Many times you are faced with make, partner or buy decisions. How do you decide? It all depends on the business opportunity and how much time do you have to capitalize on it. The decision cannot be based on technology, in fact more you get enamored by technology, more likely you are to make the wrong decision. The decision should first be based on "Is there a business opportunity?". Is it going to be a viable business in the long term, what edge would the opportunity give you over your competition or in other words what sustainable product differentiation does it create for you?
Once you have established that, you need to figure out how much time you have to take full advantage of the opportunity - do you need to be the first to market or can you be a fast follower?. It is not always necessary that you be the first to market - iPod was the 73rd mp3 player to the market, Google was not the first search engine. Once you have figured this out, then you choose the best technology that will solve the problem. If it will take you years to build and there is a viable technology out there that can get you a solution faster, then you either partner or outright buy it.
So in essence, you as a Product Manager should be driven by three questions:
1) How big is the business opportunity?
2) How much time do I have before the opportunity closes?
3) Do I need to be first to market or can I be a fast follower?
Once you have these answered, you can participate in recommending or choosing the right technology, but the technology decision should be left to development since they are the ones who understand technology the best and they are the ones who have to build it on their own or have to live with what you get via partnership or acquisition.
I have been wanting to write this post since I saw the video of the keynote address by Steve Jobs at MacWorld. But being busy at work, busy watching the Pats win this weekend and then flying to San Francisco for training at Cooper kept me from getting this done.
I cannot wait to lay my hands on an iPhone to make sure what we all saw is not just hype. What I saw is so good that I don't think I have ever said Wow! repeatedly while watching the demo of any product in the recent past. But being a recent Apple convert (I now own a iMac and an iPod Mini), I don't think I am going to be disappointed when I do get to see and play with the iPhone.
Now putting on my product management hat, here is what impressed me the most about Steve's keynote.
1) It was all about problems for the first 10 minutes - by then he probably had everyone nodding their heads about the problems with current phones. He won the crowd.
2) Then it was all about the innovative, revolutionary solution that they came up with to solve the problem on a device that few thought could be made better.
3) It was never about technology. Other than a brief mention about the user of an accelerometer, I did not hear anything that the technology. It was all about problems and solutions. Problems that everyone could relate to and agree are painpoints and then talk about the most elegant, innovative solution to solve those problems.
His presentation was so impressive that it is a lesson in my opinion for all product management professionals. It is all about problems, solutions and benefits for the customer. It is not about features and technology. Because customers don't care about the technology - Steve gets its right again.
I cannot still believe what I saw and it almost sounds like a dream. Come June, I know where I am going to end up to look at this new toy. I cannot wait.
Have you ever wondered why customers should do business with you? What value are you creating for your customers that they want to spend their time and money buying your products or services? Pragmatic Marketing calls this Distinctive Competence. Steve Johnson from Pragmatic explains how companies squander away time and hoard money (though money is abundant and time is limited) because they do not clearly understand their distinctive competence. Read more ....
What exactly is customer experience? Is it usability of your product? Is it experience dealing with your technical support? This probably has been the traditional way of defining customer experience. In modern times, customer experience encompasses all touch points your customer has with you, your company or your product. It includes the experience the customer has opening your product's packaging, it has to do with installing your product (if it is software), the first impressions of the customer when using your product, your tech support, your documentation, your media coverage, whatever.
Every product or service has a customer experience, you have no control over the existence of the experience. All you have control over is what that experience is. You are in full control of making such an experience a highly pleasant one or an awful one. However, there are more companies that I can think that provide such awful experiences than ones that provide enriching, memorable experiences.
Lately, I have experienced both the good and the ugly. Well, want to take a guess about where I had the good (if not the best) experience? If you guessed Apple, you got it right. Right from opening the packaging of my iMac to setting it up to using it to this day has been nothing but an enriching experience.
Now, let us talk about the two ugly ones I experienced during the holidays. Unfortunately both had to do with software.
I was at the Park Street Station in downtown Boston the other day with my friends who were visiting. I had to buy 5 tickets for the T. The ticket window was closed so I had to buy my tickets from the vending machine. I was happy that it took credit card. But that was the only good part of my experience. The interface left me stumped. I did not see anything called "Buy tickets". It had "Buy Passes" and some other option which I had no clue about. So I clicked on Passes. It asked me if I wanted a Stored Value Card or Monthly or Weekly Passes. Now I was really lost and given that I had already swiped my credit card, I was terrified to select anything. The woman employee who was there to help realized that I was in trouble and stepped in. She clicked a bunch of buttons and I got the pass I needed (I could tell that she has done this over and over). Do you think the makers of this machine's user interface spent any time thinking of us humans who have to use their creation? I guess not. I guess they only cared about the economical buyers that run the T who wrote the checks.
In the evening the same day, I ended up at Lowes in the self checkout lanes (they are getting more and more prevalent these days unfortunately). I thought I will score on this one. Dah, wrong. After about three futile attempts, I had to ask for help again because the machine complained that the item was removed from the bagging area. I noticed that many other customers were having the same problem.
I would love to hear from you about your thoughts on why companies miss the boat in creating good customer experiences. Is it the rush to get to the market? Is it that no one believes in usability of their products? I wonder if these folks use their own products? I will admit that we have not done everything right at the company where I work, but our product is a whole lot better compared to some of these experiences I have had. I welcome your thoughts on creating good customer experiences.
Happy New Year !!. I hope the new year brings along health, happiness, good luck and prosperity to all of you. I hope 2007 makes the world safer and a better place where we appreciate each other more, support each other during trying times, see the beauty created by "differences" (cultural, personal, religious, professional ...) in us and be more tolerant of these differences.
