Typical insights needed:

•  How significant are the customers' points of pain?

•  How well do customers recognize their pain and its cause?

•  Who will make the decision to buy your offering, and who will use it?

•  How much change will your offering impose?

•  How quickly will customers buy and incorporate your offering?

Finding the answers:

New offerings must be driven by direct customer insight—not proxy—to generate the greatest sales and profits in the shortest amount of time.  Having the right qualitative and quantitative customer insights will help you make the right marketing and strategy decisions and increase the accuracy of sales projections.  Such detailed insights also can help you obtain board approvals or even secure outside funding.