It is clearly important to have the customer at the center of your product development and thinking. As we know testing and then tailoring the product can be crucial to the development of successful new products. However, this can be problematic as well. First, if we craft a product to meet the needs of the customer today, what does that say about tomorrow (let alone when we actually get the product to market in 12-18 months)? Customer needs and demands change. If we put too much focus on exactly meeting their needs today, we have the potential to make only products that have a very short life.
Focus groups suck
