It’s no secret that for a business to survive and grow it needs to be constantly changing, improving, and staying relevant if not one step ahead of the game. In today’s day and age, this is more critical than ever, in a world where unprecedented challenges are presenting themselves on a daily basis, a business needs to be able to absorb information, assess the best plan of action, and adapt.
History has proven time and time again mistakes will be made, this may be inevitable, but if the same mistake is made over and over and no lessons are learned, or a high profile mistake is duplicated by another organisation later down the line, what knowledge is being gained? The simple answer is nothing, and this is when a business or company starts to fail.
Over the last few decades, there have been countless examples where mistakes have been made, costly mistakes both financially and to human lives. Such examples include a failed warehouse automation system that cost a US drug wholesaler company $100 million and then filed for bankruptcy within a few months after implementation. Another example is a world class leader in the aerospace industry that released a new model of plane, that catastrophically and tragically claimed the lives of hundreds of people when it’s onboard state of the art systems failed, combined with failing to provide training on the brand new system.
These mistakes have led to groundbreaking changes being implemented to ensure they are not repeated, but surely there is another way to ensure advancements are made. Why just wait for an unfortunate mistake to highlight an issue, when the proactive approach is to constantly push the boundaries from within the organisation, find the flaws that need improvements, and think outside the box for those ‘what if’ moments.
The alternative driving force behind technological advances can come from customers, they are the end user, the people who will have maximum exposure and time to consider what improvements they will benefit from. The problem is these suggestions and ideas never find their way back to the company, and in actual fact what can happen sometimes is the company thinks they know the direction in which to proceed, but in actual fact, they introduce changes that hinder the end user.
A couple of examples of where a company introduced new features that the customer didn’t need or want, include a widely used search engine that tried to entice users into joining its new social network. However, this was a complete flop because it didn’t appeal to the general public enough to rival larger, more well-established social network platforms. Another example includes a giant within the online retail sector trying its hand at launching a mobile phone smart device. The customer may have shown interest in the product if the price hadn’t been set so steep, again this is a classic example of not completing market research or asking for the customer’s opinion.
Here at Keynetics we value our customer’s feedback and opinions and actively promote them to raise suggestions with us. We constantly push the boundaries developing and improving our products and systems tailored around what the customer is asking for. Keynetics consciously drive technological advances from within our own business, combined with highly valued customer feedback.