Dyson 2

Dyson 2

Dyson: Solving Customer Problems in Ways They Never Imagined, this study is located in the Appendix section of your text book on page 525. Please read the case and answer the five questions at the end of the study. Each question is to be answered using a minimum of 100 words. I will be very strict on the word count for all questions. The question itself is not to be included in your 100 words count. Also remember if you have to research any information for the case study, you are required to cite your source of where you obtained your information. Please place references at the end of your document. Your references are not to be included in your word count. This assignment is worth 50 points. The due date for this case study is due on October 31, no late work will be accepted without prior approval from instruc/tor.

Appendix 1: Company Cases 525
Questions for Discussion Sources: Seth Lubove, “Youngest American Woman Billionaire Found
1. Describe In-N-Out in terms of the value it provides for With In-N-Om’” Bloomberg’ Fabiualy 4′ 2013’ WWW’Ploomberg’Cgml
news/201 3-02-04/youngest-american-woman-billionaire-found-WIth-
customers’ in-n-out.html; Jay Weston, “In-N-Out Burger’s ‘Secret Menu’ Re-
2. Evaluate In-N-Out’s performance relative to customer vealed,” Hufi‘ington Post, April 6, 2012, wwwhuffingtonpost.corn/
expectations. What is the outcome of this process? jay-weston/in-n-out-burgers-secret-menu_b_1407388.html; Meredith
Land, “Inside The In-N-Out Bur er Em ire,” NBCDFW, November 17.
3′ Shoilld EI‘N‘O‘“ adOpt a hlgh’grOWth Strategy? Why or 2011, www.nbcdfw.com/the-fcene/fgod-drink/Inside-the-In-N-Out-
h} nOt’ Burger-Empire-l34008293.html; and www.in-n-out.com, accessed
4. With so many customers thrilled by In-N-Out’s “no-change” May 2013_
philosophy, why don’t more burger chains follow suit?
it seemed simply to move dirt around the room. This left Dyson
p a 2 . wondering why no one had yet invented a decent vacuum
cleaner. At that point, he remembered something he’d seen in
an industrial sawmill-a cyclonic separator that removed dust
Dyso n: 30 IV. “9 customer from the air. Why wouldn’t that approach work well in vacuum
Pro b I ems in ways ey cleaners? “I thought no one was bothering to use technology in
vacuum cleaners, said Dyson. Indeed, the core technolog} of
N ever I n vacuum motors at the time was more than 150 years old. “I saw
a great opportunity to improve.”
From a headvon perspective, it has a sleek, stunning stainless Dyson then did something that very feW people WOUld haVe
steel design. With wings that extend downward at a lS-degree the patience or the Vision to do. He Spent 15 years and made
angle from its center, it appears ready for takeoff. The latest 5,127 Vacuum prototypes-all based on a bag-less cyclonic
aeronautic design from Boeing? No. It’s the most innovative separator-before he had the one that Went to market. In his
sink faucet to hit the market in decades, Dyson-the company own words, “There were 5,126 failures. But I learned from each
famous for vacuum cleaners, hand dryers, and fans unlike any- one. That’s how i came up With a solution.”
thing else on the market-is about to revolutionize the tradi- Dyson’s all-new Vacuum was far more than techno-
tional sink faucet. gadgetry. Dyson had developed a completely new motor that ran
The Airblade Tap-a faucet that washes and dries hands at 110,000 revolutions per minute-three times faster than any
with completely touch-free operation-is the latest in a line of other Vacuum on the market. It prOVided tremendous suction
revolutionary Dyson products that have reinvented their catego- that other brands simply couldn’t match. The bag-less design
rieS. In fact, Dyson was founded on afew very simple principles was very effective at removing dirt and particles from the air,
First, every Dyson product must provide real consumer benefits and the machine was much easier to clean out than vacuums
that make life easier. Second. each product must take a totally requiring the messy process of changing bags. The vacuum also
unique approach to accomplishing common, everyday taSkS. Fi- maneuvered more easily and could reach places other vacuums
nally, each Dyson product must infuse excitement into products COUid not- Dyson’s Vacuum really worked-
that are so mundane, most people never think much about them. With a iiniShed prOduct in hand, Dyson pitChed it to an
the appliance makers. None of them wanted it. So Dyson bor-
rowed $900,000 and began manufacturing the vacuum himself.
The Man behmd the Name He then convinced a mail-order catalog to carry the Dyson in-
James Dyson was born and raised in the United Kingdom. After stead Of HOOVer or Electrolux, “Because your catalog is bor-
studying design at the Royal College of Art, he had initially ing.” Dyson vacuums were soon picked up by other mail order
planned to design and build geodesic structures for use as com- catalogs, then by small appliance Chains, and then by large de-
‘mercial space. But with no money to get his venture started, partment stores. By the late 19905, Dyson’s full line of vacu-
he took a job working for an acquaintance who handed him a urns were being distributed in multiple global markets. At that
blow torch and challenged him to create a prototype for an am- point, Dyson, the company that had quickly become known for
phibious landing craft. With no welding experience, he figured Vacuum cleaners, was already on to its next big thing.
things out on his own. Before long, the company was selling
200 boats a year based on his design.
That trial-and-error approach came naturally to Dyson, The Dyson methOd
who applied it to create Dyson Inc’s first product. In 1979, he During the development of Dyson’s vacuums, a development
had purchased what claimed was the most powerful vacuum model began to take shape. Take everyday products, focus on
cleaner on the market. He found it to be anything but. Instead, their shortcomings, and improve them to the point of reinvention.

