Comments on: Marketing is sick, Sales is dead

By: Chris Doyle

Chris Doyle — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 07:52:04 +0000

Good to be in there first! No need to be worried about the big boys either, even the largest most organised firms generally use only small teams performing agile development, and so it is easily possible to stay out in front if you have a focus on both the customer and rapid delivery.

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 06:32:49 +0000

Thanks Chris,

As you know, we want to go way past “the pack”.

Instead of focusing on who our current competitors are now, I am more focused on who they might be in 5 years or less.

With all the big boys jumping into the energy space by virtue of the “smart grid” (whatever that actually turns out to be) I believe it will be a very different landscape in a short period of time…

Paul

By: Chris Doyle

Chris Doyle — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 06:07:10 +0000

In my experience just listening to the basic gripes (and also positive ideas) of clients, and showing you are doing something about them, puts you well ahead of the pack in terms of service. The client gets such a sense of ownership when involved that it is very rewarding for them. It is sad to see how many firms are incapable of even listening to their customers, let alone actively engaging with them; I would say it is likely to be the vast majority.

I wouldn’t use the iPhone as an example there myself - I just upgraded my iPhone OS and all the software on it is fully upgradeable. The item itself is hardware, and of course any hardware can only be upgraded if it is component based, and unfortunately phones often are designed not to be upgraded

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 06:06:18 +0000

Thanks Adrian,

As you know, one of the driving reasons for our move to agile (no tattoo) is to embed the customer squarely in the middle of our product development process.

This will be done a variety of different ways:

1) For an existing mature product (such as NEM-Watch, for instance, which is focused on delivering clarity), we know what it’s core value proposition is for the customer, and we also have a large number of customers. Hence the process is somewhat more straightforward.

2) For new products for new markets, where we don’t have current clients and have only an idea of what the value proposition might be, we will have to be smart about rapid prototyping - and doing so in a way that will garner us plenty of feedback.

Cheers

Paul

By: Adrian

Adrian — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 05:52:32 +0000

I found this very interesting, and agreeable.

The ‘upside’ to software (in comparison to the iPhone for example) is that it’s easier to provide an upgrade path for existing customers to move to the ‘new stuff’ while marketing at the speed of customers. (rather than having to go and buy a new iPhone)

The value of listening and the proving that you have listened is huge. Being able to then pick up existing customers and move them to the ‘new stuff’ is just awesome for the customer.