From an average to world-class software
First of all we don’t have to build the software for scientists or by typecasting users into a particular category. We are all human. Rather, it’s even more challenging to build the software for naive users. And that’s the way it should be! I mean software for all.
I believe there are no more than 6 action points to move the software from average to world-class category. And it is possible without even adding a single new feature.
1. Make the software extremely light; no more busy or wait button
- No one wants to wait, not even the person in waiting room
2. Make sure software is not crashing and even if it is, then make sure user know why it has crashed
- There is nothing wrong in being honest but being mysterious is horrible
3. Start over from where you had left it
- Everyone hates to going back to the square one, bring in smart session saving
4. Assist with utmost interactive and simple to understand help and tutorials
- Nothing is valuable if not understood in the right way. Remember beauty lies in simplicity.
5. Provide troubleshoot functionality and avoid support emails which are really pain to write
- Even the most dumb person loves to sort out his problems on his own, that makes him proud
6. And the last, update the software even before user finds out that it had a bug (Do THOROUGH and FULL development cycle testing)
- Do not ever think software users are your official testers, keep in mind that they are the source of “Word of mouth” marketing
Know your customer before anything else
I am sure many of you would have faced these questions, if not within the organization then at the places where you have been interviewed. And if not then you are working or applying in tummy filled and highly (overly) satisfied organization. Alright, not stretching it further, here are the common questions:
- What do you think is the next thing in market?
iVote – Vote for you
Not many times you get a feeling that you are alive and belong to this country. This is the time to show your value and strength. Value your vote and you will be valued. Don’t shy away from your vote, it only reflects that you have no existence.
Please DO NOT vote for a cast; Vote for a character and capabilities. Change is not far, if you believe and care for it. Let’s be responsible and contribute to the betterment of our civil society.
Who sells what and who buys that?
Interesting title, isn’t it?
Every individual has an ego, and that values the person more than what it is. So what..!
- If you are selling Below Average product then sell it to below the Below Average, they may value it.
- If you are selling Average product then sell it to the Below Average, they may value it.
- If you are selling Above Average product then sell it to the Average, they may value it.
- If you are selling an Innovative & Outstanding product then sell it to an Exceptional one, they may value it more than that.
2011 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,200 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 20 trips to carry that many people.
Part I – Why has India not yet produced the world class software?
I know it’s a very tricky topic to deal with, many might disagree with me but don’t forget to read the disclaimer on my blog (Homepage).
I don’t believe that we (Indians) don’t have great ideas, I don’t believe that we don’t have great software developers and nor do I believe that we are poor marketers. So where is the leakage that sinking our ship! I think it’s the Indian mentality of compromising on every aspects of life and that pulling us back to get the one great software. We start compromising the moment we come on earth, we have amazingly adopted the technique to adjust with the situations and mold ourselves with that. Our parents, friends, colleagues and even enemies compromise for anything and everything in life. We have this great ‘Chalta hai’ (Doesn’t matter kind of) attitude to accept whatever comes to our way, be it a job, food, friend, family and what not. We never demand the best quality but we satisfy ourselves by considering whatever comes to our way is the best. We believe in god more than our thoughts.
I think it all started when visionary CEO recruited a software developer who worked on releasing a X feature of software and he named that version as Beta and that Beta went on for ages. Priorities kept changing, new features kept coming (mind it all Beta) and in all that he forgot to give that finishing touch. When product entered into the (Indian) market, they sold number of Betas but none of the customer insisted on the finished product rather they found out the workaround to get along with software’s instability and bugs. It crashed 1000 times, they restarted it 1000 times. Unfortunately all customers compromised with the software features and its quality. CEO spent more time on recruiting sales support but less time on looking at unfinished job. Sales number kept coming and one day the curved reached on the saturation; support and sales cost became more prominent than the development cost. As the development cost was low it was easy for the CEO to neglect that. Eventually internal team became burden and external consultants became rescuers. And then came the sharp decline on belly curve and CEO surprised on what happened. He fired few sales guys on their inability to sell beta software, developers hid themselves into the background by putting the blame on front end guys. In all this mess CEO forgot that what doomed was not version 10.1.2.1 but it was the beta which missed everyone’s attention.
So who is responsible for all this?
