Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice

by Clayton M. Christensen

Experiences and Premium Prices In my classroom I share an illustration with my students to highlight how to think about innovating around jobs. It’s just a simple representation, but it’s intended to underscore the point that although identifying and understanding the Job to Be Done is the foundation, it’s only the first step in creating products that you can be sure customers want to hire. Products that they’ll actually pay premium prices for. That involves not only understanding the job, but also the right set of experiences for purchase and use of that product, and then integrating those experiences into a company’s processes. All three layers—Uncovering the Job, Creating the Desired Experiences, and Integrating around the Job—are critical. When a company understands and responds to all three layers of the job depicted here, it will have solved a job in a way that competitors can’t easily copy.