Discussion 5 - Marketing Debate

Discussion 5

Marketing Debate:

"One of the things I've always found is that you’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You can't start with the technology and try to figure out where you're going to try to sell it. And I've made this mistake probably more than anybody else in this room...it started with what incredible benefits can we give to the customers? Where can we take the customers? Not starting with let's sit down with the engineers and figure out what awesome technology we have and how are we going to market that. And I think that's the right path to take." - Steve Jobs

vs.

"Give customers what they want...But that’s not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they’re going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, "If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, A faster horse!" People don’t know what they want until you show it to them. That’s why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page." - Steve Jobs

• What's your view on these two quotes, both from Steve Jobs? Is one quote more convincing than the other? Why? Are there any boundaries conditions that one quote might work and the other might not? Support your arguments with examples and incorporate concepts/terms from the textbook/slides/articles you read. Examples don't have to be limited to Apple. You can use your own company or other ones in the industries to support your rationale.