I think it’s the ecosystem where compromise took over the satisfaction. It’s the ecosystem where supply took over the demand. It’s the non demanding customer who never reminded developer about the unfinished product. It’s the CEO’s lost passion of great product due to his passion towards sells figure. It’s the developers attitude to imagine what he sees is right and not the customer. Probably these are the reasons why we don’t have a great usability, robustness and depth in Indian software. Developers don’t demand, customers don’t demand and CEOs put more thought on tracing the sales than the product development. Having said that it’s just the one side of story, stay in touch for the part II.
Wishing all a very happy and demanding new year! 
Opportunity lost!
A cricket expert once said Catches win the Matches. It’s probably the only thing which comes to us without any notice and says take me along. This is called as an Opportunity. Creating an opportunity is more difficult than grabbing the one which comes on its own. I find it interesting when people ignore an opportunity just because they find it less important and then keep chasing for it, maybe for their life time. There are many other reasons why people reject these opportunities like an inability to take risk, an ego to compliment someone, poor confidence, etc..
• Remember the graduation day and an opportunity to propose a girl you liked more than your degree certificate! You missed it because you just didn’t have the courage to do so.
• It was your first start-up venture with a great client on board and you wanted to become a responsible entrepreneur but you gave up because you feared of uncertainties.
• Your team member has performed exceptionally well but you just couldn’t say “Great job” as you had that big ego and fear of giving the credit away. That’s where you lost that opportunity to earn the respect.
• You received an unexpected reward but everybody felt it so small as you couldn’t share you joy at that moment
• The whole team came to cheer you up and you spoiled it as you didn’t see your enemy among them to make him jealous
• You had a great idea, superb team, enough money but you just could not make it as you had no vision
• You just got that huge sum of funds but you thought of using it for renovating your office and jacking up your monthly stub. Then the whole thing collapsed as you forgot you had a team.
• Your wife had cooked delicious butter chicken for the lunch but in spite of appreciating that you had to spend your night in the porch of your house as you spent your evening with office friends
• Your parents just gifted you the grey color, handsome winter jacket and you ignored it because you were expecting a wrist watch.
• Your friend asked for a help and you just forgot as you kept that on low priority. And he never came back to you, to leave you alone.
• You did a big mistake and you continued doing it because you didn’t accept that at the first time.
• It was your anniversary on 13 Dec and you realized it on new year eve. You missed that wonderful opportunity to show how much you care for your wife
Every opportunity to say sorry, thank you and great job has enormous value and respect and missing that could be very unfortunate for an individual or an organization. Time is relative and cannot be driven by an individual’s assessments of doing right or wrong. We have to rise above our fear, ego and selfishness and grab every opportunity whole heartedly with a larger perspective in mind.
Reminds me this beautiful song:
आनेवाला पल, जानेवाला है
हो सके तो इस में जिन्दगी बिता दो
पल जो ये जानेवाला है
This simply says Time is irreversible, make the most of it when you are living with it.
Business ECO system simplified in my own way
ECO system(Ecosystem) – These days we hear about this term quite frequently. There are numerous talked examples of this like Google who has created an eco system of its own, of course other players like Apple, Microsoft, Wal-Mart and many big retail chains are to some extents have their own eco system.
Now before I go on explaining about ECO system, lets understand what is a conventional system. A conventional system have business owner, mediator and consumers who all are working in independent environment. They take their own decisions. To give an e.g. business owner feels something useful which he can offer at the price which he believes right, mediator or marketer has his own way to deal with it, he takes it to the consumer and shares in a way which he feels is right. At the end consumer buys what he feels is valuable and of course based on the perception which mediator might have created in consumer’s mind.
Still complex??
Lets create a short story: Business 1(B1) is doing business with Business 2 (B2). B1 supplies material to B2 so that B2 can produce their products for Consumer C1, C2 and C3. Interestingly, to meet B2’s business requirement B1 is relying on OEM A1, A2 and A3. What we see here is conventional business model and what changed in industry is consumer.
Now, consumers are smart, they are well learned, they know what they want and they also know what to expect and to some extent their future needs as well. This made B2’s business difficult as consumers became more demanding, they wanted more transparency on quality and flexibility on price. You may call this as bespoke products or services. This started building more pressure on B2 and B2 decided to pass on that pressure to B1, B1 felt the heat and he passed on to A1, A2 and A3.
