Many organizations have collected valuable consumer data over the years – through focus groups, segmentation studies, satisfaction surveys, clickstream analytics, and more. But when it comes time to define business strategy or launch a new product, decision-makers often ask a familiar question: “How do we make sense of all this?”

The challenge is not a lack of information. It’s the lack of connection between those insights and what customers are actually trying to achieve. Traditional research methods often focus on what people say, do, or prefer in isolated contexts. While useful, these data points don't always explain what motivates behavior or how decisions are made across the customer journey.

The Misalignment Between Data and Decision-Making

Here are a few reasons why research can feel disconnected from strategic planning:

• Different studies answer different questions: A brand study might focus on perception, while a usability test centers on digital friction. Without a shared framework, these insights can’t easily talk to each other.
• Research gets filed away: Many studies produce a final report that is never revisited, making past learnings hard to access or apply.
• Timeframes vary: Some data is aging, while newer studies might not consider longer-term customer needs.

As a result, strategic insights may be inconsistent or incomplete. Decisions around product development, marketing, and innovation risk being made in silos, disconnected from a holistic view of consumer understanding.

Symptoms of Disconnected Insights

Organizations facing this issue often experience common pain points, such as:

• Lack of clarity on who the customer really is
• Difficulty prioritizing features or initiatives
• Conflicting findings from different research teams or sources
• Strategies that don’t resonate with target audiences

Without a clear way to tie existing research to business goals, valuable information stays underutilized. That’s where a framework like Jobs To Be Done can help bring it all into focus.

Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) is a framework that helps organizations understand the deeper goals behind customer behavior. Instead of only asking what people are doing, it asks why they’re doing it. What progress are they trying to make? What “job” are they hiring a product or service to do in their life?

By applying the JTBD lens, companies can bring unity to disconnected research findings and translate them into meaningful, strategic direction. This approach shifts the focus from standalone data points to underlying consumer motivations – helping teams see the bigger picture.

Understanding the Customer’s True Goal

When viewed through JTBD, every piece of consumer feedback becomes part of a larger narrative: the customer’s effort to solve a problem, achieve a goal, or improve their situation. Whether it’s choosing a snack between meetings or switching software tools, there’s always a job to be done behind the choice.

For example, imagine you’ve gathered a range of usability data, preference surveys, and brand perception results. JTBD helps you structure those insights around a central question: What is the customer trying to accomplish? Suddenly, responses gain new meaning – and different data sets begin to connect.

Using JTBD to Tie Research to Business Goals

Here’s how using JTBD can link past consumer research to strategic insights:

• Clusters insights around customer goals: Rather than segmenting by demographics or channels, JTBD groups insights based on shared jobs, aligning with real consumer intent.
• Highlights gaps and opportunities: By mapping existing research onto customer jobs, businesses can spot which needs are underserved – key for innovation and product development.
• Turns data into direction: Insights no longer sit in isolation. Instead, they build a story that supports customer-centered business strategy.

Simple Example: The Commuting Consumer

Let’s say you’ve gathered data on coffee drinkers: time of purchase, store format preferences, mobile ordering habits, etc. On their own, these insights offer value – but what if they were combined to reveal a common job, like “help me stay alert and in control during my morning commute”?

Suddenly, this job frames existing research in a new light and connects it to broader strategy: how your brand is positioned, what your digital offerings need to deliver, or what store formats support the job best.

Bringing Siloed Insights Together

The JTBD framework acts like a backbone that supports and connects all other consumer research. It synthesizes both qualitative and quantitative findings by asking: what’s the underlying goal? From there, teams can better align their actions with customer motivations – whether that means developing a new product, prioritizing features, or reframing communications.

For organizations already investing in research, the value of JTBD is not about starting over – it’s about bringing structure, focus, and meaning to what you already have, and turning it into strategy.

Every product or service is designed to solve a problem – but that problem often looks different depending on who you ask. The Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework helps uncover the core consumer goals behind decision-making, making it easier to organize scattered research findings around what truly matters: why people do what they do.

In traditional market research, data can come from many places – interviews, surveys, usage data and focus groups – which can all feel disconnected. JTBD makes sense of this complexity by focusing on the job your customer is trying to complete, not just the product they are using.

From Preferences to Progress

Rather than asking, “What features do customers want?” JTBD reframes the question to, “What progress is the customer trying to make in their life?” This shift helps reveal the deeper motivations behind behaviors, moving away from superficial preferences and toward long-term customer goals.

By identifying those goals, companies gain clarity on:

• Which needs are most important to customers
• Where customers experience friction with current solutions
• What unmet needs represent innovation opportunities

For example, imagine you’re evaluating past research for a meal kit delivery service. At first glance, it may appear that customers simply want meals that are fast and affordable. But by applying a JTBD lens, you might uncover a more meaningful job: “Help me eat healthier without needing to plan every meal.” This insight anchors your understanding in a real-life goal, connecting fragmented findings into a larger consumer motivation.

