Using JTBD to Drive M&A Success

• What is Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD?
  A framework that identifies what customers are trying to achieve, prioritizing outcomes over features. This helps businesses discover unmet needs and evaluate opportunities.

• Why use JTBD in M&A?
  JTBD redefines markets based on customer goals, improves alignment between teams, and helps identify growth opportunities

Quick Overview:

JTBD ensures M&A strategies are actionable, customer-focused, and growth-oriented. Platforms like thrv help implement JTBD methods effectively throughout the M&A lifecycle.

Common M&A Problems and JTBD Solutions

Fixing Company-Buyer Misalignment

Misalignment between companies and buyers can derail mergers and acquisitions. The JTBD framework solves this by creating a shared understanding focused on customer outcomes. With JTBD, both sides align around clear, goal-oriented objectives. For example, thrv's JTBD platform helps private equity sponsors and portfolio companies develop unified growth strategies centered on customer jobs. This ensures product, marketing, and sales teams are all working toward the same customer-focused goals.

Once alignment is achieved, JTBD helps uncover and address key gaps in meeting customer needs.

Closing Customer Need Gaps

JTBD identifies and resolves gaps in how companies meet customer needs. Unlike traditional methods like market research or satisfaction surveys, JTBD pinpoints the exact outcomes customers want to achieve.

It breaks customer jobs into three key dimensions:

• Core functional jobs: The main tasks customers need to complete

• Emotional jobs: How customers feel during and after completing a job

• Social jobs: How completing the job impacts their social standing

By analyzing these dimensions, companies can better assess potential acquisitions and spot opportunities for growth. This approach digs deeper, helping businesses address real needs instead of surface-level fixes.

With this foundation, JTBD also redefines how markets are understood, opening the door to new opportunities.

Better Market Definition Methods

Traditional market definitions often rely on demographics or product categories, which can lead M&A strategies astray. JTBD flips this by defining markets based on the core jobs customers want to accomplish.

This approach offers key benefits:

• Expands opportunities beyond current product categories.

• Sizes markets based on actual customer needs.

• Maps competitors by how well they help customers complete jobs.

Companies can compare their offerings against competitors by assessing the speed and accuracy of job completion across products. This helps pinpoint gaps in capabilities and identify acquisition targets that can fill those gaps effectively.

This refined way of defining markets ensures M&A strategies are more focused and actionable.

JTBD Methods for M&A

Using JTBD methods can reshape M&A strategies by integrating customer insights into practical, actionable steps.

Identifying Unmet Needs

The JTBD framework helps companies pinpoint and rank unmet customer needs during M&A evaluations. This involves analyzing 50-150 outcome statements for each customer job. These statements are structured to assess opportunities for value creation:

A specialized JTBD platform collects and analyzes these statements, helping companies identify the most promising acquisition opportunities. These insights lay the groundwork for targeted product development.

Guiding Product Development

JTBD informs product development by focusing on customer needs and buyer objectives. It goes beyond adding features, aiming instead to improve how well a job gets done.

The JTBD Growth Strategy Matrix evaluates potential product developments based on two key factors, job effectiveness and execution cost:

This framework helps teams prioritize developments and coordinate efforts effectively.

Aligning Teams

Once customer needs and product priorities are identified, JTBD ensures alignment across product, marketing, and sales teams - especially important during M&A integration.

The framework connects:

• Product development with customer success metrics.

• Marketing strategies with job-specific customer needs.

• Sales approaches with buyer value creation goals.

This alignment keeps everyone focused on delivering value to customers and achieving M&A objectives.

Conclusion: How to Use JTBD in M&A

To make the most of JTBD during an M&A process, companies should focus on these key actions:

Platforms like thrv's JTBD innovation system can help structure this process, especially when aligning leadership teams around growth strategies. The key is to stay focused on customer needs throughout every phase of the M&A lifecycle - from evaluating potential targets to integrating post-merger.

For teams adopting JTBD, success hinges on using clear metrics to measure how well customer needs are met and how large the market opportunities are. This data-driven approach ensures acquisition decisions and product strategies are grounded in customer realities, not internal assumptions.