The Customer Alignment Lifecycle™ (CAL) is a market strategy development process that provides predictable results. CAL was created by High Tech Strategies’ founder Warren Schirtzinger. The framework is built around Schirtzinger’s finding that the adoption rate of new products and innovations is governed by the customer’s perception of and willingness to accept risk. Since 1989, Schirtzinger and his colleagues have partnered with dozens of global, market-leading companies to refine the customer-alignment lifecycle into a proven, customer-centric and repeatable process…..that delivers phenomenal success the first time and every time.
The CAL process builds on the predictable sequence of the technology adoption lifecycle, making innovation and new-product success predictable. CAL starts with a deep understanding of customer characteristics and motivations, including the criteria customers use to evaluate competing products and services. These criteria — based on an overriding need to reduce risk — form the basis of new-product acceptance. By knowing how customers perceive and avoid risk, companies are able to align the actions of marketing, sales, communications, and product management with these requirements and systematically create predictable results.
Success stories from eight different industries are described in detail below. This page also offers foundational insights into the CAL methodology and related processes.