How to Create Real Value in Technology

People value what they create 63% more. Yet most digital experiences treat customers as passive recipients instead of co-creators. This psychological principle, known as the "Ikea Effect", is shockingly underutilized in digital journeys. When someone builds a piece of Ikea furniture, they develop an emotional attachment that transcends its objective value. The same phenomenon happens in digital experiences. After optimizing digital journeys for companies like Adobe and Nike for over a decade, I've discovered this pattern consistently: 👉 Those who customize or personalize a product before purchase are dramatically more likely to convert and remain loyal. One enterprise client implemented a product configurator that increased conversions by 31% and reduced returns by 24%. Users weren't getting a different product... they were getting the same product they helped create. The psychology is simple but powerful: ↳ Customization creates psychological ownership before financial ownership ↳ The effort invested creates value attribution ↳ Co-creation builds emotional connection Three ways to implement this today: 1️⃣ Replace dropdown options with visual configurators 2️⃣ Create personalization quizzes that guide product selection 3️⃣ Allow users to save and revisit their customized selections Most importantly: shift your mindset from selling products to facilitating creation. When customers feel like co-creators rather than consumers, they don't just buy more... they become advocates. How are you letting your customers build rather than just buy?

Are you generating enough value for users net of the value to your company? Business value can only be created when you create so much value for users, that you can “tax” that value and take some for yourself as a business. If you don’t create any value for your users, then you can’t create value for your business. Ed Biden explains how to solve this in this week's guest post: Whilst there are many ways to understand what your users will value, two techniques in particular are incredibly valuable, especially if you’re working on a tight timeframe: 1. Jobs To Be Done 2. Customer Journey Mapping 𝟭. 𝗝𝗼𝗯𝘀 𝗧𝗼 𝗕𝗲 𝗗𝗼𝗻𝗲 (𝗝𝗧𝗕𝗗) “People don’t simply buy products or services, they ‘hire’ them to make progress in specific circumstances.”  – Clayton Christensen The core JTBD concept is that rather than buying a product for its features, customers “hire” a product to get a job done for them … and will ”fire” it for a better solution just as quickly. In practice, JTBD provides a series of lenses for understanding what your customers want, what progress looks like, and what they’ll pay for. This is a powerful way of understanding your users, because their needs are stable and it forces you to think from a user-centric point of view. This allows you to think about more radical solutions, and really focus on where you’re creating value. To use Jobs To Be Done to understand your customers, think through five key steps: 1. Use case – what is the outcome that people want? 2. Alternatives – what solutions are people using now? 3. Progress – where are people blocked? What does a better solution look like? 4. Value Proposition – why would they use your product over the alternatives? 5. Price – what would a customer pay for progress against this problem? 𝟮. 𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗝𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝗠𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 Customer journey mapping is an effective way to visualize your customer’s experience as they try to reach one of their goals. In basic terms, a customer journey map breaks the user journey down into steps, and then for each step describes what touchpoints the customer has with your product, and how this makes them feel. The touch points are any interaction that the customer has with your company as they go through this flow: • Website and app screens • Notifications and emails • Customer service calls • Account management / sales touch points • Physically interacting with goods (e.g. Amazon), services (e.g. Airbnb) or hardware (e.g. Lime) Users’ feelings can be visualized by noting down: • What they like or feel good about at this step • What they dislike, find frustrating or confusing at this step • How they feel overall By mapping the customer’s subjective experience to the nuts and bolts of what’s going on, and then laying this out in a visual way, you can easily see where you can have the most impact, and align stakeholders on the critical problems to solve.

Most enterprises waste millions on tech without seeing real impact. I learned this the hard way. Early in my career, I saw companies invest in cutting edge tools only to struggle with adoption, integration, and ROI. That’s when I developed a smarter, outcome-driven approach. Here’s the exact method I use to maximize ROI from technology investments:  Start with Business Outcomes, Not Features ↳ Define the measurable impact before picking the tech. What problem are you solving? What KPIs will prove success?  Ensure Alignment Across Teams ↳ IT, finance, and business leaders must be on the same page. Misalignment leads to wasted budgets and underutilized tools.  Adopt in Phases, Not All at Once ↳ Test, refine, and scale. A phased rollout prevents disruptions and maximizes adoption.  Measure, Optimize, Repeat ↳ Regularly assess ROI. What’s working? What needs adjustment? Continuous refinement drives long-term value. Tech alone doesn’t drive transformation—strategy does. How do you ensure your technology investments deliver real business impact? Let’s discuss. 👇 🔹 Follow me for more insights on digital transformation. 🔹 Connect with me to explore strategies that drive real impact. ♻️ Repost this to help your network. P.S.: Thinking about how to maximize your tech investments? Let’s chat. I’m happy to share insights on what works (and what to avoid).

My first job with Kanye West paid $200 a week. My task? Burning CDs. This was 2001. The Blueprint had just dropped. My cousin Kanye had produced several tracks on it, and music executives were requesting his beats. But there was a problem: to send music, you had to burn CDs in real-time. Hit play, hit record, wait for the entire song to finish. For every. Single. Copy. With demand skyrocketing, Kanye hired me – Wharton degree and all – to burn CDs while he made beats. One day, I showed him a new program called iTunes that could burn CDs automatically. His response? "Why would you tell me that? You could lose your job." My answer: "My job isn't burning CDs. My job is making you more productive." That mindset – seeing beyond the task to the actual value – transformed my role from CD burner to business architect for what would become GOOD Music. It's the same approach I took at Adventr when creating interactive video technology. I'm not building "clickable videos" – I'm creating the foundation for how humans will interact with media for decades to come. The lesson? Your job title is just the entry point. Your actual value comes from how you redefine the role. I've seen this principle help people transform careers across industries: - The assistant who became CMO by redefining "support" - The engineer who became CEO by seeing beyond the specs - The analyst who built a new division by identifying hidden patterns The most successful people aren't doing jobs - they're solving problems that matter. They don't wait for permission to create value. They see what others miss. -DH

