90 / Rotman Management Spring 2017

Q

&A

Figuring out what consumers truly value these days is

no easy feat. Describe how you discovered 30 ‘elements

of value’.

My colleagues and I have been studying consumers for many

years. After literally hundreds of studies, about three years

ago we consolidated our findings and were able to identify

24 ‘elements of value’ — but we suspected there were more.

So, in 2015, we did some new qualitative research — talking

directly to consumers about the products they were buying.

As people spoke about why they made a particular

purchase, we kept asking questions, trying to get at the

fundamentals. If someone told us their bank was ‘conve-

nient’, we didn’t accept that answer: We would probe fur-

ther by asking, ‘What does convenience mean to you?’ The

consumer would then delve deeper, and say things like,

‘Well, it’s nearby, so it saves me a lot of time and effort’. We

did this repeatedly, across all the different statements con-

sumers made, to get at the most granular elements of value.

We ultimately did some quantitative research as well — but

it all began with these deep customer insights.

The head of Bain’s

Advanced Analytics

practice describes

30 elements of value.

Interview by Karen Christensen

QUESTIONS FOR Eric Almquist, Partner, Bain & Company