Tomatoes and Complexity!
Most of us walk into a superstore and buy groceries. Many of us men, do it in a very structured manner (as we claim) - keep the list given to us in front, see the first item, go to the aisle, pick up the stuff; then to the next item and so on. In the act, what have we missed?
So far in my life, while shopping in the above manner, I missed a key point worthy of every one's observation. Why does a superstore have 10-12 variants of tomatoes!! (and tomatoes here are just one example). I mean, does a customer really care and actually want that kind of choice??
While it may appear as a mundane observation to guys in the City, to me as an executive in Supply Chain / Operations, the very thought hits very hard on the head and makes me go dizzy. That is an enormous quantum of complexity being added by the business......without realizing it! You bet the Product / Brand Manager of the retail chain might even have a key objective for his / her appraisal as "How many SKU's were launched during the year!"
"With what impact / at what cost?" will never appear in his / her appraisal.
While at Cranfield, I had participated in the L'Oreal Strat challenge. While our team did not make much success, another team from our Class (Nobu, Alexis, Anthony) had won from UK. At a later day, I understood from them that a key reason of their success was clarity of product portfolio. They did not do any brand extensions nor did they try to pitch a product at every price point in the market. Keep it simple - was their strategy.
How good are you at avoiding complexity in your business? Take a look within your organization and you might spot something similar to the tomatoes in superstore.
So far in my life, while shopping in the above manner, I missed a key point worthy of every one's observation. Why does a superstore have 10-12 variants of tomatoes!! (and tomatoes here are just one example). I mean, does a customer really care and actually want that kind of choice??
While it may appear as a mundane observation to guys in the City, to me as an executive in Supply Chain / Operations, the very thought hits very hard on the head and makes me go dizzy. That is an enormous quantum of complexity being added by the business......without realizing it! You bet the Product / Brand Manager of the retail chain might even have a key objective for his / her appraisal as "How many SKU's were launched during the year!"
"With what impact / at what cost?" will never appear in his / her appraisal.
While at Cranfield, I had participated in the L'Oreal Strat challenge. While our team did not make much success, another team from our Class (Nobu, Alexis, Anthony) had won from UK. At a later day, I understood from them that a key reason of their success was clarity of product portfolio. They did not do any brand extensions nor did they try to pitch a product at every price point in the market. Keep it simple - was their strategy.
How good are you at avoiding complexity in your business? Take a look within your organization and you might spot something similar to the tomatoes in superstore.
posted by Sandeep Gupta at
4:07 pm
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