We all know the classic cautionary tales: Nokia, Kodak, Polaroid, Blockbuster, Xerox, GE, U.S. Steel, BlackBerry, Yahoo, Borders… the Hall of Fame of not asking enough questions. 

But here’s the more interesting question: Would some of these stories have ended differently if those companies had obsessively studied and engaged customers—not just surveyed them, but really understood the jobs, frustrations, and outcomes customers were trying to solve for?

Not to point fingers (history does a good enough job of that), but to gently wonder out loud:

• Could Blockbuster have smelled the popcorn burning earlier by watching user behavior instead of store visit metrics alone?

• Might GE have avoided innovation indigestion if they’d asked industrial customers what they actually needed next?

• Could Nokia have tapped the screen before the market did… if the market had been in the room more often?

Fast forward to today. The game hasn’t changed. Just the uniforms. Some very current B2B examples of listening done right:

• Maersk, shifting from logistics provider → integrated supply chain orchestrator after deep customer insight into visibility and reliability gaps

• Schneider Electric, building services around energy outcomes, not just hardware, because customers asked for measurable sustainability impact

• Valmet, evolving mill services using real operator-level feedback vs. staying in general portfolio-centric mode

The winners? They didn’t innovate for customers. They innovated with a constant ear to customers, their outcomes, languages, workflows, economics, and success criteria. Curiosity beats assumptions. Empathy beats arrogance. And disciplined listening beats shiny ideas that nobody actually asked for.

At Opticom, this is literally what we do: Decode customer pain → translate into actionable insight → road-test competitive strategy using real voices, not echo chambers.

So maybe the next big disruption isn’t a technology at all. Maybe it’s simply this:

• Listening is innovation.

• Understanding is strategy.

• And customer outcomes are the new R&D roadmap.