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RE: Technical Writing and the Business Perspective
Subject:RE: Technical Writing and the Business Perspective From:"David Locke" <dlocke -at- texas -dot- net> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 24 Oct 2003 16:17:02 -0500
> But isn't making the customer happy one of the
> fundamental tenets of good bbusiness?
Well, no actually. If you work for a market dominating company, one that
derives market power from open, but proprietary standards, in a market yet
to be commoditized, the customers will stick with you, because they have no
alternative. They may resent it. They may resent it even if you are very
nice to them. But, in this one case making the customer happy doesn't
reflect on the bottom line now or in the future.
A lot of Complementors claim market leadership, but this is nonsense. Sure
you have the most customers this week. What about next week. What about the
week after the vendor you complement puts your functionality in their
products? Here today, gone tomorrow. You better be nice to your customer.
You will have to cross sell to survive.
Market share matters, but only in technology, only for the market dominator,
and only if the whole thing isn't commoditized. If you're selling corn, rely
on promo dollars, because your market share may change in a matter of
moments. If you are relying on promo dollars, then being nice to customers
is going to fall under branding.
The reaction to Office 2003 shows that it has been commoditized. This
happens when customers no longer upgrade, because they have all the
functionality they need. It's like processor speed. We have all we need, so
we are not upgrading. With the 64-bit machines we might upgrade soon, but
32-bit processors where commoditized in 2001.
Business models create complex situations. Customers don't always matter.
But, its still nicer and more polite to pretend that they do.
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