The Problem
The manager of a technological product supporting criminal investigations asked us for help with pinpointing the differentiation of the product. In the global market that the product belonged to, a strongly differentiated product can be a winner that rips lucrative rewards.
The product provided a set of tools that investigators could use in their investigation. However, since investigators had plenty of other tools in their toolbox, it was not clear upfront how to differentiate the product. The supporting role of the product in a crowded market made it challenging to distill a strong differentiation.
The Analysis
Our journey began with analyzing various aspects of the product, looking for differences between the product and the rest of the market. We examined differences in several technical aspects, such as functionality and user interface, as well as business aspects, such as pricing and support level. Where else could strong differentiation be found? While this examination improved the understanding of the product and was worth doing, it did not point to a strong differentiation, unfortunately.
After pondering the problem, we decided to change the question by taking the point of view of the investigators. Instead of asking “What is different about the product?”, we asked “When do investigators turn to the product?”. We found that investigators turn to the product when the investigation requires certain types of information that only the product provided. For the purpose of this question, the user interface around these types of information did not matter, nor did the richness of the functionality around them; what mattered was the availability of this unique information.
The Solution
We translated our findings to a clear value proposition. The availability of unique information meant that the product provided the following values to investigators:
- Finding suspects in unique ways – by analyzing the unique information for suspicious activities.
- Substantiating suspicion in unique ways – by expanding the investigation using unique information pertaining to suspects.
- Connecting the dots in unique ways – by using the unique information to find connections between elements already included in the investigation.
The Impact
The manager used the value proposition to communicate a clear differentiation message when approaching potential customers, and received enthusiastic and encouraging feedback. Moreover, the manager used this clarity to improve that of the vision for the product, which helped with other business goals, such as recruiting and customer development.