Lean Startup.

About technology, business & management issues..

     It is possible that when the engineer Eric Ries coined the term "lean startup" never thought his concept would cause such a stir within the academic and professional field of business.

The term of "lean" methodology is related to the Japanese "lean manufacturing"  as the series of processes, policies, quality control within a production line that minimize or completely eliminate the waste within a production process.

The lean manufacturing has been used primarily by automobile assemblers worldwide, with Toyota as the company who acts as a poster boy.

In his writing, Ries lined up this concept and transfer to the field of entrepreneurship. The "lean startup" stressed the need to create basic concepts (prototypes) of products or services that may be continually tested commercially in order to receive feedback from the market and to make the adjustments necessary to define a product that fits completely.

In many ways, Ries suggests that this framework provides a methodology that will allow startups a competitive advantage over its competitors: the ability to respond and set changes, creating cycles (iterations) continuous trial and error to the ideal product or service without wasting time or resources so unnecessary (waste).

These tactics, although they may be employed in medium and large companies, invariably need a hierarchical structure that rewards and empowerment of subordinates eficientize decisions regarding the development and products or services. If the process becomes entangled in a bureaucratic or authoritarian hierarchy, the lean startup will fail hopelessly.

We will have to wait a little longer to see if the ideas and approaches developed by Ries acquire the status that many proponents of this philosophy are looking to achieve: full recognition of academic and business worlds.


www.clarensyst.com.mx

Customer Retention.

About technology, business & management issues..

     Within the technology industry is a term in the cost structure that employers are aware at all times: the cost of acquiring a customer (Customer Acquisition Cost of CAC). As with any cost analysis for a company to be healthy  it should keep this cost at the appropriate level otherwise this amount will be incrementally reducing the profitability of the business.

The concept itself is not absolute, the metric has many variations depending on the type of customer, representing the average income and the time in which the client is committed to the service offered. Either way one of the strategies that many SMEs are developing successfully is to try to retain the customer captive through various tactics.

The point at issue is not whether the cost of acquiring a new customer is much greater than the cost incurred to retain a client who is currently committed to service and / or product offered. Many studies and statistical information set that the cost of holding captive customers is by far less than the cost of acquiring a new customer.

The tactics to achieve retention vary widely but it's worth paying attention to banking services to realize how this kind of specialized marketing functions, from tracking the financial performance of its clients, to offering personal lines of credit or sale of life insurance and property. If you have a bank account cross-selling coming straight from your bank on your person is relentless; everywhere trying to get you a credit card.

In technology companies, something similar happens. If you have a business solution, your provider will be looking for you to increase the bill of their products through upgrades of the same app or a functional increase of any particular tool. These companies are extremely efficient on segmented trends and consumption habits of their customers because they know that if they lose you it will cost them double or triple the effort and cost to acquire a new customer.

Although it sounds a concept that only medium and large companies could land effectively in reality the most remarkable results are given in small and micro enterprises: they offer more products and services to its customers. If you sell building materials may be a matter of expanding your  product range to provide waterproofing and industrial paints. If you sell computer equipment  you may have to consider to offer network services and telecommunications hardware as well.

It's a matter of developing and offering your customers a platform to solve most of their issues by means of one-stop shop.

The Right Approach.

About technology, business & management issues..

    On a regular basis one can read many articles, books, journals or blogs about technology companies and businesses. All of them mention a feature that most of the authors are quite clear on : the ability of applications and technology tools to achieve alignment and grow together with the companies to which they provide a service.

This approach is constantly striving to companies that provide business solutions: the constant change in business processes makes the business´s needs a constant change, which leads directly to the developers of the solutions to modify, upgrade or renew their products. This approach is costly for both sides. On the one hand the companies that develop technology platforms have to modify their products and services. In marketing terms can be defined as an "upgrade" which seeks consensus among the various end-users on what would be the "improvements" that companies are sued. This causes companies to invest heavily in R & D in order to push these upgrades.

Of course, the end user ends up paying the cost when this move reflected the increase in the renewal of their software licenses.

In contrast, some young, independent developers, especially those who display their products through cloud-like platforms, have adopted a more practical approach to the issue. Companies like 37signals talk about developing software for users which contains an approach and a philosophy behind it ( opiniated software ).

That is, seeking that the software meets the basic needs that all users within a company needs to make more efficient processes . This type of philosophy enforces the idea of avoid making "upgrades" unnecessary and concentrate  to give  customers a far better service experience.

This philosophy has been criticized by the status quo of technology developers in the sense that they feel that this approach limits the legitimate aspirations of the business of acquiring product enhancements.
Even with this ferocious attack by the establishement, companies like 37signals have been able to satisfactorily serve millions of users who are happy to adopt the philosophy that has been proposed.

Perhaps not entirely unreasonable to philosophize about business processes as it is about riddles of life. May lead you to a successful conclusion.

www.clarensyst.com.mx

Pull Strategy

About technology, business & management issues..

    Any contemporary book that focuses on managing the supply chain (supply chain) has a specific definition for the strategy called "pull-push" theory.

In terms of logistics theory tells us that the market is seeking the services or products you are suing (pull) while the production focuses on producing those goods or services demanded by the market (push). However, the same theory can be applied to other branches of business, including technology and marketing.

Several visionary entrepreneurs have applied this methodology in their companies to be able to achieve a platform on which customers "extract" information, product or service they need at that moment. This allows the company to manage a complex system of forecasting demand, try to minimize or eliminate the inventory (just in time) and more efficient supply chain to achieve delivery times shorter than its competitors.

The case of Dell computers is the classic example of this business model. Dell has established a platform that has managed to capture the information your market is demanding at that time. This allows you to create a string with endeavors to produce and quickly deliver customer a computer at a time and lower cost compared to its competitors.

Some business analysts pontificate much about this point and in a sense they are right. How can we find a way to add value to the products we produce for our customers? As we reduce the cost, delivery time and improve the quality of feedback that gives us our market at all times.

According to these authors, the key is simply to create a concept of service to be aligned to the needs of your market. It requires investing resources and time to understand customers.

When we were developing a Clarensyst`s web app that eventually christened Carleon  we constantly asked ourselves how the needs of realtors, sutlers, insurance salesmen, sales of building materials are satisfied? How to create a product that aggregates a value, which allows you to control and effectively concentrate the efforts of vendors, enabling it to verify the performance of the sales force, control and manage the database that the company has created and to help sellers to promote and send advertisement for the products they offer?

We hope Carleon ´d offer an answer to these questions.

www.clarensyst.com.mx