Being Sensitive to Human Needs

I went to a small high school in Jakarta six years ago. The classes were initially not equipped with air conditioners. Everybody knows that Jakarta is always humid and hot. Being in a class with another forty young and energetic students with Jakarta’s weather was not particularly a fantastic experience. Everybody was complaining on how hot the class was. Therefore, the student committee directed the students’ voice to the school in regards to this issue. They basically stated that air conditioners were crucial in order to create more comfort to the students and hence higher productivity.

After a long debate, the school agreed to provide air conditioning system in our classes in a couple of months. Everybody was exciting. However, after the system was set up some students were complaining on how the classes were too cold. I suppose this simple experience represents how human is never meant to be satisfied. Once a need could be fulfilled there will soon come a new desire. Human desire is always changing from time to time. And I believe that the nature of business is actually to provide satisfaction to human desire.

Edward De Bono stated that human needs are basically divided into several different types. These are physiological needs (air, food and water), safety needs (life stability and protection), social needs (love and family), ego needs (status, fame, and glory), and self actualization needs (achievements, freedom, and feelings of confidence). One of these needs would be our primary need in different context of life. In the modern society, the change in the global condition would alter our primary needs. Hence, different condition would trigger different priorities.

When the twin towers were attacked, safety needs became the American primary concern. When the great drought came early last year in Australia, water need became the priority. In business environment, being sensitive to the change in human or market desires would enable us to be a market leader. The market is actually more important than the marketing itself. However, this issue is often forgotten by the marketers. By understanding human desires we would be able to create the high value products or services. The job of a marketer is to be able to determine changes in people priorities and turn it into a new solution.

As the number of websites on the internet increased exponentially, Google was the only company who understood that being able to find reliable and relevant information easily from millions of websites would be the major need. With their search engine we could find our desired information within seconds. No wonder google attracts hundreds of millions of traffic daily.

Pesan Delivery (PD) understands the Jakarta’s chaotic traffic causes troubles to office worker fulfilling their lunch appetite. It would take more time driving to the favorite restaurant than actually indulging themselves with the lunch. Therefore, they provide the delivery services from a wide range of great restaurants to provide simplicity and convenience.

Therefore, try to be close to your customers.

Comments, opinions, and questions are more than welcome.

David Herlambang
MarketingFirst