“Value Analysis
Begins And Ends With Our Customers”
I often hear
MMs tell me that they don’t need to understand their
customer’s needs, wants and desires since they
see it as their role to search out the best price for whatever their
department heads or managers want, need or desire and get what they
want to them on time – every time. That’s what supply
chain management is all about isn’t it?
What these
MMs have forgotten in this equation is that it is also their
responsibility to obtain the right product, service or
technology (not always what is being requested) for their department
heads and managers at the best price -- on time – every time. I tell
them further, this new objective (get the right product, services or
technology) can only be accomplished if MMs understand their
customers needs, wants, and desires up stream and down stream. They
then can dramatically improve their products’, services’ and
technologies’ cost and quality if they, (i) learn to dance with
their customers, (ii) understand their customers mind-set and (iii)
get inside their head. As John R. Graham, of Graham Communications
tells us, “if assuming you know your customers is the first fatal
flaw, assuming you know what they want is the second.”
How Do You Assess Your Customer’s Needs, Wants And Desires?
A recent
on-line poll, conducted by Quorum Material Health Resources (QMHR),
Brentwood, Tennessee, showed that 58.6% of MMs that
participated in the poll conducted surveys and 52.4%
preferred interviews as their method of choice for assessing
their customer’s needs, wants and desires. These poll results are
encouraging because it shows that more and more, MMs are now
attempting to scientifically understand their customers’ true
functional requirements by employing surveys and interviews to
identify their customer’s preferences. However, in another QMHR poll
the majority or 66.2% of MMs were utilizing product, service
and technology trials as their #1 tactic for
determining their customers wants, needs and desires!
From my
experience, the universal practice of having department heads
and managers conduct trials (feel, test, hold, smell,
experience, examine, experiment, tryout, try on, whack, kick, tug,
spin, rub, toss, contort, spindle, mutilate and bend) of
their products, services and technology options is as
unscientific a practice as has ever been devised to assess our
customers exact wants, needs and desires. The results of trials are
only opinions, assumptions and conjecture based on your department
heads and manager’s feelings, not scientific facts.
And should never be the basis for any buying decision.
My advice to
you regarding trials is don’t go there if you are serious
about understanding your customer’s needs, wants and desires up
stream and down stream.
Remember, Value Analysis Begins And Ends With Our Customers
Figure 1: 7 Techniques For Uncovering Customer’s Requirements
If you really
are looking for techniques to identify your customer’s needs, wants
and desires I would suggest that you consider the seven
powerful techniques for uncovering your customer’s exact
requirements shown in figure 1. This should be your
starting point for all of your value studies. In doing so, you
will find that your customers are fickle, thereby, don’t need
everything they say they want, need or desire and many times don’t
know their own requirements. It is your new role as supply
chain professionals to facilitate the process of identifying
your customer’s requirements in consultation with them. By doing so,
you will then be fulfilling your responsibility and new role of
buying the right product, service or technology, at the
right price and delivering it at the right time –
every time. That’s what supply chain management is
all about in the 21st century – isn’t it?
by
Robert T. Yokl, President