Steve Ballmer Quotes

We do have our finger on the pulse of the marketplace, if for no other reasons than having all these live events and listening to our audience all the time.

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.

Adaptability and constant innovation is key to the survival of any company operating in a competitive market.

During my time growing a company in the private sector, one of my guiding principles was to meet and hear feedback from as many customers as possible.

I think there's a need for somewhat of a mindset change. We need to have a consistent external focus. We've always had the research labs. We've always had the resources to be innovative, and we've been innovative in a number of businesses. But, in any big company, you have to constantly push people to look at markets and customers, rather than look internally at themselves.

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.

Anything new and different is most susceptible to market research.

Do your own market research; ask your last ten customers exactly why they bought from you.

Because these firms listened to their customers, invested aggressively in new technologies that would provide their customers more and better products of the sort they wanted, and because they carefully studied market trends and systematically allocated investment capital to innovations that promised the best returns, they lost their positions of leadership.

The closer you get to your ultimate customer, the more you learn about your business.

We need to put ourselves in the shoes of our customers. That is my new battle cry. Live and breathe Starbucks the way our customers do.

I think the mistake people make most often when they invest in other kinds of startups is they say, 'This is totally different.' And so the things that matter, like making a product that people desperately want, like talking to customers, they throw this out the window. That is a recipe for heartache and tears.

Since the beginning, HTC has focused on developing strong research and development capabilities and keeping a close eye on consumer, market and technology trends.

Well I think any designer that can understand what people need to be wearing right now is the biggest and best step that you can take. Instead of putting your ego first, you put the buyer first. And I think that that's a really important thing just to know what the consumer is wanting to wear.

I think like a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Failure is a great teacher. At the same time, you must remember, success will never last... Whether it's tech or fashion, it must be for the customer.

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.

The thing about startups is you can make it, and if it's wrong you can remake it, and you can build a team that you want to have, a product that you want to have. You're utterly focused on your users or your customers and their needs, and trying to figure out how to meet those needs.

I mistrust anyone... if they're saying, 'Well, that market wants this,' and you're not part of that market.

Don’t ask our customers what they want. Ask yourself what they would want if they knew what you know of what is possible for us to do for them. The burden is on us to understand the consumer’s needs sufficiently to answer that question.

Your customers can tell you the things that are broken and how they want to be made happy. Listen to them. Make them happy. But don't rely on them to create the future road map for your product or service. That's your job.

You can be a great researcher, and you can think you have great ideas, but until you're forced to talk to a potential customer, you never really know.

The top principle for disruptive and sustaining innovation is that it has to have a laser focus on customers. Innovation begins with their needs and expectations.

As I spent tons of time with customers, not just in the United States, but in emerging markets, in Europe, in Latin America, top of mind for everybody is how do they drive growth for their business going forward.

In our product development cycle, we ask and listen to our customer about what she wants.

It's incredibly important to be - once you do have a product - acutely observational about the trends.