2014 - The New Whole Product

The New Whole Product

Description - How has the whole product concept changed in the light of trends like cloud, consumerization, social, self-service distribution etc.? A new present-day whole product framework is presented and the elements that are different and new from the categories in the original framework are discussed in this post.

The Whole Product framework/concept was first coined by Regis McKenna and imprinted in our (technology) minds by the timeless (in technology years) book, Crossing the Chasm.  The Whole Product concept refers to the need to address the complementary set of products and experiences that a customer expects beyond the generic product that a firm creates. The premise is that by understanding the expectations of the mainstream customer, a company can plan ahead to build the complementary set of partnerships and experiences to fulfil the mainstream customers expectation thus creating a broad market for the new product entry.

I have created a framework that extends the original 'doughnut' concept into a new 'wheel' framework that attempts to incorporate the market dynamics and evolution in customer expectations since the book "Crossing the Chasm" was first published. The original premise still remains that a firm can plan market entry for a new product by understanding and addressing the complementary set of experiences that fulfil the whole product promise.

Original Framework (Source "Crossing the Chasm")

Source: Crossing the Chasm, ISBN 0-06-051712-3

Source: Crossing the Chasm, ISBN 0-06-051712-3

The New Whole Product Framework

So what are the categories in this wheel framework that are different or incremental from the original doughnut framework?

Extensibility

Marketplace - Marketplace here refers to the digital watering holes of today where complementary products, professional services, tools, references, processes etc. gather to provide a supporting set of capabilities that help complete the generic or base product.  Examples of successful marketplaces that offer these complementary capabilities include the Amazon cloud marketplace, Salesforce AppExchange etc.. Samsung's recent struggles in not being able to attract a rich developer community to build apps for the Tizen mobile operating system shows us how the generic product cannot cross the chasm to the mainstream without a supporting marketplace or ecosystem.

APIs - APIs can be core to a company's approach be it a company like Twilio's whole dependence on a developer community for its communications services or on the other side for a developer needing data sources to build a business and income stream. APIs can be also be internal to in-house developers for knowledge sharing, repeatable solutions and business agility such as discussed in the Netflix API-as-a-tactic post by Daniel Jacobson. For my framework, I refer to the "non-core" extensibility and leverage that APIs provide to business objectives by closing the gap between the generic product and the augmented product.  On the consumer side, a familiar example is how the social media companies have driven traffic and user engagement through the Share APIs that allow for easy content sharing by creators on the social media networks. On the enterprise side, the various SaaS offerings in the Amazon Web Services Marketplace that require the SaaS partner to be primarily hosted on AWS infrastructure is an example of extensibility of the AWS core offering.

Experience

Support and Social Learning - Today, support includes community based learning and the leverage that social media provides.  Social media groups, Q & A websites like Stack Overflow, vendor specific communities like Angie's List Answers  and community forums like Bimmerfest for BMW present and future owners are a key part of the support model today beyond the traditional call-in tiered support, onsite support etc. The whole product needs to factor in the availability of these support channels to augment the support model that comes with the generic product.

Training & Experiential Learning - Training now goes beyond the vendor created classes or industry body created certifications. Freemium models, free trials, advertising-based product version allow customers an entry point to experience a product version before committing spend to a full-scale, paid or ad-free version respectively. Also, consumerization of the enterprise is a strong trend, so enterprise vendors would do well to help build products that have interfaces similar to what people experience in their personal lives or to create consumer facing versions of enterprise products.  Vendors now need to create an experiential dimension to augment the generic product.

Self-Service & Multi-Device Access - Today's distribution channels include self service portals and an expectation of solutions that work across different form factor device access points. If the generic product is centered around a single device experience or high touch distribution such as field sales, then the whole product experience must be thought about carefully to include self service and multi-device experiences. 

Enrichment

Service Providers - Given the growth of the cloud-based X-as-a-Service market, to access the broad mainstream market, a traditional on-premise solution must be augmented with a cloud delivery model. A generic product may be extended into the cloud market through partnering with a cloud service provider and help them create a viable service offering. This is the 'arm merchants' to the cloud approach to extend the generic product to cloud-based delivery such as Desktop-as-a-Service. The other approach is the earlier example provided where SaaS providers can build upon an existing IaaS cloud service provider infrastructure to create a whole product cloud solution.

The overall strategies in "Crossing the Chasm"  and the tips on whole product management continue to be quite inspirational. I suggest the new framework detailed above to take a more current view of the new market dynamics to achieve success through the strategies espoused by Geoffrey Moore.