In everyday language, talking about needs has a different meaning than we should give needs in business language.
Discussions about whether the needs already exist or are created by companies in their quest to commercialize are purely semantic. In reality it is not even a problem of ethics, since its approach is based on an erroneous basis.
What companies create are solutions that we call products or services, the result of technology that makes them available to the public.
So then, it is idle to argue about whether the telephone, or other products and services, represent a luxury or a necessity, unless we place the discussion on the correct plane from a business point of view.
Traditionally, Strategic Planning processes start from an economic concept of Supply (product) and Demand (market) under which the combinations of products offered and markets served, current or new, define both the current business of the company and four possible ways growth.
However, product and market must be united by something that makes their exchange possible. Under a market approach, we must remember that a product or service, more than the set of its physical characteristics, represents for them a solution to the problems of customers, a satisfaction of their needs; in a word, a benefit.
From the benefit that the market receives from the product, the value that makes it possible to develop a continuous commercial relationship is derived. What this means is that the business of the company must be defined precisely on the basis of those three dimensions, Profit, Market and Product.
For example, when comparing 8mm film cameras with video cameras; gas ovens with microwave ovens; Conventional telephony with cell phones, or print media with electronic ones, it can be seen that the benefit to the market is greater with the new technology, as a result of the value added to the solution in terms of convenience. The basic benefit remains the same.
Businesses create new satisfiers, products, or services that meet the same old needs and provide more practical solutions in terms of greater convenience for the public.
In general terms, customer motivation occurs in at least two different stages, which we must separate. The first has to do with the recognition of a need in general and the second with the choice of a particular satisfier.
An individual may decide to drink something to quench his thirst, then choose one of several beverage options, and finally decide on brand and presentation.
To distinguish between needs, motives and benefits, the best help is found in the hierarchy of needs that Abraham Maslow proposed in his 1954 book 'Motivation and Personality'.
Maslow proposed that human beings rank their needs from the most to the least pressing (physiological, security, social, esteem and self-fulfillment) and that they dedicate time and effort first to a need of less hierarchy, which, once satisfied will cease to be a motivator to give way to a need of the next level. When a person has enough water, food and shelter, they will begin to worry about their safety, their social and emotional needs, etc.
At the first level of the Maslow scale, it is very easy to associate a state of tension with the physiological needs for water, food and shelter that is generated when the requirement is not being satisfied. The lack of water or food generates a state of tension that we call respectively thirst and hunger.
Thus, we define need as requirement (water); motivation as the state of tension that is generated when a need is not being met (thirst) and benefit as satisfaction, or the result of satisfying a need.
In fact, we don't have a specific word for the benefit of drinking water. Quench your thirst? Lack of rest (need) produces sleep (motivation) and sleep gives us the benefit of rest? It is a semantic game.
The real problem is in the next levels of the Maslow scale, because the state of tension is increasingly difficult to describe and name. If the person requires social relations, what to call the state of tension that is generated when said need is not being satisfied? Loneliness? How to call the benefit?
When we talk about certain products and services, we have serious problems because it is difficult to identify the benefits that your audience is looking for in them. Cigarettes, alcoholic beverages, and coffee are three examples. In fact, the damage that their irresponsible consumption could cause in the long term would be greater than the benefit they provide in the immediate present.
We must ask ourselves some questions regarding the first decision stage. Why do people smoke? Why do you drink alcoholic beverages? Why are you using a checking account? Why are you studying a professional career? Why are you calling on the phone? Why are you connecting to the internet? Why do you use a car? A toothpaste? Why are you going to the movies?
And when we answer them, we must ask ourselves other questions. Why one brand of cigarettes and not another? Why stock up on one company, out of several possible ones? There are benefits that are obtained in this second stage, different from those sought in the first and that are more related to the provider than to the customer itself.
What should we do in practice to develop a continuous business relationship with the company's customers, based on value exchanges?
Focusing on the client requires sensitivity to identify the significant benefit that the market considers of value and flexibility in the selection of a technology that translates into products, services and delivery methods superior to those of the competition.
