UpTrajectory Review
Harvard Business Review sits down with Vikas Mittal, a marketing professor at Rice University, to argue that most companies guess at what customers want instead of measuring it. Mittal's core point is blunt: executives talk to a handful of loud customers, copy competitors, or trust their own instincts, then wonder why launches flop. He pushes a science-driven approach — systematic data collection, controlled tests, and rigorous analysis of what buyers actually do rather than what they say. The interview format means the piece stays at the level of principle; Mittal names common failure modes but leaves the how-to for his book and courses.
For a small-business operator, the stakes differ from those at a Fortune 500 firm. You lack the budget for a 40-person insights team, but you also lack the layers of bureaucracy that bury truth under PowerPoint. A diner owner who watches which plates come back half-eaten, or a contractor who logs which bids stall, already practices a rough version of what Mittal preaches. The trap for small firms is the same as for large ones: confusing a chatty regular or a glowing online review with market-wide demand. One loud voice is not a segment.
What feels fresh here is not the call for data — every business publication makes that call — but Mittal's insistence that leaders misread value at the level of theory, not just method. He argues that value is multidimensional: customers weigh functional performance, emotional payoff, price fairness, and social signaling in one mental calculation. A feature that wins on function can lose on price fairness. We find this persuasive, though the interview never grapples with the cost of the science he urges. A five-person shop cannot run conjoint analysis on every menu change; it must pick its measurement battles.
The second-order effects cut unevenly. Companies that adopt disciplined value measurement will out-execute rivals on pricing, product design, and retention — and will also move slower, which cedes ground to nimble copycats. Employees feel the shift too: sales teams weaned on gut feel often resist dashboards, and the pushback can stall a data program before it pays off. Customers notice as well. Firms that optimize only what they measure will quietly drop the unmeasured touches — the handwritten note, the flexible return — that built loyalty in the first place.
Watch whether Mittal's framework gains traction beyond academic circles over the next year, and whether HBR follows up with case studies from mid-sized firms rather than giants. Meanwhile, pick one decision you now make by feel — your pricing tiers, your service bundles, your hours — and run a simple test this quarter. Change one variable, track the result for thirty days, and write down what you learn. That is science-driven strategy at a scale a small business can afford, and it beats another round of guessing.
“Vikas Mittal, professor of marketing at Rice University, explains the benefits of a science-driven strategy and what executives often get wrong.” — Harvard Business Review
Takeaway: Pick one decision you make by feel, change a single variable, and track results for thirty days before scaling what works.
Excerpt from the original — Harvard Business Review
<p>Vikas Mittal, professor of marketing at Rice University, explains the benefits of a science-driven strategy and what executives often get wrong.</p>