Back in the 1920’s when corporate business was just blossoming, entrepreneurs started from scratch. Manufacturing was still in its early stages and so much opportunity was there to be built. Entrepreneurs in the day would come up ideas of what he or she wanted to have, built a product, and then sold to others easily. The customer needed the business in order to get the unique piece crafted as their was no “market” yet.

Today the world is different.

Light bulbs are a commodity item, electronic switches are a commodity item, power, water, utilities are provided from multiple sources and now anything electronic is built by multiple manufacturers.

The customer has control. The customer decides what a business should build, not the other way around. What the customer is paying for is not the business’s profit, but for a bright light bulb, comfortable car or fast computer.

Managers today need to look at their customer target base and pinpoint what wants remain unsatisfied.

Samsung Electronics in Korea pre-2004 was not a major player in the flat panel television industry. Samsung would build Plasma Televisions and the smaller emerging LCD market in order to horizontally spread its customer base, as they build a massive variety of electronics. Once Samsung realized how big of a pie they could take in the flat panel consumer electronics market, they started to dig down to vendors and consumers and found out what they wanted from televisions in the home.

Most television manufacturers assumed customers wanted better picture quality with enhanced features; Samsung realized that the television is a piece of furniture in the home and aesthetics were important to the customer. It was irrelevant how well the television displays picture, if it looked out of place in a home, consumers would look at other options. In 2006, Samsung released televisions that had a piano black finish and sharp design which was a major contrast to the boxy black or silver paint plastic. The investment in gathering feedback from customers was put into this new television design.

Consumers who were not satisfied or had a reason to go from a CRT tube television into a flat panel television then started to jump on board, by the time other television manufacturers caught on (Sharp, Sony, LG, Philips), Samsung gained massive market share (in Q2 2007 Samsung was No 1. in the flat panel market at 11.8% market share, then in Q3 2007 12.8% and finally Q4 finishing 2007 at 14.2%) and continues to do well today.

It is critical for a manager to receive feedback from the field and implement the comments into product design or service design as effectively as possible. Measure results by writing down what you expect in six months with the changes implemented and continue to track and adjust. It is not enough for a customer to be “satisfied”, the end product needs to be “exceptional” and have value to the customer.