Do you know the competitive advantage of the company you work for? More importantly, is this advantage sustainable, relevant, or already... obsolete?

Think carefully: what makes your company different today might just be a relic by tomorrow. In today’s world, believing you have a perennial competitive advantage is like painting a ruin and pretending it’s a fortress. Everything you consider a “differentiator” risks being replicated, surpassed, or even ignored next year or even in a few months. Products and services are becoming increasingly similar, commoditized, and competition is fiercer than ever.

So, what makes the difference? How can you build a competitive advantage that renders competition irrelevant?

I’ll admit, I too have proudly used the Voice of the Customer (VOC) over the last 30 years, and I’m not the only one. The Romanian market? It’s 99.99% built on VOC. Why? Because VOC worked very well in an embryonic or, at most, emerging market, where whatever you did guaranteed success.

VOC would have you believe that success comes from carefully listening, with statistical relevance, to each piece of feedback, suggestion, or “pain point.” But let me tell you something: I believe that today, VOC is the quickest path to mediocrity! The concept of VOC emerged in the ’90s and provides direct feedback from customers about what already exists, forming the basis of tons of methodologies. Feedback generated within the universe of solutions. But when you do this, you limit yourself to known products and experiences. What do you get? A better battery? A more attractive packaging? It’s like constantly adjusting the TV antenna while your customers are already watching Netflix. VOC is simple and straightforward, but it keeps you anchored to existing solutions and mostly incremental improvements.

VOC Segmentations: Framing in a Limited Universe

Look at the outcries of a “perfect” VOC: classic segmentations that tell you everything about what customers like or dislike, without telling you what they don’t know they’re missing. I’ve experienced them all, so let’s break them down:

Demographics: grouping customers by age, gender, income, etc. Great, but how does this solve the customers' real needs?
Geographics: division by areas, regions, etc. Okay, maybe you've "targeted" all of Cluj. But are you helping them do what they truly need?
Behavioral: classification by usage (penetration, frequency, AWP, type of use...). You can observe how they use the product or service, but why do they use it?
U&A (Usage & Attitude): analysis of usage and attitudes towards a product or service. You know their attitude towards your product, but does this really tell you what they’re trying to achieve?
Motivational: based on purchase motivations (e.g., comfort, performance...). But what if the motivation is completely misunderstood because it’s anchored in the current solution?
Lifestyle: based on lifestyle (luxury-oriented, eco-friendly, etc.). Okay, you've segmented the market by who is "eco." But are you giving them a solution, or just delivering what they directly asked for?
Firmographic (for B2B): segmenting companies by size, industry, or revenue... Nice, but does this really bring you closer to their fundamental goals, or just to procurement specifications?

VOC in Design Thinking and Agile: Fireworks or True Innovation?

Frameworks like Design Thinking and Agile are anchored in VOC. In Design Thinking, VOC is central to the empathy phase, where teams collect information from users to understand their needs and challenges, and in Agile, VOC plays a key role in creating a continuous feedback cycle through the product backlog and iterative testing. In reality? These are perfect for optimizations and incremental improvements, but not for disruptive innovations. They optimize existing solutions but are limited to step-by-step adjustments. If you want true innovation, start with Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) before applying Design Thinking and Agile. Then, you can truly uncover the fundamental needs that matter – those unmet by any existing solution, and only then apply the two processes.

JTBD: The Sustainable Competitive Advantage That Can Make Competition Irrelevant

Do you want an advantage that your rivals can’t replicate even with an army of engineers and a secret lab? Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) is a good answer. It’s not infallible, but I believe it’s the best solution today. JTBD doesn’t just ask what your customers want – it asks why they want that thing. With JTBD, the entire perspective changes: you’re no longer asking what “fancy” specifications the customer prefers on your product or service, but what “job” they’re trying to solve. Be it functional, emotional, or social. Customers don’t just want a better battery; they want uninterrupted communication. They don’t just want a bigger fridge; they want a complete solution for healthy eating. If JTBD becomes your foundation instead of VOC, the competitive advantage becomes truly sustainable and hard to replicate, because it addresses customers’ fundamental needs, not just their preferences for current solutions.

How to Offer What the Competition Can’t Replicate?

If VOC and traditional feedback help you make “optimizations and upgrades,” JTBD tells you something that the competition, confined to VOC, can’t even dream of. Sustainable competitive advantage is one where competition becomes irrelevant because you address needs unmet by any other solution on the market.

Take the Romanian example of UiPath: they didn’t limit themselves to traditional feedback. UiPath saw companies' deep need to save time – not just automation of isolated tasks, but at the level of complete, complex, repetitive processes. This is a truly hard-to-replicate competitive advantage. UiPath didn’t ask “how can we make our products better?” but “what job must these products do in the customer’s life?”

How to Be Unbeatable in a World Where Everyone Else Is Playing Catch-Up?

JTBD is not just an evolution in strategy; it’s a revolution. Organizations that adopt JTBD (many from the startup ecosystem and fewer from the universe of mature companies) are not fighting for small product improvements but see beyond what exists now... they do “disruption.” They begin to address people’s fundamental and constant needs – those needs that don’t change, even if solutions do. Why does this matter? Because VOC keeps you anchored in the past, but JTBD pits you against only the fundamental needs.

If you want to win, ask yourself: Why do your customers “hire” your product or service? And don’t stop there. Look for the needs that aren’t on the list. The fundamental needs. Those that customers, questioned through VOC, don’t even know how to articulate.

If you don’t want to get lost in the crowd, forget VOC! Instead, look for those “jobs” – the important, unmet needs in existing solutions – and make them a reality, because that’s where the true competitive advantage lies – one that lasts longer than feedback about a better button.

Is this a necessary condition? Yes!

Is it also sufficient? No!

Where could sufficiency come from?

From only one place: mindset.

It’s hard, but that’s why… we went to the Moon.