simonpg
Active Member
Doron, hello from another Aussie. That's a wonderful shot. I agree with your comment about guessing exposures - I regularly go out without a meter and put myself to the test.
Gentlemen, just picking up on your good discussion about the Hasselblad brand and our needs/expectations, I generally agree with the comments made.
However, Peter suggested that although he agreed with my logic, he feels that niche players like Hasselblad can't really take the whole approach I mentioned. My contrary view is that such commercial applications really apply to all companies - in fact the more exposed niche players have greater reason to adopt such thinking. Essentially customers of niche players typically have greater expectations/desires that must be met. Niche players are even more dependent on their brands and legacies.
Think about it..... Hasselblad and Leica are niche players - by definition niche means that they focus on specific sub-segments of the market; while mass merchants focus more broadly (not necessarily all segments, but many). So the customers that buy their products are even more determined to have expectations met in addition to needs (core, not-negotiable requirements).
The real risks arise when either the product or post-sale support screw up - expectations are very sensitive to being dashed.
Taking a customer life-cycle approach to everything a company does (manufacturing - we make products because we believe customers want them; marketing - attract potential customers to consider out products; sales - meet customers needs and expectations.......) means that companies should do their segmentation based on needs and expectations in addition to other product and market factors.
The business products industry has successes and failures here:
1. those that segment based on customer factors like how intensively they use the products in their businesses - spend on such products relative to turnover etc etc..... - ensure they align the optimal channels that such customers prefer to buy through and get supported by. Here even relatively small turnover companies like law firms prefer to have a specialist face-to-face dealer sell to them and support the product. Such strategies have proven success records.
2. those that segment by company size profile (using some awful and meaningless American acronyms like SoHo, SME, Corporate and Government) force their channels upon these potential customers and thus risk not fully meeting prospective customers' needs and expectations where, for ex&le, a low end SME must buy over the Internet or through a call centre.... Such ex&les are littered with failures and / or inefficiencies.
Thus those manufacturers that focus only on cost risk missing the point and losing the customer.
Funnily enough in many industries most manufacturers use the channels (sales and support) that they use because the other manufacturers use them! IMHO that would compel you to at least reconsider.
Unfortunately many manufacturers are very self-serving and appear to miss the plot in their dealings and support arrangements through their dealers. For ex&le, if a dealer services mostly professional photographers who are highly dependent upon the products, would you not ensure that the dealer is provided with backup equipment so that no customer is left stranded when his product fails? Some do but insist that the dealer wears the cost through his inventory holding - so many dealers who cannot afford such an inventory don't bother.
It's likely that the digital era has raised very new commercial challenges for dealers and manufacturers alike - short product life-cycles; customer dependency; product complexity; support needs....
Pre digital-MF, a professional might have had 6 spare film backs - one failure during a critical shoot was not an issue; but, today he may just have the one digital-back (at their cost today I doubt that many have multiple digi-backs!). If that back fails during a shoot it would have serious consequences (now don't take me too literally, but I illustrate a point). So, do the manufacturers act in a way that understands such issues? Do they assist their dealers meet the needs and expectations of the end user customers?
Commercial best practice among companies like Caterpillar certainly is to take such an approach. You do not need to be big or spend excessive amounts of money to adopt such an approach. When you intimately understand your customer segments and what is critical to their total satisfaction the rest looks after itself. In the case of Caterpillar, its resurrection from near total disaster was based on such thinking. Now it is again the world's largest manufacturer in its industry. While the products are competitive, it's the company's focus on its customers' business needs and expectations that keep it ahead of its rivals.
Gentlemen, just picking up on your good discussion about the Hasselblad brand and our needs/expectations, I generally agree with the comments made.
However, Peter suggested that although he agreed with my logic, he feels that niche players like Hasselblad can't really take the whole approach I mentioned. My contrary view is that such commercial applications really apply to all companies - in fact the more exposed niche players have greater reason to adopt such thinking. Essentially customers of niche players typically have greater expectations/desires that must be met. Niche players are even more dependent on their brands and legacies.
Think about it..... Hasselblad and Leica are niche players - by definition niche means that they focus on specific sub-segments of the market; while mass merchants focus more broadly (not necessarily all segments, but many). So the customers that buy their products are even more determined to have expectations met in addition to needs (core, not-negotiable requirements).
The real risks arise when either the product or post-sale support screw up - expectations are very sensitive to being dashed.
Taking a customer life-cycle approach to everything a company does (manufacturing - we make products because we believe customers want them; marketing - attract potential customers to consider out products; sales - meet customers needs and expectations.......) means that companies should do their segmentation based on needs and expectations in addition to other product and market factors.
The business products industry has successes and failures here:
1. those that segment based on customer factors like how intensively they use the products in their businesses - spend on such products relative to turnover etc etc..... - ensure they align the optimal channels that such customers prefer to buy through and get supported by. Here even relatively small turnover companies like law firms prefer to have a specialist face-to-face dealer sell to them and support the product. Such strategies have proven success records.
2. those that segment by company size profile (using some awful and meaningless American acronyms like SoHo, SME, Corporate and Government) force their channels upon these potential customers and thus risk not fully meeting prospective customers' needs and expectations where, for ex&le, a low end SME must buy over the Internet or through a call centre.... Such ex&les are littered with failures and / or inefficiencies.
Thus those manufacturers that focus only on cost risk missing the point and losing the customer.
Funnily enough in many industries most manufacturers use the channels (sales and support) that they use because the other manufacturers use them! IMHO that would compel you to at least reconsider.
Unfortunately many manufacturers are very self-serving and appear to miss the plot in their dealings and support arrangements through their dealers. For ex&le, if a dealer services mostly professional photographers who are highly dependent upon the products, would you not ensure that the dealer is provided with backup equipment so that no customer is left stranded when his product fails? Some do but insist that the dealer wears the cost through his inventory holding - so many dealers who cannot afford such an inventory don't bother.
It's likely that the digital era has raised very new commercial challenges for dealers and manufacturers alike - short product life-cycles; customer dependency; product complexity; support needs....
Pre digital-MF, a professional might have had 6 spare film backs - one failure during a critical shoot was not an issue; but, today he may just have the one digital-back (at their cost today I doubt that many have multiple digi-backs!). If that back fails during a shoot it would have serious consequences (now don't take me too literally, but I illustrate a point). So, do the manufacturers act in a way that understands such issues? Do they assist their dealers meet the needs and expectations of the end user customers?
Commercial best practice among companies like Caterpillar certainly is to take such an approach. You do not need to be big or spend excessive amounts of money to adopt such an approach. When you intimately understand your customer segments and what is critical to their total satisfaction the rest looks after itself. In the case of Caterpillar, its resurrection from near total disaster was based on such thinking. Now it is again the world's largest manufacturer in its industry. While the products are competitive, it's the company's focus on its customers' business needs and expectations that keep it ahead of its rivals.
