Prof. Dr. Jan H. Schumann and Dr. Sebastian Schubach (Chair of Marketing and Innovation) built this workshop around the concept of “customer needs” which lies at the heart of any business idea. Only if business ideas address (latent) customer needs, they have a chance to survive in the marketplace. As an introduction to the topic, the workshop started with an impulse lecture stressing the importance of eliciting customer needs and addressing these needs in product designs, communication, or even business models.
After the impulse lecture, the seven present teams of the ‘Honours Degree” could directly apply the newly acquired knowledge to their own business ideas in different working sessions. As such, the teams visualized their target customers by working out corresponding personas. Subsequently, they immersed in their target customers and identified their potential needs in their daily life.
In the final part of the workshop, Prof. Dr. Schumann provided the teams with insights about how to use qualitative research methods (e.g., interviews) to identify customer needs. These insights should help the teams in their next step: developing and interview guide that enables them talking to real customer, identifying their needs and, thus, validating their own business ideas. In sum, the workshop established an important basis for the development of the teams’ business ideas.
Article and photos by Patrizia Fenzl.