to get done had little to do with nutrition and was focused squarely on optimizing herd productivity. First, it helped clarify in our minds that the customer is the dairy producer, not the nutritionist. What surprising insights came out of the Strategyn/ODI research?ĭruker: The research helped on many fronts. It was natural for me to decide that if I was going to do something to improve innovation, I might as well go to the people who wrote the book on it. That book makes reference to your work and the concept of jobs-to-be done, and that led me to read your book, What Customers Want. I first came across the ODI concept while reading The Innovator’s Solution, by Clayton Christensen. Ulwick: Why did you choose to go with Strategyn and ODI over other options?ĭruker: Prior to joining Church & Dwight and taking lead of the Arm & Hammer nutrition business, I led a business that sold anti-microbial actives and formulated products, and I was responsible for developing markets and new products. So yeah, I think absolutely part of our issue was we weren’t identifying the right people to speak to. Ulwick: Would it be fair to say that before using ODI, part of the issue was not knowing which customer to target to obtain the needed insights?ĭruker: We’ve always known the end customer is the dairy producer, and ultimately the dairy cow, but yeah, we were basically getting our innovation information from a consultant that was being hired by the dairy producer. Our products go into those rations, so even though the dairy producers are buying the products, most of our efforts were focused on the nutritionists. We’d talk to nutritionists and to dairy producers, asking, “What are some of your biggest issues?” We mainly focused on the nutritionists, who are the people the dairy producer hires to help put together the ration to feed the cows. Ulwick: How would you describe Arm & Hammer Animal Nutrition’s traditional approach to innovation?ĭruker: We relied largely on discussions that we’d had with customers, with people in the industry that we worked in, the dairy industry in particular. So, not wanting to repeat history and recognizing that innovation was an important aspect of our growth strategy, we asked ourselves, “Okay, how can we do things differently?” I was familiar with your work, and I thought it would be an interesting approach to take given the challenges we were facing with our animal nutrition products in the dairy market. Ulwick: Scott, how would you describe the problem that Church & Dwight was trying to solve?ĭruker: We had gone through several product development efforts and launches in recent years that were disappointing despite the technical success of the products. This conversation took place on May 20, 2015.
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