Shulou(Shulou.com)06/03 Report--

Option 3: Train product managers to think ahead of customers

Being led by the customer by the nose is not a bad thing, but also less work to do demand analysis, but the key is that the customer will lead east and west, as if they have no idea, which makes the development team depressed.

At this time, whether it is productization or not, we should cultivate a person to see the customer in front of him and see if he is lost.

There are generally two situations in which customers "get lost." One is that they have a way but they don't know it.

I once went to the R & D center of a bank for consultation. During the interview, the developers complained that the business department only threw a little demand every month. Everyone guessed the whole business like playing jigsaw puzzle, and often the middle changes were caught off guard; while the business department complained that the R & D center only cared about the demand and did not care about the business,"lacking a comprehensive understanding of the whole business." Even the quality control staff who were with us laughed. Later, I learned that there is a "strategic planning department" that actually does business layout twice a year, but their layout is decomposed into requirements in the business department, and finally takes the detailed requirements to find the business interface person for development, and does not convey the whole business layout.

If we, as party b, are led astray by such party a, we suggest asking them if they have a "one-year plan" or "half-year plan" or something like that. In fact, the answer is certain, the government, banks, telecommunications is the most like to do the plan, and also like to do things according to the plan.

The other is when the customer is really lost.

In the past, only trendy companies that made Internet and games would get lost, but now governments, banks and telecommunications are also starting to get lost. Because the government began to post on Weibo, banks had to sell gold this month and silver the next month, and telecommunications packages were also launched in several ways. At this point, you need a product manager who can think ahead of the customer and know, or even almost know, what the customer's business is potentially going to do.

"It's hard to find or train qualified product managers," but it's still easier than "doing a good job without a product manager," so it's worth a try.

Scheme 4: Cultivate product directors and position customers well

What is more unfortunate than being led east by the nose by one client is being led east by the nose by two clients and west by the ears by the other.

At the beginning of a small company, it is inevitable that what to make money to do, more and less want to do, the result is long-term hunger and hunger. If you want to break through this point, you should delve into a business in one direction and reach a unique state here. The person responsible for this direction is the product director.

The work of the product director mainly includes: segmenting the customer group, predicting the customer trend of the main industry, analyzing the competitors existing in the market in this direction, designing the competitive strategy, designing the product roadmap... This analysis result based on many customers enables the product director to understand what products they need better than a single customer.

IBM is doing this better. They basically do it in the financial field to guide the customer's state-don't think,"They are IBM, our company is still small"-don't think like this, this is the result of cause-effect inversion analysis. The earliest products of IBM seem to be household toasters. They did not control the financial market from birth; on the contrary, they dominated the financial market because they focused on this field and achieved the aforementioned ability to guide customers.

Option 5: Co-entrepreneurship, co-operation

Generally, in project-type companies, it is believed that there is such a serial relationship: Party B-Party A-Party A's service object, such as software company-subway company-passenger, or telecom integrator-telecom operator-user. This relationship leads us to not see the user of the final system, resulting in Party A leading us by the nose in both aspects.

One aspect is that we can only make money through Party A, so we are weak in the market; second, because we can only understand the ideas of the final customers through Party A, we are backward in business or technology. There are two ways to solve this problem.

Co-entrepreneurship is a practice in the Internet industry, which means that Party A no longer employs Party B or directly acquires Party B, but gives full play to Party B's innovation and Party A's resource advantages by investing or investing ready-made resources. Shanda 18 plan, giant wins in giant plan, are all this kind; after Ali software, Tencent open platform, Baidu application, Sina application, also do this thing; Apple and Android market is also.

As a result of co-entrepreneurship in the Internet industry, Party A delegates the decision-making power of the product to Party B, and Party B has to bear the corresponding risks. Apple has 590,000 apps. If Apple determines the requirements and then requires suppliers to develop them, it is difficult to say whether Apple has anyone who can define these apps, not to mention how much it costs to use them.

Don't think this is something new in the Internet world. In fact, this kind of thing has already started in the traditional industry, that is, joint operation.

Back in 2004, when he went to work for a telecom provider, their CFO mentioned one thing: "A few years ago, we made a software called" Internet texting "for Tom.com and sold it for 5 million. Now (in 2004), Tom can make 10 million net profits every month with it. If I had known this would happen, I would have given it to them back then, and then jointly operated it..."

This happened gradually, and it was the advanced version of SaaS model. A prominent example is Digital China. They changed from simply manufacturing software and hardware and selling them to helping the government run the whole city; this kind of operation is not the original kind of "maintenance," but the real operation, and then turn over profits to the government; because they can fully contact the end customer in the operation process, they can continuously improve their understanding of the business. The products produced after this level of understanding is accumulated will gradually exceed the level of the government of the next city from the beginning, and will begin to guide customers in turn.

"Impossible, our clients are very strong, they don't want the best, as long as they want to do it. "That's true in itself, but the person or company who thinks only of it has no future. You have to focus on what's possible to have a future.

I started my own website in 1999, using FrontPage like everyone else, making completely different websites, and then publishing them on the website, much like doing my own project; but now, no one does this anymore, people start using WordPress, DotNetNuke to make "the same as the crowd" websites, much like buying a product directly.

The accumulation of productization causes its technical level and business level to far exceed the personalized project development. It may not be obvious at first, but Party A who gradually believes in project development will find that his choice is stupid. The project that has spent a lot of money and energy to build has completely inferior functions to the formed product, not to mention the risks such as the potential time limit in the middle.

UFIDA, Kingdee such traditional software companies, initially also do project origin, but finally embarked on the road of productization, into a strong product company, no longer mention the title of this article. This choice is not the choice of one or two companies, but the choice of the whole industry. Those companies that thought "impossible" in those years gradually disappeared.

Analysis: Talk about resonance again (II)

Losers believe that they must control the industry first in order to have the strength to guide customers; while winners believe that they must guide customers first in order to have the strength to control the industry, resulting in the difference in final results.

In fact, no one can control the industry, and no one can guide customers. Both need to resonate gradually.

"Then what exactly should I do in this situation? "

I have worked in my own industry for 17 years, 4 of which are directly related to what I am doing. I want to think every year. I just resonated with what I want to do one year ago.

So don't believe that there is an answer, don't think there is no answer, but believe that only you can create the answer. Almost anyone can find some answers by focusing on the possible rather than the impossible and using resonance.

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