This book is about creating breakthroughs in large organizations where so much energy is often committed to existing activity. Drawing on their wide experience working with succesful companies, like British Airways, VISA, and Holiday Inn, the authors argue that it is customers themselves who are best-placed to conceive great new products and services. The Breakthrough Zone is a creative meeting of customer and executives in whom desires are unlocked and needs identified. Versatile enough to be used with groups of any size, this process is built on personal relationships, and proven to generate innovative ideas for brand extensions and product development.
Book Details:
- Author: Roy Langmaid
- ISBN: 9780470299975
- Year Published: 2003
- Pages: 248
- BISAC: BUS043000, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS/Marketing / General
About the Book and Topic:
This book is about creating breakthroughs in large organizations where so much energy is often committed to existing activity. Drawing on their wide experience working with succesful companies, like British Airways, VISA, and Holiday Inn, the authors argue that it is customers themselves who are best-placed to conceive great new products and services. The Breakthrough Zone is a creative meeting of customer and executives in whom desires are unlocked and needs identified. Versatile enough to be used with groups of any size, this process is built on personal relationships, and proven to generate innovative ideas for brand extensions and product development.
A breakthrough is a discontinuous change that makes new things possible and takes performance in a market to a new level. This book dispels traditional ways of talking to customers, such as focus groups, because they lack honesty and place perceptual barriers. What is needed is a new approach that is open, honest and ongoing between customers and company executives and managers.
STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO SUCCESS: Provides the tools and techniques to enable you to get closer to your customers. The authors present a step-by-step guide that clearly explains how to implement the ‘Breakthrough Zone’ process INTRODUCES A NEW PATH TO INNOVATION: Explores why using the “Breakthrough Zone’ process of communication is more effective than focus groups or traditional database-driven approaches to engaging in customer dialogue. AUTHORS SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION OF PROCESS: Previous innovations by the ‘Breakthrough Zone’ process include British Airways’s ‘Beds for Business’ and new market strategies for VISA and Dell.
About the Author
ROY LANGMAID is a trained psychologist and psychotherapist with 10 years experience in facilitating corporate change programmes. He is the managing director of Transformations Ltd UK, a consultancy that has run large-scale change programs for British Airways, British Telecom, Holiday Inn, Carphone Warehouse, Granada PLC, Bank of Ireland, BUPA, and VISA. MAC ANDREWS is a fellow of the Institute for Creativity in the UK. He has worked in the arena of creative self-expression and psychotherapy for nearly 20 years. He has also lectured at the University of California Riverside in Creative Arts. He works with Langmaid at Transformations Ltd in the UK.