Creating a Consistent Lens

Once a core job (or set of jobs) is identified, it becomes the lens through which all existing research can be interpreted. Insights that once felt unrelated begin to align. A customer complaint about confusing recipe cards? That’s friction in completing their health goal. Praise for easy-to-follow cooking instructions? That’s a success in reducing effort toward healthier eating. Suddenly, all these observations serve the same strategic purpose.

Ultimately, core consumer goals don't just tie research together – they bring the customer's voice back into focus. This clarity sets the foundation for a more customer-centered business strategy built on real-world motivations and data-driven insight.

If you've already gathered consumer research – interviews, surveys, usage data, perhaps even segmentation studies – you're not starting from scratch. The JTBD framework can breathe new life into this work by creating unity around customer motivation. Here's a practical guide to using JTBD to connect disparate insights and align them with your business strategy.

Step 1: Unearth Jobs from Existing Data

Start by reviewing your existing research with a fresh lens. Look beyond what customers say they want and instead search for patterns that describe what they are trying to accomplish.

• What are customers trying to do before, during, or after using your product?
• Where do they express frustration, gaps, or workarounds?
• Where do they express delight or ease?

These clues point directly to “jobs” customers are hiring your product or service to do.

Step 2: Identify Functional and Emotional Drivers

Jobs aren’t just task-based – they often blend practical needs (e.g., “finish my taxes quickly”) with emotional goals (e.g., “feel confident I didn’t make a mistake”). Sorting these dimensions adds richness and nuance, helping your team craft more empathetic and impactful solutions.

Step 3: Group and Prioritize Jobs

Once multiple jobs are identified, categorize and rank them based on their:

• Prevalence across segments
• Importance to the customer
• Level of satisfaction with current solutions

This step helps you pinpoint strategic insight – the whitespace areas where demand is high but satisfaction is low.

Step 4: Use Jobs as a Strategic Filter

Now apply the jobs you've defined as a filter for all past and future research. Every chart, quote, or KPI should be revisited through the lens of “How does this insight impact the completion of our customer’s job?” This gives your teams a consistent, strategic framework to interpret findings and guide decision-making.

Step 5: Align Teams Around Jobs

Getting real value from JTBD means going beyond the insights team. Share the jobs with stakeholders across product development, marketing, innovation, and customer service to ensure everyone is building toward the same customer-centered business strategy.

By following these steps, you'll transform existing research into a powerful, organized foundation for innovation – one that reflects real customer motivation and drives smarter business choices.

To bring the JTBD framework to life, let’s look at a practical example of how it can turn fragmented insights into a focused product development strategy. Consider a company in the financial tech space that spent several years collecting research on banking habits, app usage patterns, and customer preferences for digital tools.

Despite having a wealth of data – surveys, usability tests, NPS feedback, and competitor benchmarking – the team struggled to decide what features to prioritize next. The research felt disconnected, and internal teams debated whether to improve budgeting tools, focus on credit score monitoring, or expand investment options. Sound familiar?

Applying JTBD: Finding the Underlying Job

With guidance from a JTBD-trained research partner, the team revisited the existing research not through the lens of features, but through the lens of progress. They asked: What job are our users truly hiring this platform to do?

Through analysis of in-depth interviews, open-ended survey responses, and behavioral data, a clear primary job emerged: “Help me feel in control of my financial future without feeling overwhelmed.”

Reframing Insights Around That Job

This new understanding shifted the team’s interpretation of their research:

• The popularity of auto-savings features had less to do with convenience, and more to do with helping users feel proactive about their future.
• Frustrations with budgeting tools weren’t just about UI – they reflected anxiety about facing spending habits and a lack of financial confidence.
• High usage of credit monitoring? It wasn't only about credit scores – it was about wanting reassurance and transparency.

Suddenly, all their research fit into one cohesive story. Customer decisions weren’t random. They were driven by an overarching job that could guide long-term product planning.

A Clear New Path Forward

With the JTBD identified, the company made strategic decisions more confidently:

• They prioritized simplifying the dashboard to give users an at-a-glance sense of financial control
• They invested in educational nudges throughout the app to reduce feelings of overwhelm
• They created messaging that spoke directly to the customer goal of confidence and clarity

The payoff? Increased user engagement, higher satisfaction scores, and internal alignment across teams.

This story illustrates the power of using the Jobs To Be Done framework in concert with market research to generate strategic insights. When you tie existing research to customer needs – and build around consumer goals – the path to innovation becomes clearer, faster, and more grounded in real human behavior.