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Turning Customer Insight into Customer Value
This blog is part of Chief Outsiders’ New Growth Imperative series, designed to help CEOs and leadership teams engage executive decision-makers at targeted strategic accounts by turning deep insights into compelling customer value.
Stop Buying AI Tools. Start Asking This Question First.
Fri, Sep 18, 2026 — Most CEOs start their AI planning in the wrong place. They start with a tool. A demo catches their eye, a peer recommends a platform, or a vendor makes a compelling pitch, and suddenly the conversation is about which AI product to buy instead of what the business actually needs it to do.
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Outsider Insights | Agentic AI: What CEOs Need to Know Before They Invest
Wed, Feb 18, 2026 — Outsider Insights Across Chief Outsiders, we talk to hundreds of CEOs every month. In this series, we explore the trends and challenges we’re hearing from these discussions – and what you can do if you’re facing the same issues in your business. Executive Takeaways Gen AI assists. Agentic AI acts, and requires a higher level of organizational readiness. AI-driven buyer research is reshaping vendor visibility before sales engagement begins. Agentic AI initiatives fail when layered onto unclear processes, weak data, or undefined business problems. Operational discipline, not technology adoption, determines whether AI becomes a scalable growth lever.
Why CPG Companies Will Have to Innovate or...
Wed, Nov 29, 2023 — Challenger brands have nearly doubled the innovation success rate vs. leading brands By: Mike Concannon and Evan Eckman Which business author is famous for the quote “innovate or die”? Peter Drucker, Tom Peters, or Dr. Jack Matson? Answer: All of the above. It was a fundamental business principle for the past century. So why has the collective wisdom of these contemporary business authors seemingly been forgotten by the big CPG companies this century?
Why Innovate? How SMB Product Companies Grow
Thu, Jun 10, 2021 — Part 4: Business Case – The Second Phase Gate By Ahmet Abaci and Beth Somplatsky-Martori As we prepare to discuss the second phase gate needed to validate your new product idea – the business case – first, a juicy story. You may remember a while back hearing of a new company that was going to revolutionize the process of delivering freshly squeezed fruit and vegetable juices to the masses. Named Juicero, the product hinged on a Keurig-like drink machine that would turn bespoke packets of fresh ingredients into the kind of juice you’d get from an extractor – without the mess and the need to raid the local farmer’s market.
Why Innovate? How SMB Product Companies Grow
Fri, May 14, 2021 — Blog 1:Introduction to What it Takes to Innovate By Ahmet Abaci and Beth Somplatsky-Martori Sometimes, there’s a razor-thin margin between success and failure. In the world of shaving, this is more than a figurative statement. Just ask the folks at Gillette, which dominated the $3.5 billion market for razors and accessories for more than a century. At Gillette, innovation mostly consisted of adding the occasional blade to its disposable cartridges, but there was little incentive to otherwise rock the boat of its delightful recurring-revenue model (after all, hair continues to grow, whether we want it to or not).
Innovation, Part 2: Finding the Discipline Needed to Reinvent and Reinvest
Thu, Jan 28, 2021 — What does it take to be a change agent in a world that doesn’t stop changing? My last blog on change and innovation referenced Billy Joel, and you may recall his song, “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” essentially a history lesson of the 1940s through 1980s in three minutes. If we asked The Piano Man to write a tune forecasting the 2020s, it would likely last an hour – and still not cover everything.
Innovation, With a Purpose: Use 2020 as a Springboard for Change
Fri, Jan 22, 2021 — Alas, it was many moons ago that one of my favorite musical artists, Billy Joel, sang those insightful words: “Don’t go changing to try and please me.” No matter how eloquent or visionary he might be, the “Bard of Brooklyn” couldn’t have foreseen that a pandemic would all but mandate change as a means of business survival. Now we must all go changing, to try and please EVERYONE. Fueled by the ongoing digital revolution, lockdowns, economic turmoil, and a global financial shakeout, we can generally agree that the tried and true has given way to the untried, and new.
Best Practice Process (Stage/Gate) for Successful and Profitable Innovations
Fri, Dec 18, 2020 — As we know with most business activities, a well-defined process is often critical to keep your project on track. But equally important is to have specific targets that must be reviewed and approved before continued investment of people and money can continue. Given the complexity of innovation and new product development, and the high levels of new product failure for most industries, these initiatives carry a greater need for a rigorous process.
The Importance of Innovation for Sustainable Growth and Profitability
Thu, Dec 3, 2020 — The initial success of many small to mid-sized companies comes from an innovative product or service they developed. Passionately designed, promoted, and differentiated from competitors, it resonated with their customers. However, despite this early excitement and success, many companies fail to maintain a focus on innovation. Markets, customer needs, and technology are constantly changing. Those that recognize this and respond will drive growth and ensure a sustainable business for years to come.