Functions of a Good Product Manager
Astute product management requires the product manager’s involvement at every phase of the product lifecycle. Starting with the initial conceptualization and coordination with the different departments, including liaising with finance, legal and other teams, and finally, driving the product to launch and after sales service by interacting with the sales and marketing functions. To take […]
Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) and Supply Chains
International Retailing industry though global originated and developed in Europe and US. Europe has been always been the harbinger of changes and evolution of Supply chain models operating in International Retailing as well as FMCG and other retail industries as well as automobile industry too. When the retail industry was ridden with problems faced in […]
Methods and Tools for Customer Retention
Following are some important methods and tools for customer retention: Data sources and databases for retention: An important aspect for an organization is to think what should be the reasons that enhance repeat purchase. On paper it is not possible to make definite strategies to increase customer retention. Hence, retention databases are created to have […]
Practicing Socially Responsible Practices Internally
In previous articles, we have seen how companies need to adopt CSR as a business need and imperative. The role of media and advocacy groups was discussed as well. In this article, we turn to a crucial but often neglected aspect of a company’s social responsibility i.e. the need to be socially conscious with its […]
Observation Method
The observation method involves human or mechanical observation of what people actually do or what events take place during a buying or consumption situation. “Information is collected by observing process at work”. The following are a few situations:- Service Stations – Pose as a customer, go to a service station and observe. To evaluate the […]
The difference between services and products in software is that whereas the former involve work done for clients that are not the intellectual property of the vendor, the latter are patented by the vendor and sold in terms of licenses to the users.
Further, the difference between products and services in software is that whereas products usually represent high end work done by the vendors, services are usually middle to low end work that is done by the vendor.
Apart from this, products entail higher value adding activities whereas services are lower value adding activities. Moreover, products need time and money to be invested to take them to fruition whereas services are usually measured in terms of the projects delivered within months or a year at the maximum.
The key aspect about products and services in software is that products represent the culmination of several years of effort by the vendor who focuses on a specific niche to develop the products. On the other hand, services are usually projects that are done at the behest of the client and are billed according to time and material accounting or fixed cost accounting.
When we talk about software products and services, it needs to be mentioned that countries like the United States are ahead of the others in terms of innovation as the software and technology companies in the US make products instead of services.
Think Microsoft or Apple and their game changing products. On the other hand, though countries like India are behemoths in the software industry, it is hard to find many companies that have developed products.
Indeed, one of the reasons for outsourcing of services work from the West to the East is that the west can concentrate on higher value adding work like making products and by outsourcing the lower value adding work, they derive cost benefits as well as freeing up of resources that can be deployed for focusing on products.
Further, the reason why the US is way ahead of the rest of the world in terms of innovation is that right from its inception, entrepreneurs were always on the lookout for game changing innovations and thus, when the software and technology industries and companies were being incubated, naturally the entrepreneurs in these sectors started to focus on products as a source of innovation.
However, some recent trends seem to suggest that Asian companies have realized the importance of software products as their software industries mature and hence, services become too low end to sustain them.
Further, now that they have significant capital reserves, they can deploy these resources in investing on product development.
Remember that software products take a lot of investment of time and effort and hence, the Asian software industry is now finally realizing that as they have the needed capital as well as funding from venture capitalists from the west that sense an opportunity here, they can focus on building software products.
Indeed, one of the best-known Asian companies that have a solid banking software product is Oracle Financial Services or the company that was previously known as i-Flex.
This Indian company is a trailblazer as far as software products are concerned and because it invested a lot of time and money apart from effort in building the banking software product, it is now reaping the rewards of all that investment in terms of sales and reputation of its flagship product, Flexcube that is the largest selling banking software product in the world.
Now that we have discussed how products and services square up against each other, it would be worthwhile to note that not all companies can afford to build software products because of the reasons mentioned in the previous sections. Therefore, the role of venture capitalists and angel investors is especially crucial in this respect.
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