Category Archives: Work

Predictability + Desirability

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One marketing lesson stood out for me in 2011.

It was the reminder that the combination of (1) predictability and (2) desirability in a product portfolio can deliver outstanding results to beat your competitors. This is especially true in the consumer electronics business.

Apple does this really well with the iPhone and iPad. And up until recently, Samsung has started to replicate this theory with its lineup of Galaxy smartphones and tablets.

Ever since we launched the iPhone in March 2010, I have bumped into many customers that know what they want to buy, and when they want to buy it. I always thought this was plainly about the desire of owning an iPhone – but it seems to be driven by more than that.

When customers view the line-up of phones from HTC, they see a bunch of random sexy models every year. Once you buy a HTC Sensation, what do I look forward to next year? It is hard to put your finger to it. At least for now.

Making desirable products (a little) more predictable over the course of time seems to be the recipe “du jour”:

  1. Predictable timelines help create more anticipation: that there is a new iPhone every year,  usually between August – October. Customers tend to plan ahead and build up savings just to buy the latest device. And knowing when something is going to be released makes them feel more in control of the situation.
  2. Predictable branding helps create free publicity for an “unborn” product: “I am waiting for the iPhone 5″. Some customers hold off their purchases in anticipation of a new model that they seem to know before Apple has even announced it. The iPhone 3GS was succeeded by the iPhone 4, and now the blogs are buzzing about the iPhone 4S successor, the iPhone 5.

We will see more of this in 2012.

The iPhone 5 and iPad 3. And let us not forget the Galaxy S3 =)

What have you achieved?

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Once a month, my team in DiGi meets for a “team meeting”. We try to keep this as efficient as possible by focusing on 3 things: (a) every one gets a chance to chair the meeting to understand the dynamics of managing people, (b) every one gets a chance to present ideas and speak out, and (c) we put a hard stop at 60 minutes to complete everything on the agenda.

At last Friday’s meeting, we decided to tweak the agenda to incorporate some time to reflect on our individual achievements over the past month. We went around the table starting with me, and everyone picked one achievement that they felt proud to talk about.

It was one of my most inspiring moments as a leader. Everyone, regardless of rank, had something they wanted to share, and there were moments where some stood up to give a standing ovation to their peers.

It’s moments like these that I love most at work.

It got me thinking.

In an ideal world, I would like to measure what I do on a daily / weekly / monthly basis. Being able to document what you have achieved regardless of how big / small it is, is critical to knowing whether you are being productive. I have read some articles talking about how some companies force their people to email out one achievement at the end of every week to the rest of their team mates – this puts pressure on everyone to perform and have something worth talking about before the end of the week. It takes a lot of discipline to implement something like this.

For now, I am happy with my team’s small step forward. If we can be consistent in how we reflect on achievements as a team, I believe we will work harder to outperform every month.