• Owner - Watch our product: what a finish, what features, what a choice of customizations!
  • Me - Great! Do other companies do the same? If so, what are the customers’ needs when they order something from you?
  • Owner - Well yes, of course there are competitors; nowadays everyone does everything. When customers contact us, they only talk about delivery times and prices;
  • Me - Then I would shift the focus from the product to the process.

When I put a new product or service on the market, the first thing I do is design the process. Not having the certainty that I will use optimized processes and the control of what’s happening, would wear me down every single day.


3 REASONS NOT TO PUT ALL YOUR EFFORTS ON THE PRODUCT/SERVICE

Let’s find out the 3 reasons for widening your horizons from the technique of the sold product/service to the process around it:

1) Customers don’t buy the product/service from you; they buy the solution to their problems

A flood of technical features, self-congratulations, and the boasting of great know-how about the product. These are still today the advertisements of many companies. Remember the anachronistic salad leaf: very ’90s. At this point let’s add the shrimp cocktail and we’re good to go.

Then you place an order and they deliver in 3 months with a standard deviation of 1 month. No tracking. With email response times of 7–10 days. No planned delivery date.

The customer DOESN’T buy your product/service because they like having it at home, but because it lets them solve specific problems.

2) Perceived value doesn’t depend on technical features, but on the method of innovation

The product always takes center stage: it exists, it’s physical, you can touch it, it makes sounds when it works.

But the customer needs that the product/service functions fulfill are immaterial.

If you’re already baffled, here’s another one: the method for identifying these needs is itself immaterial.

3) A fantastic product/service doesn’t generate profitability if the process is inefficient

Many entrepreneurs and managers (especially sales) are obsessed with the product. They know every single detail and the workforce needed to make it.

Then you look at the financial statements and you find: negative margins, cash flows that look like a bank of loans, and a return on investment like an ONLUS.

Okay, the workforce—but if the business isn’t profitable, it’s no longer a company: it’s an association of artisans.


SOLUTION

The growth of Italy in the ’60–’80s (and that’s now) was made possible thanks to the workforce in the product/service. The famous Made in Italy that distinguishes us.

But that world is over.

In today’s extremely commoditized, variable, uncertain, and globalized era, the product/service’s technical workforce is copied in a matter of months. Entire Chinese companies base their business model on reverse engineering of Western countries (follower), so all it takes is one delivery to catch up with the skills.

To survive in today’s era, you need to structure the company with the best tools for business model innovation and in particular the value proposition (where the workforce comes from), but also the internal processes to make them efficient, fast, and waste-free.


Good news: these “tools” are all methods, so you don’t need costly investments in new machinery, software, or anything else. You just need to learn them and apply them continuously to ensure your company profitability and long-term sustainability.