Maladies of Organisation 2

In the "Lack of Awareness" in Organisation, the biggest problem is Understating the needs of the customer.. The problem is much bigger than anyone can imagine..

The Longer the time to make a product, the larger the sale of the product, the bigger the issue is.. We don't know what's the customer requirement so we make 10 models with 3 varieties with 3 combinations and then struggle with 90 products inventory and their complexity and worse still not satisfying the exact needs of the customer..

This is more evident but why do companies struggle.. In lot of Organisation, people with good execution capability grow fast until they reach the Top management levels and most of them lack this expertise. One more reason is not getting the right team for the product function, even if it is, probably they get lost.. We need a more intuitive team for this role who not just go by the data they analyse but also understand the nuances of the customer requirement and they should stand above all, including the so called strong sales guys in the organisation.. Understand why Apple Inc Chief Design officer Jonathan Ive directly reported to Steve Jobs and was kept above all..

The product team need to remember these key things..

1. Do we know where & how to get the effective information on customer requirement

2. Where  the market goes and what it is now

3. Doing what is right for the customer rather than what does customer want. Customers are not aware what is good for them until they experience, sometimes even after experiencing.. what is right will pay off in long run if properly communicated to the market.. Snacks are bad but zero trans fat snack is comparatively better for the customer even with a small compromise on the taste. The dilemma is much stronger in situations like safety of an Automobile Vs fuel efficiency, Quality of the product Vs pricing.

4. What are the most valuable functions of a product in your customer segment? Is it the fuel efficiency or Driving comfort of a Truck, Versatility of a Tractor or Application specific, Image of a car brand or pricing..

5. Listen. Listen to your employees, partners, channels, customers, competition.

6. Organisation capability, Aspirations should match with the current capability of the Organisation, one cannot produce a quality product if there are inherent weakness in R&D and Quality functions, so prepare yourself for trial and error launch, until the capability issues are fixed.

Today lot of companies waste their time in bringing the wrong product, then pushing their sales team, worst increase the sales team size, not satisfying the customers then give deep discounts for selling that product, absolute waste of resources and time..

The need of the hour is that there should be simple models which can capture the needs of the customer to a greater degree of accuracy and also the adoption of the same across Organisations, It will benefit the customers, will raise the bar for the competition and bring in greater revolution in satisfying the customer needs..