B2B vs B2C Innovation

I just had a conversation with a consulting firm that specializes in B2C innovation. Now they are being asked to do some B2B innovation. They asked me, “What’s the difference between innovation in a B2B and a B2C environment?”

Although in many respects, the innovation efforts are similar, there are quite a few differences which are worth noting. Yes, B2B can invest in collaborative product development and other more sophisticated methods/technologies. However, in this entry, I want to focus on the “softer” and less quantifiable differences between them. These mainly have to do with what your customers really want. Business buyers have different motivations than consumers.

Businesses Want You to Improve Their Business
Quite often, businesses buy from you because they want you to improve their business. You can reduce their costs, improve their effectiveness, or increase their business in some way. This requires a different mindset when studying customer needs. Although focus groups and discussion boards may be helpful in designing a new toothbrush, they are not as practical in a B2B environment. Instead, you need to observe their business. Back when I was a leader in Accenture’s business process reengineering practice, I discovered something interesting.  The most valuable use of reengineering is not to improve your processes, but rather to improve your customer’s processes. Observe your customers. Map their processes. See how your products/service can improve their business. And don’t forget to reengineer the interface between your business and your customer’s business.  As Michael Hammer (the father of Business Reengineering) used to say, “Make yourself ETDBW - Easy To Do Business With.” (the graphic above shows the three levels of process improvement)

Businesses Want You to Help Them Provide Better Product/Service to Their Customers
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The Biggest Winner!

A few years back, I helped the Quill Corporation (a division of Staples) launch their innovation efforts. To introduce innovation to the employees, we kicked things off with a competition - “The Quillionaire” – based on the reality TV show, “The Apprentice.” You can read about the work we did then in an article published in the European Business Forum (pdf).

Since then, Quill has done a great job of keeping innovation alive.

“Across the organization, associates have contributed to Quill’s growth by providing innovative ideas and solutions for challenges and opportunities,” said Larry Morse, President of Quill Corporation. “We launched a program a few years ago to facilitate our ability to become a company of ideas. It is this wellspring of ideas coming from all over the company that is helping fuel our growth and will assist us in remaining competitive into the future,” he added. [Read more]

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