Sometimes product developers are so in love with their technology that they roll it out to the market without doing sufficient homework. They expect an equally eager reception from the public, only to be disappointed when their excitement was not shared by the market or when the technical breakthrough they had worked hard did not translate into sales.

Jakob Nielsen, the author of Albertbox and many notable usability books, once lamented of this in his article. "My wife had the misfortune of getting a BMW 745i two years ago... We'll probably never buy BMW again..."

Among the misunderstanding by BMW engineers of customer needs, he lists the slow response time of the high tech interactive computer system onboard the car. "Each time you select something, you must wait several seconds for the next screen to appear... slow response time mean you must allocate more attention to operating it - dangerous for an in-car experience," he writes. The German engineers must have thought so highly of their high tech product to allow this trade-off with a slow computer.

David Champion, senior director for auto testing at Consumer Union, the publisher of the Consumer Reports, has this to say: Compared with the Japanese car makers who in general tend to try to simplify as much as possible, "the Europeans tend to engineer very complicated cars with lots of electronics that lead to... problems." For example, the BMW 7 Series has a whopping 38 electric motors just for adjusting its seats. What needs do you think they were trying to satisfy, consumers' or engineers'?

This lack of understanding customer needs is manifested not only in a recent report of the 2005 car preview by Consumer Reports, but also in customer satisfaction surveys by J.D. Power & Associates and more importantly, the bottom line of the manufacturers.

For example, not a single European vehicle made it into the Consumer Report's "most reliable" list. In fact, of the 38 cars evaluated, 20 European-made cars landed on the least reliable list, including some models of BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar, Saab, and Volkswagen. J.D. Power surveys also reported a similar slide by the Europeans. Inevitably, U.S. sales of the affected models have suffered. [Source: The Ann Arbor News, November 11, 2004]

The mistake by these European engineers is that they had assumed that today's sophisticated consumers love technology. It is true, but not entirely. They failed to understand that consumers have their own needs and that their needs are benefit-driven. Customers do not necessarily get excited about 'any' new technology. It must deliver a benefit, not just any benefit, but a benefit that they value.

So, how can your business avoid the same mistake?
How can you determine whether the market is ready or not for your new technology? Will it find adequate acceptance over the existing technology? Will people be willing to pay for the difference? This determination can be a huge saving even if your new technology ends up being shelved. A company could save millions of dollars in wasted time, labor, and capital investment - all of which are limited resources.

QFD is typically associated with development of new products, services, and business processes. The methodology has proven to be far more adaptive, however.
 
For example, by combining the QFD system for product quality with the QFD system for process quality, one high tech company was able to learn early in a project that what they were sure would be a technological leap was something that customers did not want.

A leading manufacturer of ultraviolet curing systems, the products of this company are used in a broad range of applications from manufacturing to printing in diverse industries from Coors Brewing to Nokia. Like many technology driven companies, they strive to stay ahead of their customers' needs.

A new technology that the company recently developed was considered a technological breakthrough because of its advantage in eliminating manufacturing defects, less power consumption, and an environmentally friendly feature. The proprietary technology would improve customers' manufacturing performance and product quality, and the company would leap annual sales by 200-300%, making the current technology obsolete, they had hoped.

In order to get this new technology to the market rapidly and to establish high acceptance in the field, the company took on customized QFD Green Belt® and QFD Black Belt® training and assembled a QFD team made of cross-functional professionals.

The initial Voice of Customer analysis shocked the team. They discovered that their customers had a substantially different value proposition than the company had anticipated.

Further examination was done with the help of the QFD Black Belt® trainer. It revealed that many of the customers preferred to stay with the existing system to minimize the added complexity of training and maintenance costs in a labor intensive environment where this new technology would be used.

The QFD study revealed that the company's value propositions in performance and differentiation by this new technology were simply not enough to convert customers; that the costs of bringing this new product to market would not generate a return on their investment, even with a premium price.

A partial Voice of Customer Table (pdf file)

In the 2001 Symposium on QFD, the company presented their QFD experience. The main accomplishment in their QFD was saving millions of dollars in non-recurring product development cost that would never be recovered - a potential business decision disaster.

Further, the company had these to report: