SOLUTION

Definition
A solution gap occurs when the solution offered by a company fails to find success on the market.

Characteristics :      


 * The product or service proposed by the company is not focused on solving a specific solution, for it to be meaningful for the user.
 * The customer segment targeted might not be the correct one, or the solution can has no specific target market.
 * There’s not a differentiation on the product to compete against its competitors or substitutes.
 * Product design is based on assumptions, not on the user.
 * Relationship price/value is not balanced.

Diagnostic
 To determine whether or not a company is facing a solution gap, a series of questions can be asked:

Has your team selected a proper segment to focus on? Has your team identified valuable customers? Is your solution creating significant differentiation with your competitors? Is your business model strong enough to achieve, communicate and deliver value? Are you receiving enough profits to fulfill your company needs?

Case examples
TomTom NV 

TomTom company is one of the first GPS´s companies in the world. They have more than 20 different GPS devices to cover different markets in the world. With the development of smartphones and GPS apps, TomTom started to fall into an abism. So they decided to start innovating by selecting a specific market segment who was underserved, and looking for complete solutions by researching in-field some of their needs. They focused on adults who are suffering with the adoption of technology and smartphones, they re-designed their devices to be as simple as possible with a very graphic and self-explanatory interface. Also they discovered an specific problem: On U.S. one of the biggest causes of death on car accidents were mothers with small children getting distracted by their child while driving. Because of this, TomTom developed an update on their software so now their customers could download funny voices from T.V. and movies as: Homer Simpson, Darth Vader, Yoda, etc; This voices reduce the stress on the vehicle and make kids laugh when the GPS starts talking. While the mother is driving the device is helping mothers to keep concentration while driving and making the babies laugh. This generated a differentiation to TomTom that customers value, because the new solution reduces pain on the vehicle, and also because the customers didn´t had to buy another device suffering the pain of the learning sacrifice. For this simple, useful and relevant solution, customer were only charged for a small amount depending on the voice of character they choose.



Solution: Escaping the gap
Exiting the solution gap is crucial for an organization to generate, deliver, communicate and capture value. In order to be a sustainable company, the organization must offer a integral solution attractive to customers. The solution must reduce the amount of pains a user can experience in order to be the number one option, of the consumer rather then the competence. Companies that have identified their opportunity areas based on the diagnosis, can apply the following tools to find an affordable, sustainable and complete solution to their customers.These tools can help companies and innovation teams to seek the gaps that are stopping the company from succeeding and scaling. Using and applying this tools for creating creative ways to solve customer needs can lead a company to exiting this gap, and even gain a huge percentage of the market.


 * Jobs to be done


 * Outcome driven innovation


 * Human Centerd Design


 * Business model matrix


 * BM Leadership model


 * Crossing the chasm


 * Customer value canvas


 * Empathy map


 * Customer activity chain

Sometimes, customers just want a small change in the product to be completely satisfied, so focusing on their needs can help a company deliver this solutions that will help them be the customers first choice.