My biggest lesson building Qualtrics to an $8 Billion valuation: Focus on your customers above all else. Product teams often get caught up in daily firefighting. And as a result? They lose sight of the big picture. A year goes by and they realize very little has changed. The most successful teams have a culture of customer obsession. Every innovation starts with why? What problem does this solve? And the team finds a way to solve customer problems every sprint or cycle. That's what it takes to win. The hard truth? Your product is only as good as the customer needs it fulfills. Everything else is just noise. How to keep your product team customer-centric: → Find a way to solve new customer problems every sprint or cycle → Align your teams around clear, customer-centric goals → Create a culture of customer obsession → Start every innovation with why? Remember, your job isn't to build features. It's to solve problems and create value for your customers.

Innovation isn’t about making what you sell better; it’s about selling something better. Most often when people think of the objectives of digital transformation, they focus on production optimization or cost reduction. But I would argue the real value comes from transforming the way you provide and capture value to customers. 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐛𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐬: 𝐃𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬 Manufacturers have traditionally sold physical products; however, with the increasing popularity of digital services such as software or cloud-based solutions, many manufacturers are now offering digital services as well. These digital services can be anything from providing access to a web portal for customers to tracking performance data for their equipment. By selling digital services, manufacturers can not only increase their profits but also gain a better understanding of customer needs which they can use to refine their products and services accordingly. 𝐒𝐮𝐛𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 & 𝐀𝐬-𝐀-𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞 The subscription business model has become increasingly popular among manufacturers as it allows them to offer customers more flexibility when purchasing their products or services. Instead of customers buying a one-time product or service, they can subscribe on an ongoing basis instead which means they get access to the latest updates and features without having to purchase a new product each time. 𝐎𝐮𝐭𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞-𝐁𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐬 This type of contract typically involves setting an agreed upon outcome that both parties agree on before signing any agreements. For example, if a manufacturer agrees to provide hardware maintenance for its customers for a certain number of years then it will receive payment once those conditions have been met instead of upfront payments like in traditional contracts. In such arrangements, manufacturers assume more responsibility for delivering results; thus increasing their risk but also allowing them to capture more value from customers if successful. ******************************************* • Visit www.jeffwinterinsights.com for access to all my content and to stay current on Industry 4.0 and other cool tech trends • Ring the 🔔 for notifications!

Thinking about this advice today: Don’t just dig a hole and leave it empty. Too many companies are using AI right now just to create efficiencies. This means automating tasks, reducing headcount, cutting costs. This is one way to do it, but what’s the problem with this approach? Most companies fail to reinvest those gains. The result? A hole where innovation and growth should be. The real value of AI is not just in creating efficiencies, but in what you do with them. Take the time and resources saved and reinvest: 1. Build stronger relationships with customers through proactive, personalized engagement. 2. Train your teams to focus on high-value, creative work. 3. Experiment with new service models or product offerings. Efficiency without reinvestment is short-term thinking. Use AI to create the space for more growth, not emptiness. How is your company approaching this? #customerexperience #ai #automation #innovation #technology

Reflecting on Gen AI as a GPT: What History Teaches Us Over the past week, I've frequently referenced this example, it's become a grounding aspect in many of my conversations: Every generation experiences groundbreaking technology reshaping how we live, work, and innovate. Economists refer to these as General Purpose Technologies (GPTs). Electricity and the internet were GPTs that fundamentally altered our production and communication systems. Now, economists are calling Gen AI another GPT, poised to redefine what's possible again. However, history reveals something vital: breakthrough GPTs alone don’t automatically create value. When electricity first reached factories, many merely swapped steam engines for electric motors without altering processes, missing out on massive productivity gains. True transformation happened when visionaries like Henry Ford completely reimagined factory layouts, production methods, and the roles people played. Today, as we embrace Gen AI, we face a similar pivotal moment. Simply enhancing existing workflows with agentic capabilities without rethinking processes and personas isn't sufficient. Genuine impact emerges when we fundamentally rethink our People, Processes, and Technology. I've found that anchoring on clearly-defined use cases, rather than broadly focusing on capabilities, unlocks real innovation. It's this relentless pursuit of solving specific use cases that unlocks genuine value. Top of mind question: What does success look like a few years from now, and are we evolving our People, Processes, and Technology to achieve that vision? #GenerativeAI

Want to Derive REAL Value from AI? Start Here: AI investments can’t succeed without focusing on what actually matters. Here's a simple checklist to maximize ROI: 1. Start with the Problem, NOT the Tech No real problem? No impact. Fancy tools won’t save you. 2. Build Cross-Functional Teams Your team needs top-tier Tech skills, deep Domain knowledge, and strong Business acumen to deliver real results. Often this maybe a matrixed team! 3. Set Clear Governance AI success demands crystal-clear roles and responsibilities across the board. 4. Stay Focused & Agile  Constantly assess. Be decisive. Pivot fast when needed. 5. Incentivize Impact, Not Tech Reward those who deliver value—whether it’s boosting revenue, cutting costs, or mitigating risks (vs. those who have advanced tech but don't deliver finance validated returns) Focus on these, and AI shall pay off! Remember, AI is not a net new concept - what is new is the significantly improved compute, and hence the ability to do more in less time, but the basic model for value delivery is still the same. #AI #BusinessStrategy #DigitalTransformation #AILeadership #ROI