Customer discovery is a process that is used to determine whether there are actual customers for a product. The customer discovery process is very important as the success and failure of an organization depends on it. This is because a product that does not meet customer specification or not desired by the customers would mean a waste of organizational resources.
The objective of this customer discovery paper is to assess whether or not there is a demand of the opportunity that can integrate Helium-Blimps and parachutes to the flying cars to enhance them by reducing fuel consumption, reducing the weight of the flying cars, making them safer, reducing running costs and reducing the price of the flying cars.
As the flying cars are expected to be quite costly in the start so the customers in the initial phase of the flying cars are expected to be hospitals, ambulance, tourists, scientists, governments and some wealthy individuals. In order to know whether the opportunity of improving flying cars will be liked demanded by the customers, I took the input from some of the potential customers. Moreover, I evaluated the benefits that the potential customers could get from the enhancement that the company X would bring to the flying cars and whether they would add value for the potential customers. Our direct customers are flying cars manufacturing companies. However, the end customers are hospitals, ambulance, tourists, scientists, governments and some wealthy individuals and thus are indirect customers of our project. Our immediate customers would demand our product provided that they create value for them. The products will create value for them if they result in increased revenue or cost saving and improved customer satisfaction.
In the customer discovery process, we developed assumptions for the following questions.
- Who are our customers?
- What are the problems of our customers that we will solve?
- How will we solve their problem?
- How our customers will adapt to our solution?
(Customer Discovery Tool 2019)
- Who are our customers?
We have two types of customers. Direct and indirect. Our direct customers include flying car manufacturers whereas indirect customers include the end consumers.
- What are the problems of our customers that we will solve?
The problem of both our direct and indirect customers is high cost, safety, and efficiency of the flying vehicles. However, the main reason why end customers will choose flying vehicle is traffic jams on roads and in time of emergency or the situation where there is no road available to run the vehicle.
- How will we solve their problem?
We can solve the problem of our customers by providing integrated Helium-Blimps and parachutes that would reduce fuel consumption, reduce the weight of the vehicles, there would be lower running costs, the vehicles would be the safer and overall price of the vehicle will decrease as a result.
- How our customers will adapt to our solution?
Our direct customers are basically the customers who would adapt our solution. They would incorporate our products into their flying cars and thus would incorporate features that would make them more desirable for their customers and more affordable as well.
Currently, it is not possible to talk directly to flying vehicle manufacturers. However, we can evaluate through cost-benefit analysis if they would desire it or not. Moreover, if the end consumers like the enhancement we bring to flying vehicles, our immediate customers are going to like it as well provided that they are fairly priced. First of all, I took input from the admins of some major hospitals. For that matter, I prepared a short three question questionnaire as follows,
- Are you interested in flying a car like ambulances?
- At what price point you consider it is feasible for the hospital to purchase it?
- Would you like to pay an extra price for additional safety measures or saving running costs?
I asked similar questions to three scientists and three government officials as well. The survey results show that the end customers would like the enhancements and cost savings and it will also increase the demand for the flying vehicles depending upon the cost level reduced. Moreover, the potential end customers were of the view that they would more likely to purchase the flying vehicle if they are safer than what they know about these vehicles.
If we look at the point of view of the flying vehicle manufacturers, long battery or fuel tank life and weight of the vehicle are two major reasons why we have not seen flying vehicles yet. Our enhancement would help reducing both these problems as integrating Helium-Blimps airship model would not only help in increasing safety of the vehicle but it can float on water, and would also help in decreasing fuel consumption and weight of the vehicle. Moreover, the addition of plane parachutes would improve the safety of the vehicles as well. (Eric Adams Transportation. 2018)
These features seem attractive for the flying vehicle manufacturers particularly as our survey shows that they would be liked by the end customers and thus they would more likely to demand such vehicles. As a result, we can say that the customers the car manufacturers are going to like the enhancements that the Company X is going to bring in to the flying vehicles.
As conclusion, we can say that it is important for the flying vehicle manufacturers that their cars have more demand and lower costs. The products and enhancement planned by Company X have the potential to do exactly that. Moreover, the customer discovery survey directed at the end consumers also shows that the end consumers are going to like the flying vehicles with the improvements that the Company X are planning to incorporate into the flying vehicles. therefore, it is worthwhile for Company X to focus on this planned enhancement and try to make them more attractive and efficient in order to make them more attractive for the flying vehicle manufacturers. The product has definitely a lot of potentials and the company is expected to be highly successful with its product offering.
References:
Customer Discovery Tool (2019). Retrieved from: https://www.jumpstartinc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Customer-Discover-Tool-9616.pdf
Eric Adams Transportation. (2018). Four Reasons We Don’t Have Flying Cars—Yet. Retrieved From Wired: https://www.wired.com/story/four-reasons-we-dont-have-flying-cars-yet/
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