3 Appendix 1: Company Cases 7 “I.

‘I going for unglamorous products and making them a plea- Rather, Dyson’s uses an approach :: :54. I
sure to use.” Dyson told Fortune magazine. By taking this route, products” to develop new products that prcduee reel salami.
the company finds solutions to the problems it is trying to solve. to customer problems. After identifying the most objects M-
At the same time, it sometimes finds solutions for other problems. comings for everyday products, it finds ways to imprexe “1

For example, the vacuum motor Dyson developed sucked It then tests prototypes with real consumers under heat» 3:3:-

air with unprecedented strength. But the flipside of vacuum disclosure agreements. In this manner, Dyson can observe acn-
suction is exhaust. Why couldn’t such a motor blow air at wet sumer reactions in the context of real people using producrs in
hands so fast that the water would be pressed off in a squeegee- their real lives.
like manner, rather than the slow, evaporative approach em- This approach enables Dyson to develop revolutionary
ployed by commercial hand dryers? products like the Air Multiplier, a fan that moves large volumes

With that realization, Dyson created and launched the Air- of air around a room with no blades. In fact, the Air Multiplier J
blade, a hand dryer that blows air through a .2-millimeter slot looks nothing like a fan. By using technology similar to that
at 420 miles per hour. It dries hands in 12 seconds, rather than found in turbochargers and jet engines, the Air Multiplier draws
the more typical 40 seconds required by other hand dryers. It air in, amplifies it 18 times, and spits it back out in an uninter-
also uses cold air-a huge departure from the standard warm-air rupted stream that eliminates the buffetng and direct air pres-
approach of existing commercial dryers. This not only reduced sure of conventional fans. Referring to the standard methods
energy consumption by 75 percent-a major bonus for comer- of assessing customer needs and wants, Rostrom explains, “If
cial enterprises that pay the electric bills-but customers were you . . . asked people what they wanted from their fan tomor-

much more likely to use a product that worked fast and did the row, they wouldn’t say ‘get rid of the blades.’ Our approach is

job right. about product breakthroughs rather than the approach of just
With very observable benefits, the Airblade was rapidly running a focus group and testing a concept.
adopted by commercial customers. For example, as part of a

comprehenswe plan to improve its env1ronmental impact, Los No_Nonsense Promotion
Angeles Internatlonal A1rport (LAX) was looking for a solution
to the financial and environmental costs of manufacturing, dis- In yet another departure from conventional marketing, Dyson i

tributing, and servicing the paper towel dispensers in more than claims to shun one of the core concepts of marketing. “There is
100 restrooms throughout its terminals. Switching to recycled only one word that’s banned in our company: brand,” Mr. Dyson
paper towels helped, but only minimally. The energy used by proclaimed at Wired magazine’s Disruption By Design confer-
conventional hand dryers made them an unattractive alternative. ence. What Dyson seems to mean is that the company is not
But when LAX management saw a demonstration of the Dyson about creating images and associations that do not originate
Airblade, it was a no-brainer. With Airblades installed through- with the quality and function of the product itself. “We’re only

out its terminals, LAX was able to significantly reduce landfill as good as our latest product.”

waste as well as costs. The overwhelmingly positive feedback With its rigid focus on product quality and its innovative
from travelers was icing on the cake. approaches to common problems, Dyson’s approach to brand

Today’s Airblades have evolved, guided by Dyson’s building centers on simply letting its products speak for them-
customer-centric approach to developing products. With the first selves. Indeed, from the mid-19903 when it started promoting
Airblade. it was apparent that all that high-powered air is noisy. its bag-less vacuums, Dyson invested heavily in television ad-
So Dyson spent seven years and a staggering $42 million to de- vertising. But unlike most creative approaches, Dyson’s ads are
velop the Y4 motor. one of the smallest and quietest commer- simple and straightforward, explaining to viewers immediately
cial motors available. The new Airblade is quieter and almost what the product is, what it does, and why they need one.

