It’s our accepted practice to do pilots or do beta versions to test out a concept or anything new to further understand the suitability of the product or service for all planned needs of all stakeholders. Based on the feedback received during this period the concept is finetuned incorporating additional requirements or modifications before it gets launched on a wider scale. At times if the pilot doesn’t work out successfully the entire concept might not be taken further.
But at times it’s not always possible to arrive at the best or ideal product with just one pilot.
Let’s consider the case of Gmail.
All of us who use an Android based smartphone are today forced to have a Gmail account and so most of us will have the same for sure. When it was first launched in April 1st, 2004, it had the word Beta stamped on its logo. Millions of people subscribed for the product, but Google continued to run it under a Beta umbrella with the Beta still being attached to the logo. They finally removed the Beta logo on July 7th, 2009, not because they felt the beta phase was over. The only reason they did that was because when bigger companies wanted to start using Gmail for their official purposes and the people approving the purchases weren’t comfortable buying a product which was still showing as running in the Beta Mode.
The original concept of Beta or pilots was to put out your product, gather feedback from all required stakeholders including customers about the product, incorporate all the relevant changes in the product and then launch it as a finished product in the market. In the case of the Gmail example quoted above the concerned team just did away with the concept of finished product as there would always be important changes to be incorporated. Some of these requirements would only come about once a person starts using the product or service on a regular basis.
There are these interesting pointers which were put out by software professionals to define Agile Software Development which I thought was relevant in this scenario which is about four powerful value comparisons between which you need to decide upon while taking your beta product forward.
- Individuals and interactions vs processes and tools
- Working products over just detailed documentation.
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.
- Responding to change or just following an initially laid out plan.
The changes in technology and corresponding means of capturing data have also enabled several sectors to in fact even stop doing pilots at all.
Netflix which is famous of several highly popular series never does any pilots. Traditionally studios would create a few episodes of a series or season, test out the same and then depending on the performance and the feedback received invest on taking things forward. Netflix on the other hand uses the data of customers already watching its services like
- When the customer paused, re-winded, forwarded
- User ratings
- Searches
- Geolocational data
- Viewing time
- Device information
- Social media feedback
- Which title was watched before and afterwards
- What did you quit after watching for say 5 minutes and so on the list is endless
It also tags its each product into different categories as a lot of customers search for category and then select certain products from the ones that show up.
Netflix uses all this information that they have about their customers to decide on which content to invest and which one not to invest without even doing any pilot.
I was also recollecting the story of Kalyanaraman who founded Kalyan Jewelers who after inheriting a textile shop in a street full of gold shops started his journey by starting a gold shop in the same shop that he inherited.
Today it has grown to more than 200 plus jewelry shops and during his journey he discovered that customer preferences even in places which are just 60 kms away are different and how you always need to keep listening to your customers’ needs on a regular basis to continuously finetune your offerings. So even in a product like jewelry the product continues to evolve on a regular basis.
In today’s scenario of constant and continuous technological changes where options of collecting data on customer choices are growing day by day it might be better to go with the Netflix model of going ahead without any pilots and making your decisions based on the accumulated data that is already available with you. After the product has been launched it might be better to follow the Agile model that was used by Gmail to continuously keep finetuning the product to provide better options to the customers. What do you think would be the right approach going forward?
To continue getting more insights on pilots and beta methods of finetuning your products and agile innovations do subscribe to my LinkedIn page, Rejo’s Business Bytes, or my website, rejofrancis.com.
