Services mindset in product design

IT industry in India is inherently a services industry. The mindset is to provide a service and move out of the project. This approach to ‘projects’ seeps into the product companies as well.

The fundamental difference in services is same as the difference between a concept of a ‘project’ vs ‘product’. Project gets over after a deadline but a product keeps living on.

Product design

One bad thing about a product is that if you don’t address an issue in a release you have to readdress it in the next -‘Its all your responsibility; its all your mess’. So you need to be careful; and need a sense of responsibility in what you make. Secondly, you need to have a clear larger vision of your product (I know you can argue; but there should be some vision). How will this step going to effect the course of the future. If you change your deign approach after a release; then there is a lot of mess that you need to sweep out. It will all go back to the drawing boards from a design point of view.

Most importantly you need to be ‘constantly’ aware of the market; knowledge is supreme. To be ahead you need to innovate. So the more aware you are the more you can innovate.

Product lives on thus it requires more sense of responsibility; more engagement; larger longer vision and a sense of ownership.

Working and talking to industry people I feel this sensitivity to product is missing in India. Everyone focuses on – ‘just release it’ without thinking the mess that we will create with it. I guess our market needs more maturity in terms of dealing with products & not to think of them as ‘projects’.

Product doesn’t end in release; it stays back with you, to give you either sweet dreams or nightmares. The choice is yours.

Product: Competing in established market

We were having a casual discussion over the lunch when a nice thought came in. It is practically impossible or extremely difficult to build a new product to compete with competitor products which have been there in the market for some time. What’s difficult is to bridge the “time” difference between the products. Take an example of Maps; Map products have been around for more than 2 years (I guess) in US. So if some company now wants to come up with a new map product it has to bridge that gap of 2 years. In two year the competitors would have built so many features and enhancements that it is practically not possible to bridge that “time” gap instantly.

The best way could be to not make an exactly similar product but a different/unique product to compete. Some one mentioned Gmail; mail was around but Gmail stole the show because it was different. If it would have been similar to other mails, it wouldn't have created any impact. Its a really nice thought...

This is to some extent the state of whole Web Industry in India. Because it started late; there is hardly any innovativeness or uniqueness. Its lags in time from US; thus innovation is hard to come by. If we move 2 steps closer to them; they again more 3 step further from us. Because now things are well established they can make huge jumps forward; while most of our energy goes in just building the basic stuff.

So if you want to be a part of innovation; want to work with products that are ahead of their time…you have to be in US. Or so I think.