Dennis Kennedy

Fascinating article from The Viewpoint of an Entrepreneur blog.

Nari Kannan's article begins with an example that I know from personal experience is true. If a company provides a free lunch for employees, within a few months people start griping about the quality or repetition of the food.

Kannan goes on to provide an overview of Kano analysis. Consider this passage:

"Kano Analysis is credited to Noriaki Kano, a Japanese engineer who classified customer requirements into three classes:

Dissatisfiers or Basic Requirements - These are absolute must haves in any product or service. If they are there, nobody gives you credit. If they are not there, customers are upset very much. Like you go to Kinkos and all self-service copiers are down and you cannot make the copies you wanted yourself.

Satisfiers or Variable Requirements - These are extras that if present, makes a customer happier. Like all the same features but price is less or price is the same as a competitors' but something extra is thrown in.

Delighters or Latent Requirements - These are things that a customer is not expecting at all but is absolutely delighted to get. Like a company completely replacing a product when what you expected was a repair.

For IT, the above analysis provides invaluable insights into dealing with business. The key insight is that a Delighter today could become a Satisfier tomorrow and a Basic Requirement the next day!"

Now, what might this mean for you?