Today, I thought I would explore the concepts of over-serving and under-serving the marketplace. The terms “over-serviing” and “under-serving” are used a lot nowadays, but I can’t believe that they’re well-understood, else many more companies would change their current product improvement processes.
This is how it works. We want to improve our existing product or service. Naturally, we start with where we are. We look for ways to make our product better, easier to manufacture, cheaper and faster to make, etc. Unfortunately — and counter-intuitively — this is exactly the wrong approach. Let me give you an example.
INTEL
Some six months before the introduction of the iPhone, Intel sold off the division that made their ARM-based chip designs for its mobile chips. In hindsight, this strikes one as bordering on the insane. But viewing things from Intel’s perspective at the time, one can easily explain Intel’s now disastrous decision.
Intel was the undisputed master of the x86 architecture. They had their own mobile chips (Atom) that ran on this architecture. x86 chips typically have some computational speed/power advantages over ARM chip designs, while ARM designs typically deliver better battery life. At the worst possible moment, Intel chose to emphasize speed, over battery life.
Why the worst possible time? First, speed was already over-serving most of Intel’s current and prospective clients. Intel’s customers were glad to have the additional speed but most didn’t need it and they certainly didn’t want to have to pay for it.
Second, with the introduction of mobile devices, battery life was at a premium. Intel’s customers wanted increased battery life, Intel’s customers needed it, Intel’s customers were willing to pay a premium to get it and if Intel wasn’t supplying it, Intel’s customers were willing to go elsewhere.
Device capabilities are immaterial compared to how they are actually used. Basis of over/under serving markets. ~ Sameer Singh (@sameer_singh17)
THE SOLUTION
The solution to this problem has been stated so many times that I suspect that most of us simply dismiss it as a cliche.
We start with the customer and work backwards. ~ Jeff Bezos, founder & CEO, Amazon.com
In other words, instead of looking to see how we can improve our existing product, we need to start, instead, with the customer, see what their needs are, then create a product around those needs.
If Intel had looked at their customer’s or their prospective customer’s needs, instead of looking at their own strengths, they would have noted that their customers were going to want better battery life, not more speed, in their computing devices.
Of course, I am ever-mindful of the fact that advice, like medicine, is easy to prescribe, but hard to take. Creating a product around the customer’s needs, instead of around one’s own needs, is terribly hard work. But that’s what they pay us for.
If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great. ~ Tom Hanks
So stop looking at where you are and where you can go and start looking, instead, at where your customers want to be.
So very easy to say. So very hard to do.
Author’s Note. This article was inspired by an article entitled: “The Importance of Adopting Meaningful Product Improvements” written by Bill Esbenshade
Oh, Mr. Kirk, you have done me wrong, sir.
Yes, Grammar Nazi here. What’s going on with all the possessives that should be plurals? “Customer’s” should be customers. “Company’s” should be companies. There is a big difference between “customer’s” and “customers'”.
Perhaps it’s just me, but when I have to almost rewrite an article just to figure out what someone is trying to say, it exhausts me.
I know I’m not the only one since on the Cubed podcast, #12(?), Benedict Evans threatened Ben Bajarin, motivated by the grammatical and pronunciation errors he was committing. He wasn’t serious, of course, just in case Bajarin’s body turns up in a ditch somewhere. It’s such a cognitive burden to translate “pidgin” or “cockney” English into English before you can digest what’s being said.
If the primary means by which your work, your “contribution to society”, is rendered to the world, is communication in English, perhaps you should put some effort into being proficient in that language.
John Kirk, a man I highly esteem, who bandies quotes around with the skill of a 10th-level ninja, published an article that does not honor that same medium, that of clear, concise communication. My heart is broken.
Lest I become the old man screaming “Get off my lawn”, I will end my comments here on Insiders by saying that it’s a shame to see so much incredible talent that refuses to master its craft.
“English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education – sometimes it’s sheer luck, like getting across the street.” ~ E. B. White
This post post made me think. I will write something about this on my blog. Have a nice day!!