October 4-5, 2006
Hotel Del Coronado
San Diego, CA

Why this Master Class is important to you...

As product proliferation and commoditization reach an all-time high, the need for innovation and differentiation has never been greater. However, while businesses around the world strive to understand customer needs so they can uncover the ‘next big thing,’ the results are often disappointing.

Why is this so? Customers are unpredictable and fickle; their expectations are constantly shaped and reshaped by competitors, new technologies, and emerging social and cultural trends. To further complicate matters, many critical customer requirements often remain unspoken. Even if we somehow obtain the customer requirements, another thorny problem remains – how to understand the importance or priority customers place on these requirements.

Traditional approaches from market research in the West and quality improvement techniques from Japan, while necessary and useful, are often insufficient.

Kano Model addresses this dilemma. The fundamental underpinning of the model, based on the seminal work of Dr. Noriaki Kano, classifies customer requirements into the following five major groupings, each with its own characteristics:

1. Demanded (expected, must-haves)
2. Desired
3. Attractive (exciters, delighters)
4. Indifferent
5. Reverse

By applying this approach, the must-haves, exciters, and true differentiators become readily apparent.
Product development efforts can focus on the attributes that customers will not only be attracted to, but will pay a premium for. Further, time and resources will not be expended on features that may not only be unimportant to customers, but could turn them away.