Our organisations are constantly interacting with an ecosystem of people with whom we have varying degrees of relationship. Some of those people are loyal customers; others dissatisfied or disgruntled former customers. Still others have disavowed our industry entirely, seeking a 'better' solution to address their needs. Regardless, each group can provide insight into the design of our products and services, and can lead us to breakthrough new ways of envisioning our role, and value.
This is a topic that's very close to a lot of my work here at Meld Studios, at the moment, and the customer framework presented inside in my presentation to UX Australia last August - inspired by Blue Ocean Strategy and Luke William's book Disrupt - informs a lot of our customer insight research.