Tag: product choices
Connect With Us
Shopping for a new monitor
I do a lot of work from home. My office has a huge picture window, a desk and my laptop. As a system administrator, I often read long log files or wade through large amounts of data; sometimes I need to work from an online reference as I’m tweaking system settings on my servers. A big monitor really helps with this, so last weekend I went off in search of the Right One for my office.
I started with some online searches to establish a baseline price for my budget. I really don’t like buying monitors online, though, because the picture quality from model to model can vary widely and it’s something that I like to see firsthand. So, wife in tow (to tell me when I’m going overboard – I do get excited about new hardware at times), we head to the local shopping extravaganza to look for monitors.
I settled on a few things I was looking for: size (the bigger, the better), resolution and contrast ratio. I do enough image editing for website tasks that picture quality matters, but not enough that I care about color correctness, so I just want a good, solid, clear picture. I’m not gaming, so I don’t care about super-fast update times, just a clear picture that makes log files and code easy to read. I’ve found that by clearly stating your priorities, it’s a lot easier to compare similar products and make a satisfying decision on which thing it is you’re going to buy. With these goals in mind, I found a few possible candidates:
- 22″ Acer, reasonable resolution, poor contrast ratio: $159
- 23″ Samsung, reasonable resolution, excellent contrast ratio: $209
- 28″ Viewsonic, fair CR, good resolution: $549
- 26″ Samsung, good resolution, good CR: $399 (with $100 rebate, so $299 if the rebate works)
- 24″ Dell, good resolution, good CR: $279
I settled on the 26″ Samsung. The price was fair. Although more than I had originally wanted to spend, it was a great deal – and even better if the rebate comes through. The picture was superb, and it sure does make working at home even nicer than before.
Comments Off
When the tide goes out, it exposes products that were under water
The number of companies with complexity reduction initiatives has skyrocketed. Unlike five years ago, these are serious initiatives with management sponsorship and timelines.
A good friend of mine, who is a salesperson at a Caterpillar dealership, told me that when times are good he can sell any machine. When the times are bad, the bad stuff just sits around exposed.
Companies have proliferated their product offerings – there are almost infinite variations of everything that they offer. The rationale is that they will make one more sale because of that variation. But as product variations grow, the cost structure grows very fast as well, and the probability of finding that one customer who wants the new variation is quite slim. This results in excess inventory across the supply chain. And when the economic tide goes out, it exposes the cost of those product variations.
The companies with complexity reduction initiatives recognize that during good times and bad, managing product variants makes good business sense. Companies are now starting to implement metrics to measure product complexity because we all know that what gets measured gets managed! Product complexity metrics quickly expose underwater products.
The comment by my friend at Caterpillar reminded me of a trip I took to the Bay of Fundy. It is amazing how much is exposed when the tide really goes out, just like in this economy. The good news is that when the tide turns, the bad product lines it once covered will be significantly fewer, resulting in healthier and more competitive companies.
Comments Off
Product management to fit?
I often hear clients say, “We’ve been told by management that we should only have a standard and premium model.” Then product teams are tasked to fit the line to that limitation, while no product analysis was done to support the decision.
While reduction in configurations is important, how it is achieved is just as important. Using a quantitative approach earlier in this decision-making cycle can help the management team make an informed decision. Maybe a reduction to two models is just too aggressive; adding one additional model might be the difference in having proper market coverage. Examination of customer buying trends and patterns should be the first indicator for product direction. Determining product strategy based on market needs as opposed to retrofitting the product to an idea could lead to more effective product lines for both the manufacturer and consumer.
Optimization is the big win – but getting started is key
When I started studying complexity and realized the huge adverse impact it was having on companies, I was determined to “find it and get rid of it.” There are many places where that formula will lead to big improvements in everything – profits, service, quality and more. More and more companies are discovering how to do this. In some cases it is pretty simple. Just having the courage of their convictions that it will make things better is all that stands in the way of eliminating complexity.
Well, I found that is not completely true – at least not all the time. There are some situations where what seems to be a simple complexity elimination process turns out to be quite a bit more… complex! The real issue is not just complexity reduction. It is “optimization” of complexity. Get rid of the wasteful part and structure processes to use the right level of complexity.