There's a lot of discourse lately about how businesses are suffering because two very important business functions have been virtually forgotten:

1. Consumer Research - traditionally, this was called 'Market Research', but I've been in teams called 'Customer Insights' or, latterly 'UX Research' where my main work is called 'Customer Discovery'.

(The simplest way to determine whether you need to bring in a professional researcher to "talk to customers" is to ask what the cost impact would be of doing it wrong. In a true Lean Startup, that's negligible - there's no product, no existing customers, and just you to house and feed. If you're in an enterprise company with millions in overhead, doing it wrong is a business-critical risk, so you'd use professional researchers just as you'd use professional accountants.)

2. Business Development - the real stuff, not just "sales". Business Development drives demand for good-quality consumer research because you need to deeply understand the market landscape, generally, including the needs and habits of users. That way, when you're forging those all-important relationships, you'll think, "Ah-ha! This customer fits this profile, which typically has these needs. I think I have just the thing to help them!"