six pounds lighter than the original. But even more advanced is “It’s a really rational subject matter that we work on, so we
Dyson‘s new Blade V. a sleeker design that is 60 percent thinner don’t need to use white-horses on beaches or anything like that,”
than the Airblade. protruding only four inches from the wall. Rostrom says, referring to Dyson’s no-nonsense approach to

advertising. “We need only to explain the products. One thing

Assessing Real customer Needs we’re careful to avoid is resorting to industry-standard ways of

communicating-fluffy dogs and sleeping babies and so on. We
Although Dyson sees itself as a technology-driven company. it don’t want to blend in that way.”

develops products with the end-user in mind. But rather than us- Today, Dyson complements traditional advertising with

ing traditional market research methods, Dyson takes a differ- digital efforts. Like its TV advertising, such methods are sim-

ent approach. “Dyson avoids the kind of focus group techniques ple, straightforward, and right to the point. For example, e-mail
that are, frankly, completely averaging,” says Adam Rostrom, communications are used sparingly, targeted to existing cus-
group marketing director for Dyson. “Most companies start tomers, and timed for maximum impact. And beyond the media
with the consumer and say, ‘Hey Mr. or Mrs. X, what do you it buys, Dyson considers public relations as the promotional
want from your toothbrush tomorrow or what do you want from medium that carries most of the weight. From product reviews
your shampoo tomorrow?’ The depressing reality is that often in the mainstream media to online reviews and tweets about its
you won’t get many inspiring answers.” products, word of its Dyson’s products gets around fast.

The Airblade Tap sink fauna. ng’s m m new Questions for Discussion
is a III “Elk 1. Write a market-oriented mission statement for Dyson.
wugct The flak ml‘iw‘fiafl; cofium‘i 2. What are Dyson’s goals and objectives? ‘l
n solutions to everyday problems-solutions that make life 3- DOCS Dyson haVe a busmess PorthIiO? Explain.
It solves those problems in ways that no other product 4. Discuss Dyson’s marketing mix techniques and how they i
ever attempted, claiming to “reinvent the way we wash our fit within the context of its business and marketing strategy.
i n And it injects style into an otherwise boring product. 5′ IS Dyson a customepcentered company? Explain.
n sums it up this way: “Washing and drying your hands
t n not to be a very pleasant experience. Water splashes, pa- r
r IS wasmd’ find germs are passed along] The Tap IS a tOtaHZ Sources: OmarAkhtar, “Three Questions for Design Genius Mr. Dyson,”
‘i erem eXpenénge‘ You have your own smk’ your own dryer’ Fortune, February 5, 2013, www.tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/02/05/
l u at $1,500, 1t illustrates another element of the Dyson mar- 3questions_for_design_genius_MrA_dyson/; Matt Wman’ “Sir Mr. Dyson:
g mix-a high Price 13oth that communicates quality and MasteroflnventionHastheWindBehindHim,”The Telegraph,February9, i
t ‘ efitS that are worth it- 2013,www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/9858568/Sir-Mr.-Dyson-
If the Airblade Tap iS a hit, it Will SerVe to forward Dyson’s master-of-invention-has-the-wind-behind-him.html; Jonathan Bacon,
o . of doubling its annual revenues of $1.5 billion “quite “Cleaning Up All over the World,”Marketing Week, November 22, 2012, j,
r ickly.” The company is not only continuing to demonstrate www.marketingweek.co.uk/trends/cleaning-up-a11-over-the-world/ g?
that it can come up with Winning products again and again’ it 4004751.article; Matthew Creamer, “Mr. Dyson: ‘I Don’t Believe in
is expanding throughout the world at a rapid pace. Dyson prod_ Brand’,” Advertising Age, May 2, 2012, http://adage.com/print/234494;
ncts are sold in over 50 global markets, selling well in emerg- Kelsey Campbéu’DOHaghan’ “Dyson’s Late“ Coup: A $1500 Smk :3:
Faucet That Dries Hands, Too,” Fasten Deszgn, February 5, 2013, www j
J g econorincs as W611 as SICVCIOPCCF firm-world nations. Dysop .fastcodesign.com/l67l788/dyson-s-latest-coup-a-l500-sink-faucet- l1
i H S we“ m bOth economlc gQOd tunes, 82nd recessmna‘ry Pen- that-dries-hands-too;Burt Helm, “Dyson Marketing: So Simple,lt’s Bril- i
OdS- Dyson also 5665 another blg move m “S future-a Cham of liant,” The Marketing Robot, April 16, 2012, www.themarketingrobot
company Stores (as many as 20,000 stores in the United States .com/dyson-marketing-so-simple-its-brilliant;Burt Helm,

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