In the early stages of Steve Jobs’s second spell at Apple, when they were still trying to sort our their strategy, he launched the annual meetings with software developers. At the plenary sessions developers were able to ask Steve questions. One developer famously asked him, “Why aren’t you using OpenDoc technology? Not using this shows you don’t know what you are doing.”

Steve showed remarkable patience (for him) - he didn’t explode, instead he took a couple of swigs of water, and then replied,

• “I accept that I don’t know all about OpenDoc, but that is not the place to start.”
• “You have to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You cannot start with the technology and figure out where you are going to sell it. I’ve probably made this mistake more than anyone else in this room. Got scar tissue to prove it. I know it is the case.”
• “As we tried to come up with a strategy for Apple, we started with what incredible benefits can we give to the customer? where can we take the customer? Not starting with, lets sit down with the engineers and figure out what awesome technology we have and how are we going to market it.”

He concluded:

• “And I think that is the right path to take.”

Then he remembered the first laser printer that Apple produced with all its incredibly advanced technology. “All it took to sell the product was  to say, ‘Just look at the printout’ which was really awesome at that time. Not look at the technology."

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CTMfile take: Customer experience wins over technology ever time. That is what sells Apple products today - the customer experience, and it is what sells cash management services, not the technology. Peter Drucker said the purpose of a business is to create customer. That is what a brilliant customer experience does, it creates a customer.