Samuel J. Palmisano Quotes

Most of all, I discovered that in order to succeed with a product you must truly get to know your customers and build something for them.

First, you must have entrepreneurs who fully grasp their customers. They understand their product so well because they themselves are customers. The second thing is having an awesome value proposition.

At URBN, we see ourselves as customer specialists, a collection of brands, each one specializing in one particular customer group, a particular lifestyle or a life stage. We offer her things she wants in environments that inspire her. We talk to her and listen to her ideas and opinions.

One of the things which make any company successful, in particular the Home Depot, was that we understood and catered to the customer. If it didn't sell, it didn't make a difference what we thought or our research told us. They told us if it was successful by buying it or not.

We need to reengineer companies to focus on figuring out who the customer is, what's the market and what kind of product you should build.

Customers don't just want to shop: they want to feel that the brand understands them.

For what we want to accomplish in the future, we have to be able to view everything from the eyes of the customer.

Every employee at Workday thinks about how they are going to help customers be successful. It is a simple formula, but a lot of companies go out, and they don't listen to their customers; they don't try to solve hard problems, making it tougher for themselves to create a great business.

Understanding the customer, feeling what they are feeling, seeing what competitors are doing, you end up having a richer sense of the marketplace.

When you understand your customer base, you have to provide them with what they want.

When you spend time with potential customers, you get to hear about their struggles firsthand. You see their eyes light up with excitement or darken with confusion. You learn things you would never find in a survey, database, or questionnaire. You learn why people buy.

My aspiration is that M&M become one of the most customer-centric organizations in the world. If we focus on understanding our customers, we will be able to develop customer-centric innovations.

If you don't listen to your customers, someone else will.

I feel I'm able to serve my customer by knowing what she or he wants. One of the ways I'm able to do this is through my website, and email: people give me great ideas, tell me what they want, what they don't want. It's really instrumental, and helps me stay in touch with people.

You'll learn more in a day talking to customers than a week of brainstorming, a month of watching competitors, or a year of market research.

Successful organizations have one common central focus: Customers.

Only by moving away from the comforts of your conference room to truly engage with and listen to your customers can you learn in depth about their problems, produce features to solve those problems, and learn what drives customers to recommend, approve, and purchase products.

Using science to tell us what customers are looking for is second nature for us here.

Instead of telling a story about how great your brand is, try telling a story that shows you completely understand and empathize with your customer and their life.

When you focus solely on valuation and market share, you win some and you lose some. When you focus on the needs of your customers and help them achieve their dreams, you win every time.

Success Comes from listening to your customer.

Always listen to your customers.

People went to Dell for the computers, but they go to Apple for everything… That’s the difference between a transactional company and a transformational one.

I'm not shy about asking the customer, because I want to talk about who she is and what she wants from me.

It's not enough to be close to the customer. You've got to be glued to the customer.