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	What Do Customers Want? By Ralph E. Grabowski 7:30 - 9 PM, Tuesday, April 1, 2008 Boston University, 8 St. Mary's Street Photonics Building room 203

Abstract
Upstream market research, the Actionable Front End™ process

• See how upstream Marketing launched a startup to an acquisition for $6.2 billion

• Learn as Marketing steered a turnaround from #7 to #2 in a few months

• Find the facts with upstream Market Research tools 

Upstream market research is early intervention to validate and size the business opportunity, to guide engineering to develop products that deliver benefits that customers are willing to spend money to receive, and to steer the enterprise.

Entrepreneurs and business managers emphasize the upstream Market Research process because companies where little is done become failures.  Successful technology-based enterprises invest twice as much in Market Research (exclusive of promoting and selling) as in engineering.  Students will hear evidence of more than $1 Trillion in value creation by super successes, or in capital squandering by  failures.  The human impact has been more than 400,000 jobs created by the winners, or lost by the basket cases.

Product development teams of Marketing and engineering create new products together.  Twenty questions are posed as a method to inquire not only about the quantity of Marketing, but also about the relevance of the Market Research, the caliber of the Market Research staff, and the quality of their activities.

Real-life examples illustrate what Marketing should be doing, how to go about it, and how good Market Research relates to the product development process.  Tools will be demonstrated to address high market-place dynamics, rapid technology changes, and the interaction between Market Research and technology.