But something more interesting happened, B2 had an ally called D1. D1 suggested B2 to get his logistic in line with consumer expectations and for that it was important to know the precise consumer expectations. B2 called for a meeting and thought of introducing B1 and OEMs A1, A2 & A3 to consumer. Guess what, they got the deal, B1 said I am not going to be B2′s competitor but I want B2 to be successful and so A1,A2 & A3 also wanted B1 to be successful. They all agreed that they got to be more committed to consumers and support them over the longer period of time, maybe until they exists. So all them thought of making a subtle connection with end consumers C1, C2 and C3. In turn B2′s risk got mitigated, B1 shared it’s risk with C1, C2 and C3 and eventually consumer became the prime and big focus.
While doing this jugglery they wanted their end consumer at ease, so they started collaborating with each for the benefit of consumer. This rearrangement by the consumer for the consumer is now called as EcoSystem. This is where technology plays a major role in collaborating, communicating and improving the logistic between businesses and consumers. No surprise, we are going to see this EcoSystem in all verticals of Industry including manufacturing, retail, healthcare, agriculture and in almost everything that one can imagine of. Software industry is going to play a big role for streamlining this which I would like to discuss in my next blog on ‘Data Vs Information’
Know your customer before anything else
I am sure many of you would have faced these questions, if not within the organization then at the places where you have been interviewed. And if not then you are working or applying in tummy filled and highly (overly) satisfied organization.
Alright, not stretching it further, here are the common questions:
- What do you think is the next thing in market?
- Tell me one thing which you find is changing in the industry and how will you tackle that?
- What will drive the business and how far?
- How would you make sure the bottom line and surpassing the top line?
I think the single answer to all above questions is Customer or if I may say Customer mind. The whole industry has moved its focus from product to services, technology to technology services, solutions to services. Wait a minute, that doesn’t mean there are no product companies, no solution providers, no technology providers or infrastructure providers. What I am talking about is industry shift from its own business model to customer centric business model. The biggest paradigm shift that has happened in last 2-3 years time is change in customer mind-set. Yes, the next big thing is customer, what changing is customer mindset and to answer the last two questions let me take your attention to what customer wants!
What customer wants are three characteristics for any of their need or demand
1) Simple – a simple solution to a problem or need
2) Convenience – Simple solution which comes at convenience of time and money
3) Feel good – a simple, convenient solution to feel good about what he/she is experiencing at the cost of trust and value add
Simple is when you ask for mobile phone, that means you essentially ask a for a device to receive and make calls or send and receive text
Convenience is when mobile phone fits within your pocket with light price and weight
Feel good is when you know your light weighing phone is not going to restart or crash and you feel safe to save your secret data on the tiny application of phone
Now imagine all of these offered as a service. You don’t want a phone with bad network provider, you don’t want service provider who activates caller tune on the phone without your consent or you don’t want a phone with merely 3 hours of battery life. It’s time to wake up and see if your business model fits within the matrix of customer centric model. Here are some examples, now try to map this with your business scenarios
Like this:
What do you think of Nokia’s strategy?
Taking up this from LinkedIn poll
More than Nokia who are already in distress I think it is Microsoft who are now catching the boat. I feel it’s going to be a horizontal integration for Microsoft business who may seek majority stake in Nokia in due course of time. Its a huge hole which got created by Nokia’s poor performance and then got filled up with patches by other unorganized players and of course by RIM and Apple ‘ECO’ system .
Stephan Elop is talking about Eco system and I am not sure how much he would have control on that, as Microsoft would see that as their strength and not Nokia’s. Worst scenario would be Nokia just rest in peace as mobile device provider. Only way to get out of this mess is bringing revolution and not repetition of technology. Nokia got to make very dynamic, substantial and innovative moves to bring back their era of mobile technology company.
Why always talk about existing ECO system, they may also think of breaking rules and offer something beyond this ECO system, something like Google. Google has created their own eco system and treats everyone as partner which is beyond typical customer relationship. The Other side of this announcement, Nokia will either kill or get killed as they are desperate, hungry and badly injured.
Overall it’s going to be very exciting and we all are watching.
yogeshwagh
